Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
NOMADIC MASSIVE live in TORONTO
The Arts and Culture Correspondents Group of BASICS Free Community Newsletter presents:
Thursday, April 16, 2009
K’NAAN’s Troubadour
by Thom Saczkowski
Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
K’Naan is a new and rising musician, having released his sophomore album in February of this year. After the success of his first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, his second has been much anticipated. K’Naan receives press not only for his diverse music styles and lyrical flow, but also because of what he says. Somali born, K’Naan now makes his home in Toronto. Though he has been asked to provide his viewpoint of the situation in Somalia, he rarely addresses the influence of Western capitalism and imperialism within his home nation. In addition, K’Naan lived in the Toronto community of Rexdale for some time, and words in interviews and his music doesn’t express the struggles of local communities. His lyrics and messages in his new album are nowhere near as overt as the artists that we generally associate with politically focused music, such as Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, or The Coup. K’Naan seems to be aware of this and embrace his choice of music, in which he has said “My art is not a place where I feel like I voice these things. It’s not like my art is a political mission … but it’s me that I bring fully to the table, so you’ll get some of those things.”
K’Naan does make some statements about the struggles of people, such as migrants and people in marginalized communities that face the oppression of our system. However, many famous hip-hop musicians make comments about the social system, such as artists like Mos Def, Black Star, and K-os, but those musicians are not usually associated with sending politically strong messages. K’Naan’s music is more associated with these artists in his ability to produce high quality hip-hop and provide artistic lyrics with an impressive flow. K’Naan’s music is complex in not only its musical composition but its lyrical presentation, such as the song Somalia, which tells about his life in Mogadishu and incorporating sounds and samples from various genres. K’Naan’s first single ‘ABC’s’ is already on the charts and will be played throughout nightclubs in Toronto.
Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)
K’Naan is a new and rising musician, having released his sophomore album in February of this year. After the success of his first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, his second has been much anticipated. K’Naan receives press not only for his diverse music styles and lyrical flow, but also because of what he says. Somali born, K’Naan now makes his home in Toronto. Though he has been asked to provide his viewpoint of the situation in Somalia, he rarely addresses the influence of Western capitalism and imperialism within his home nation. In addition, K’Naan lived in the Toronto community of Rexdale for some time, and words in interviews and his music doesn’t express the struggles of local communities. His lyrics and messages in his new album are nowhere near as overt as the artists that we generally associate with politically focused music, such as Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, or The Coup. K’Naan seems to be aware of this and embrace his choice of music, in which he has said “My art is not a place where I feel like I voice these things. It’s not like my art is a political mission … but it’s me that I bring fully to the table, so you’ll get some of those things.”
K’Naan does make some statements about the struggles of people, such as migrants and people in marginalized communities that face the oppression of our system. However, many famous hip-hop musicians make comments about the social system, such as artists like Mos Def, Black Star, and K-os, but those musicians are not usually associated with sending politically strong messages. K’Naan’s music is more associated with these artists in his ability to produce high quality hip-hop and provide artistic lyrics with an impressive flow. K’Naan’s music is complex in not only its musical composition but its lyrical presentation, such as the song Somalia, which tells about his life in Mogadishu and incorporating sounds and samples from various genres. K’Naan’s first single ‘ABC’s’ is already on the charts and will be played throughout nightclubs in Toronto.
The Film Notorious: Censoring Biggie’s Legacy
by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)Biggie Smalls, one of the greatest hip hop artists in history, was assassinated 13 years ago by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and corporate thug Suge Knight in an operation that was both assisted and approved by the American state. The year before that, Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Vegas by the same forces. Both men were murdered because they spoke about the realities facing black people in the ghettos of America: poverty, crime, racism and state violence. ‘Pac was a genuine revolutionary carrying on the legacy of his Black Panther mother by organizing a truce between the Bloods and Crips in LA in 1992. Although not as politically educated, Biggie still rapped about the struggles he faced growing up. Their murders had everything to do with crushing the revival of a black revolutionary movement in the US and silencing two positive figures for young racialized youth. But you’ll get none of that from watching the new Biggie film, ‘Notorious.’
Instead, you’ll hear the entertaining, but fictional story, of an artist who reached the American dream through skill and hard work, but because of some dumb rap beef was killed before he could really mature as a man and performer. Notorious runs through Biggie’s childhood and youth without showing a single example of police brutality or systematic discrimination. According to the film, Smalls chooses to hustle dope before realizing he is wasting his lyrical abilities, and dedicates himself to the rap game. His success is then attributed more to the skill of his manager Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs (the corporate snake who owned Biggie’s label ‘Bad Boy’, and produced the film), than to his personal talent. But the movie’s biggest lie is its portrayal of the supposed East Coast - West Coast feud between ‘Bad Boy Records’ and Tupac’s rap label ‘Death Row’, owned by the criminal Suge Knight. In reality, the rivalry was created by the American state working with Suge and Puffy in order to break the unity being built by ‘Pac’s community organizing, and replace the positive hip hop being recorded at the time with diss tracks. Notorious plays into the east/west rivalry myth by presenting Biggie’s murder as revenge for Tupac’s death, and even more destructively, by casting Tupac in the film as naïve and aggressive and even mocking his revolutionary politics.
Still, Notorious did manage to do justice to Biggie in some ways. Jamal Woolard’s performance in the title role is incredible, and every hip hop fan will appreciate seeing B.I.G come back to life on the screen. But it’s an insult to Biggie’s memory to present his assassination at the hands of the LAPD and Death Row as the result of a simple ‘rap battle’, and to censor any political content from his story.
R.I.P. Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur and all other victims of political assassinations by the US government!
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Review of Steven Soderbergh’s 'Che'
by Sana Malik
BASICS Issue #13 (April/May)
Steven Soderburgh's 4.5 hour biopic on Enrnesto Che Guevara is an accomplished and respectful take on the revolutionary years of Che’s short life. For those who expect a celebratory tribute to the Latin American figure, Soderbergh’s piece will seem like an ambiguous attempt to represent a hero’s tale. However, Sodebergh’s depiction and stylistic choices – always showing not telling – are as complex as its subject. Che was a principled man, but he was not without flaws or errors in judgement. This is an epic that celebrates his victories, but it just as easily leads you into the frustration of crushing defeat that Che was surely encountering. Soderbergh's strong cinematic overtures, and especially the contrast in pace and tone between part one and part two provoke questions on who Che was as a revolutionary and as a leader forced to make conflicting decisions. And that's exactly where this picture is its strongest- never making any judgement calls but leaving the viewer in the position of dissecting Che’s actions as a man of principle, without ever making his thoughts or actions palpable.
Part one juxtaposes scenes of guerilla fighting in the ‘50s in the Cuban heartland with Che’s first visit to the UN in 1964. His zeal and confidence are on full display in the gritty black and white reel, and a BBC reporter’s voiceover perfectly intonates the simultaneous suspicion and intrigue the West held of Che. It’s here that Soderbergh introduces and plays on the iconic and visionary poses that make the Argentine recognizable as a revolutionary, while the battle of Cuba wages on in subsequent scenes. Indeed, Che is to remain an enigma in Soderbergh’s vision - adding to his larger than life image as a popular icon – and Benicio del Toro captivates with perfection in the lead. Del Toro’s Che is equally compassionate and cruel, sometimes dogmatic and other times rash, his brilliant intellect on display and his crucial miscalculations crushing. It makes the man all the harder to understand.
After the battle has been won and Cuba’s glorious socialist revolution is in place, part two begins with Fidel Castro reading Che’s farewell letter to the Cuban people he helped free from the forces of imperialism. Che’s vision for a free and socialist Latin America has compelled his return to Guerilla warfare and to Bolivia and to his eventual death. This story is less about his image as a revolutionary icon and more about a man as complex and conflicted as a determined fighter. The glamour is left behind in part one, and the continuation is a jauntier, more reflective piece that captures more of Che’s raw emotion and human spirit. Or at least as much as much is accessible. Soderbergh reconstructs the complexity of Che’s covert battle – in the landscape and with himself – through discrete, but powerful sequences in the fateful year Che spent in the Bolivian highlands. Che sees everything that happened in Cuba in reverse: he is rejected by the peasants he hopes to liberate, his battalion shrinks as fighters die, are wounded, or run away, and the American-trained Bolivian militia encroaches his terrain. But he never turns back and that is the biggest message this film delivers.
The film is challenged by it’s slow pace and choppy storytelling attempting to mesh parts that don’t quite work together. It’s not entirely a glamorous portrayal and part two, especially, will probably suffer in commercial success. But it’s as honest, direct and significant as the subject it portrays.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
"Not Homeless, Just Not Home Yet": BASICS interviews Brooklyn artist Melodic
February 2009, by Makaya
Melodic's New Video for "Ride On"
Jamaican-born, Canadian-raised and Brooklyn-based singer Melodic is doing it all for the people. Melodic has shared the stage with such greats as Dead Prez, Tupac, Buju Banton, Mos Def and Heavy D to name a few and he has established himself as one of New Yorks most innovative up and coming artists. His music is a blend of Reggae, Soul and Hip Hop (dubbed 'Reggae Soul Hop') and he is currently in the process of recording his second album. BASICS had the chance to meet up with him at a recording session and talk about life and music.
BASICS: How long have you been doing music?
Melodic: Forever. It is my purpose.
B: What has had the greatest influence on your music?
M: Life. My life. The things around me. My mistakes. Life has always been the greatest inspiration and always will be.
B: You were born in Jamaica, grew up between Calgary and Toronto and have lived in New York for the past 12 years. What are the major differences you see between the three societies?
M: Well from a health perspective, in Jamaica you can live off the land, while up here people live mostly off fast food so as far as living a healthy life goes, Jamaica is where it's at. But for work opportunities, New York is where it's at.
As far as politics go, in Jamaica politics are different from here. It's an all out war. Guns, machetes, violence. The people are killing each other in the name of different political parties.
In the US and Canada, politicians persuade the people to vote for them by telling them pure lies, but at least we're not killing each other for them like in Jamaica.
B: What do you think about Obama?
M: Well I'm not on the black and white thing and I don't believe in any politician no matter what he looks like. Some people are celebrating this as a really great moment in history, but I'd rather get my 40 acres and a mule than a black president that's giving us false hopes of change, because at the end of the day he's a politician on the side of the other politicians and can't be for the people.
B: Tell us about Brooklyn and what you see as the major issues the people are facing.
M: Too much police, no work, rent increases, a lot of homelessness and all of this contributes to the high crime rate... The issues facing poor people in New York City are endless.
B: If you could, how would you change this?
M: If I was in a position to make a change on a larger scale than now I would create a system where every family is given the same amount of money to cover all living expenses. Give the people a real way to survive. Right now there's no balance. Most people are working just to survive and pay off debts while the others live in luxury. I think if we all had the same opportunities a lot of problems in our society would be elevated.
B: Tell us about your music and how you see it creating change.
M: First of all, I give what I get from the world. And I create change with my music by singing things that inspire people and make them want to keep on and stay strong. As far as going out there and saying that I'm going to stop the war or end poverty, I would be fighting a losing battle. I will definitely create a spark to inspire that to happen, but those issues are not things I can fight alone and have to be fought collectively. I'm down with the people who believe in doing the same.
B: Your latest video for your song 'Ride On' has created a big buzz in New York and the concept is fresh. Can you tell us about it?
M: The song is basically telling people to keep going even when times are rough and just ride on. The concept is 'I'm not homeless, just not home yet' and since I myself have 'not been home yet' I just act out what it's like to be in that situation and echo the lyrics of the song and show the reality of the streets, but in such a way to inspire people in that situation and to create change. Though this is a universal problem, being in New York you see everything and the video is capturing New York from a different perspective than we're used to seeing in the media and bringing a voice to the voiceless. All the people in the video are real people, not actors and at the same time that we are talking about such an ugly issue as homelessness, the video is showing the beauty of the people.
B: So what's next for Melodic?
M: Keep making music with longevity. I still haven't written my best song. And I want to bring Reggae music to the forefront and have it recognized by the Grammy's and the mainstream media so we can take it to new heights. Me and my bredren Nachy Bless have created the Reggae Soul Hop style that is bridging the gap between the different genres of music.
I'm going to finish up this album, tour and just keep writing music good music to uplift the people.
B: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
M: Not a problem. Jah Bless. Keep up the great work. Straight Yoza!
Go to www.myspace.com/melodicvibe or www.yozavibe.com to hear Melodic's music and check out his new video for 'Ride On'. Look out for more from this artist in the very near future.*
-Makaya
Melodic's New Video for "Ride On"
Jamaican-born, Canadian-raised and Brooklyn-based singer Melodic is doing it all for the people. Melodic has shared the stage with such greats as Dead Prez, Tupac, Buju Banton, Mos Def and Heavy D to name a few and he has established himself as one of New Yorks most innovative up and coming artists. His music is a blend of Reggae, Soul and Hip Hop (dubbed 'Reggae Soul Hop') and he is currently in the process of recording his second album. BASICS had the chance to meet up with him at a recording session and talk about life and music.
BASICS: How long have you been doing music?
Melodic: Forever. It is my purpose.
B: What has had the greatest influence on your music?
M: Life. My life. The things around me. My mistakes. Life has always been the greatest inspiration and always will be.
B: You were born in Jamaica, grew up between Calgary and Toronto and have lived in New York for the past 12 years. What are the major differences you see between the three societies?
M: Well from a health perspective, in Jamaica you can live off the land, while up here people live mostly off fast food so as far as living a healthy life goes, Jamaica is where it's at. But for work opportunities, New York is where it's at.
As far as politics go, in Jamaica politics are different from here. It's an all out war. Guns, machetes, violence. The people are killing each other in the name of different political parties.
In the US and Canada, politicians persuade the people to vote for them by telling them pure lies, but at least we're not killing each other for them like in Jamaica.
B: What do you think about Obama? M: Well I'm not on the black and white thing and I don't believe in any politician no matter what he looks like. Some people are celebrating this as a really great moment in history, but I'd rather get my 40 acres and a mule than a black president that's giving us false hopes of change, because at the end of the day he's a politician on the side of the other politicians and can't be for the people.
B: Tell us about Brooklyn and what you see as the major issues the people are facing.
M: Too much police, no work, rent increases, a lot of homelessness and all of this contributes to the high crime rate... The issues facing poor people in New York City are endless.
B: If you could, how would you change this?
M: If I was in a position to make a change on a larger scale than now I would create a system where every family is given the same amount of money to cover all living expenses. Give the people a real way to survive. Right now there's no balance. Most people are working just to survive and pay off debts while the others live in luxury. I think if we all had the same opportunities a lot of problems in our society would be elevated.
B: Tell us about your music and how you see it creating change.
M: First of all, I give what I get from the world. And I create change with my music by singing things that inspire people and make them want to keep on and stay strong. As far as going out there and saying that I'm going to stop the war or end poverty, I would be fighting a losing battle. I will definitely create a spark to inspire that to happen, but those issues are not things I can fight alone and have to be fought collectively. I'm down with the people who believe in doing the same.
B: Your latest video for your song 'Ride On' has created a big buzz in New York and the concept is fresh. Can you tell us about it?
M: The song is basically telling people to keep going even when times are rough and just ride on. The concept is 'I'm not homeless, just not home yet' and since I myself have 'not been home yet' I just act out what it's like to be in that situation and echo the lyrics of the song and show the reality of the streets, but in such a way to inspire people in that situation and to create change. Though this is a universal problem, being in New York you see everything and the video is capturing New York from a different perspective than we're used to seeing in the media and bringing a voice to the voiceless. All the people in the video are real people, not actors and at the same time that we are talking about such an ugly issue as homelessness, the video is showing the beauty of the people.
B: So what's next for Melodic?
M: Keep making music with longevity. I still haven't written my best song. And I want to bring Reggae music to the forefront and have it recognized by the Grammy's and the mainstream media so we can take it to new heights. Me and my bredren Nachy Bless have created the Reggae Soul Hop style that is bridging the gap between the different genres of music.
I'm going to finish up this album, tour and just keep writing music good music to uplift the people.
B: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
M: Not a problem. Jah Bless. Keep up the great work. Straight Yoza!
Go to www.myspace.com/melodicvibe or www.yozavibe.com to hear Melodic's music and check out his new video for 'Ride On'. Look out for more from this artist in the very near future.*
-Makaya
Friday, January 16, 2009
Why the ‘Minstrel’ Foundation?
Why is this Regent Park organization bearing the name of white supremacy?
by Steve da Silva
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
The Minstrel Foundation is a Toronto-based music education charity that has as its mandate “to secure and expand the opportunity for inner city young people to study and excel in music.” While this cause seems praiseworthy enough, this organization needs to seriously consider changing its name.
For those who are not familiar with the word ‘Minstrel’, in a North American context the word’s most common usage traces back to the “Minstrel Shows” of the 19th century where
white actors with blackened faces would tour around the country and lampoon and caricature the behaviours of Africans. Later, after the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. where slaves were set “free”, these white theatre companies would often enlist Africans directly in playing out their own ridicule. Some have considered today’s corporate media giants like BET or MTV to be promote modern forms of Minstrel, since those black entertainers who get the most play propagate the most destructive values for black people.
If we choose to trace the word further back into history, we find that Minstrel is etymologically derivative of the Old French word menestral, which meant both entertainer and servant, and tracing further back from the Latin word ministerialis, it meant servant. Therefore, whichever way we play it, the word ‘minstrel’ carries a connotation that implies subordination and is offensive to whosoever the term may be directed at.
Is the message that this organization is sending to Toronto’s “inner city” youth that they only have a future in entertaining people born into privileges greater than their own? Is it not enough of an affront to the minds of these youth that they are constantly being seduced with the images of role models as basketball players, rappers, and scantly-clad women in music videos?
The Minstrel Foundation is greatly offending Toronto’s racialized working-class masses by carrying out their charity work under the banner white supremacy. On December 25, 2008, I personally emailed a letter to this organization expressing these sentiments (see our website for a copy); but they have not responded.
If this organization chooses not to account for its actions, this should be a sign to Torontonians of the attitudes contempt, ignorance, and indifference that people of privilege hold towards historically (and presently) oppressed peoples. A disguised racism is far more menacing to us than an overt one.
The racist “Darky” iconography illustrated on this Toronto-based Minstrel show poster appeared on sheet music from the 1870s through the 1940s.
by Steve da Silva
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
The Minstrel Foundation is a Toronto-based music education charity that has as its mandate “to secure and expand the opportunity for inner city young people to study and excel in music.” While this cause seems praiseworthy enough, this organization needs to seriously consider changing its name.
For those who are not familiar with the word ‘Minstrel’, in a North American context the word’s most common usage traces back to the “Minstrel Shows” of the 19th century where
white actors with blackened faces would tour around the country and lampoon and caricature the behaviours of Africans. Later, after the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. where slaves were set “free”, these white theatre companies would often enlist Africans directly in playing out their own ridicule. Some have considered today’s corporate media giants like BET or MTV to be promote modern forms of Minstrel, since those black entertainers who get the most play propagate the most destructive values for black people.If we choose to trace the word further back into history, we find that Minstrel is etymologically derivative of the Old French word menestral, which meant both entertainer and servant, and tracing further back from the Latin word ministerialis, it meant servant. Therefore, whichever way we play it, the word ‘minstrel’ carries a connotation that implies subordination and is offensive to whosoever the term may be directed at.
Is the message that this organization is sending to Toronto’s “inner city” youth that they only have a future in entertaining people born into privileges greater than their own? Is it not enough of an affront to the minds of these youth that they are constantly being seduced with the images of role models as basketball players, rappers, and scantly-clad women in music videos?
The Minstrel Foundation is greatly offending Toronto’s racialized working-class masses by carrying out their charity work under the banner white supremacy. On December 25, 2008, I personally emailed a letter to this organization expressing these sentiments (see our website for a copy); but they have not responded.
If this organization chooses not to account for its actions, this should be a sign to Torontonians of the attitudes contempt, ignorance, and indifference that people of privilege hold towards historically (and presently) oppressed peoples. A disguised racism is far more menacing to us than an overt one.
The racist “Darky” iconography illustrated on this Toronto-based Minstrel show poster appeared on sheet music from the 1870s through the 1940s.
Reflections on Art and Social Change
by Rosina Kazi of LAL
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
I have been involved with the band lal as the lead singer for just over ten years, and we have always made a point of connecting music with issues of social justice. This need came from our
own personal and communal experiences. What we share is an intimate experience of injustice, but our ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability are only some ways which create differences in our experiences; and many of us aren’t aware of how our privileges or lack thereof, play out in the world we live in, in our public and personal lives.
Nicholas Murray, Rosina Kazi, and Ian de Souza of LAL (left to right).
Almost everyone will experience some sort of injustice in their lives. If we can connect with one another through this shared experience, while recognizing that some of us have a more difficult struggle, whether or not it’s obvious, then maybe we can move forward. We talk about diversity and it’s importance but we do we embrace diversity in beliefs and experiences in a real way? Do we create solid friendships? Are we creating a community that is diverse in thought, class, gender, sexuality etc? Essentially becoming family? I believe part of it is working on how not to place judgment on others and ourselves, essentially learning to love ourselves completely.
It is through music that I have found a way to connect with people. We have worked hard to create a space that is inclusive. But this creative endeavor is something that involves many, not just the three members of lal. It includes activists, artists, academics, queer, straight, and questioning peoples, artists, art enthusiasts, business people, the old and young etc… We don’t plan on ‘making it big’, only because to do so would throw us in a world that we dislike: a world of intense hierarchy and bullshit. The reality is that the entire world functions in this way, and those of us sensitive to hierarchy and injustice find ourselves lost and continually trying to create something different, not being afraid of change and embracing and acknowledging our own mistakes, as hard as this can be.
Our work with No One is Illegal (NOII) has very much inspired our latest cd ‘Deportation’ and we’ve been working with NOII over the last 4 years to get the word out about the work NOII has been doing, fighting for the right for non-status peoples to live with dignity and respect in Toronto and in Canada.
In the end, I believe creativity must go hand in hand with social movements and activism. We should not be cliquey and should provide avenues for all to take part, using art, not as a weapon but as a tool for personal and political change.
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
I have been involved with the band lal as the lead singer for just over ten years, and we have always made a point of connecting music with issues of social justice. This need came from our
own personal and communal experiences. What we share is an intimate experience of injustice, but our ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability are only some ways which create differences in our experiences; and many of us aren’t aware of how our privileges or lack thereof, play out in the world we live in, in our public and personal lives.Nicholas Murray, Rosina Kazi, and Ian de Souza of LAL (left to right).
Almost everyone will experience some sort of injustice in their lives. If we can connect with one another through this shared experience, while recognizing that some of us have a more difficult struggle, whether or not it’s obvious, then maybe we can move forward. We talk about diversity and it’s importance but we do we embrace diversity in beliefs and experiences in a real way? Do we create solid friendships? Are we creating a community that is diverse in thought, class, gender, sexuality etc? Essentially becoming family? I believe part of it is working on how not to place judgment on others and ourselves, essentially learning to love ourselves completely.
It is through music that I have found a way to connect with people. We have worked hard to create a space that is inclusive. But this creative endeavor is something that involves many, not just the three members of lal. It includes activists, artists, academics, queer, straight, and questioning peoples, artists, art enthusiasts, business people, the old and young etc… We don’t plan on ‘making it big’, only because to do so would throw us in a world that we dislike: a world of intense hierarchy and bullshit. The reality is that the entire world functions in this way, and those of us sensitive to hierarchy and injustice find ourselves lost and continually trying to create something different, not being afraid of change and embracing and acknowledging our own mistakes, as hard as this can be.
Our work with No One is Illegal (NOII) has very much inspired our latest cd ‘Deportation’ and we’ve been working with NOII over the last 4 years to get the word out about the work NOII has been doing, fighting for the right for non-status peoples to live with dignity and respect in Toronto and in Canada.
In the end, I believe creativity must go hand in hand with social movements and activism. We should not be cliquey and should provide avenues for all to take part, using art, not as a weapon but as a tool for personal and political change.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Right-Wing Board Purges Community Voices at CKLN 88.1FM
by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)
For decades CKLN (Ryerson University’s campus-community radio station) has represented the people on Toronto’s airwaves. It had dozens of programmes that showcased community mobilizations alongside international resistance to war and occupation. It was the only station in the city to celebrate Afrikan liberation week and PRIDE, while featuring the best jazz, reggae and hip hop in the country. Its flagship program, Saturday Morning Live, brought all of these elements together, with great music, a community voice, and current events from a working-class and internationalist perspective. Hosted by Norman Otis Richmond – a Vietnam War resistor and well-known revolutionary and pan-Africanist – the show has been the voice for the city’s Black and working-class community for over 25 years. But not anymore because since last winter CKLN’s board of directors has run the station into the ground!
Back in February of 2008, CKLN’s membership (150 community reps including Ryerson students and volunteers who financially support the station) held a meeting about the troubling move by the board of directors away from the community vision of the station and towards a corporate and commercialist model. The membership voted with an overwhelming 90% to impeach the current board, and demanded that the clique of corporate hacks step down. But the board refused to heed democratic will, and instead they began a ruthless campaign of firing any and all hosts who supported the membership’s demands.
Dozens of CKLN’s most popular programmes have been cancelled, and over 55 hard-working long time volunteers and paid programmers have been banned. These purges especially targeted shows that represented left-wing and marginalized voices. The station’s only feminist programs, Radio Cliteracy and Frequency Feminisms, were terminated, while Audrey Redman (residential school survivor and one of the only indigenous voices on Toronto radio) was yanked from her mic as she interviewed other locked-out hosts. Campus and Toronto Police have been frequently called to take away fired hosts as well as concerned listeners attempting to voice their concerns. And then, on December 13th Norman hosted his last show before being “temporarily” suspended. No legitimate reason was given for this termination of one of Toronto’s most popular programs and programmers, except that it was “financial”. Meanwhile the rogue Board has dodged the public release of financial documents as mandated by the CKLN constitution.
Furious listeners, CKLN members and locked out hosts are organizing to take back their radio station. Voice your anger at the CKLN takeover and join us on the picket lines as we fight for the termination of these fraudulent right-wingers masquerading as the board of directors. We will take back our CKLN!
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
FRENTE NORMAN BETHUNE: Building People-to-People Solidarity, Venezuela to Canada
by Erica Peña & Nico Lopez (of Barrio Nuevo) Basics #11 (November 2008)
As a launching initiative for Frente Norman Bethune [FNB], this past October several community organizers and hip hop artists visited Canada from Venezuela for an 18-day tour. The Venezuelan delegation included members of Comite Nacional de los Sin Techos (National Homeless Committee), and rap-groups Familia Negra, and Area 23. They came to our corner of the world to learn a little more of what hip-hop group Familia Negra poetically refers to as Babylon. During very intense and important times they had the opportunity to compare the social, economic and political situation in their homeland with what they experienced in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Haudenesaunee (Six Nations Confederacy). Surprised and curious about the rich cultural diversity in our neck of the woods, the delegates of FNB shared their revolutionary messages not through hip hop music, but also during discussions and meetings with local organizations.
Besides opening dialogue with diverse groups of people to inform them on the positive changes in Venezuela, which our mass media rarely mentions (if at all), visiting FNB delegates met with grassroots collectives and student organizations, inviting them to participate in this Toronto-based exchange project that can bring us closer to their people’s movement. The exchange will initially allow people from Canada, Quebec , and indigenous territories to travel to Venezuela to volunteer in specific tasks during 3 or 4 weeks, during which they will be exposed to a vibrant social and cultural urban (or semi-rural) landscape. Set out to take organizers and activists to a country that has been in the spotlight of international news during the past decade, FNB is not just a solidarity effort to build stronger North-South ties: it is also an amazing learning opportunity for those actively involved in progressive social change, and especially for those who intending to increase their community organizing involvement in the future.
The visit of FNB delegates could not have happened at a more opportune time as Canada was in the midst of electing its next Prime Minister. The electoral context surrounding their stay allowed the Venezuelans, who have strengthened their system of participatory democracy for almost a decade now, to witness “the celebration of representative democracy”. In the case of Canada, they could notice that voter turnout is way lower compared to their own country, where millions flock the voting centers on the day to choose or even recall the head of Government. Additionally, they were able to see that the mechanisms to avoid electoral fraud did not seem as rigid as they are in Venezuela, where elections are enhanced by voting machines and others that verify your fingerprint coincides with the one on your identification, plus there is a paper track for every vote to avoid any discrepancies when the time to count comes. Finally, the Bolivarian visitors inquired about the lack of “international observers”, who seem to flood their country on every election, “to ensure the transparency of the voting process”.
While visiting various communities and organizations, the delegates gained insight into the many local issues we’re facing in Canada. For instance, their visit to St. Jamestown was useful to learn about the current efforts going towards organizing resident involvement in Toronto’s Mayor Tower Renewal project in North America’s most densely populated neighbourhood. Familia Negra performed at an anti-poverty rally at Jane & Finch, galvanizing the atmosphere as its residents “sung out against poverty and inequality.” They also performed in Montreal during a demonstration in solidarity with police-slain youth, Freddy Villanueva. FNB delegates were invited to speak at radio shows from four different stations, sharing with the local audience their insight on the important role community media has played in strengthening their Bolivarian Revolution. By visiting indigenous communities in struggle at Six Nations near Caledonia, ON and meeting with solidarity groups such as Students Against Israeli Apartheid, the FNB delegates increased their awareness of our local struggles and solidarity initiatives and were able to parallel to theirs while opening doors to possible mutual exchanges.
The Frente Norman Bethune campaign is demonstrating that the time has come to take a closer look at successful efforts for change in other parts of the world and learn from their positive experiences. Given the global socio-economic turmoil and its local effects, community groups and organizations in Toronto are building international solidarity links to find collaborative solutions to global problems.
For more Info on the FRENTE NORMAN BETHUNE initiative contact Barrio Nuevo at barrio.nuevo@gmail.com.
FRENTE NORMAN BETHUNE delegation of Venezuelans with Barrio Buevo and BASICS being given a tour at the Kanawakhe Mohawk Territory (just outside of Montreal).
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Detroit MCs Invincible and Finale Speak to Basics on the Gentrification of Detroit
An interview by Corrie Sakaluk
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid hosted Detroit-based emcees and community activists, Invincible and Finale, with headliner Dam, for an incredible show at El Mocambo on May 15, 2008. BASICS got a chance to hook up an interview with emcees Invincible and Finale, and the following is an excerpt.
BASICS: We’re here with Invincible and Finale who just finished ripping it on stage here in Toronto. Is this your first time in Toronto?
Finale: It’s my first time in Toronto, yeah.
Invincible: I been here a couple of times but this is my first official solo show up here. I’ve been up here before with the Pied Pipers but have never been up here doing my own material and never been up here with Finale. We do most of my shows together. It was a real big event tonight, especially opening up for Dam because they’re one of my biggest inspirations to keep making hip-hop. They really go back to the essence of using hip-hop as a tool of resistance.
BASICS: How did you guys find the Toronto crowd?
Finale: It was a hit once they got into it. They had to get used to us but once they got used to us it was cool.
Invincible: We’re very lyrical and when the sound isn’t perfect you got to slow it down and do a couple of acapellas for them. Once they heard what we were talking about and they could really feel the production – we got Detroit production on most of our music - they warmed up to us and were able to really vibe with it.
BASICS: Your music has a lot of conscious, social lyrical content and some crazy flow. Why is it important for you to have social lyrical content in your music?
Finale: It’s important to have a message behind whatever you do. I talk about my city because I grew up on the East Side of Detroit and I’ve seen what’s happened to it, what’s happening to it now and where it’s headed. In order to avert that and change that, we have to work for the youth and for that work it’s really important to have a message behind what you say out there. If there’s nothing behind it then you’ll lose them in 5 minutes.
Invincible: I feel that everything has a message to it. No one is apolitical. For me a lot of our music has overt messages to it but some of the music we just slip the medicine in. We might be focussing on the flows, and put less emphasis on the lyricism but when you listen close you’ll hear the references slipped in there. Like a battle rhyme, you know what I mean? We always try to slip the message in and make it accessible to people who might not normally hear the message. That’s one of the greatest things about hip-hip as a whole, is that you can make something accessible for people. With hip-hop you can take something that normally feels like someone is preaching to you or talking over your head and you can make it relatable and accessible through the music.
BASICS: Today's show was put on by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA). Why are you performing at an event for a group that is a political group focussed on an international issue? What does Palestine mean to y’all when you’re from Detroit?
Finale: There are a lot of similarities between Palestine and Detroit. No matter where we are on the planet there’s so much that we can relate to with people. My community might be similar to their community, and that’s the way music bridges the gap. For me to have that message behind my music and for them to have a similar message behind theirs is great to see. I’m here to support them.
Invincible: We really see our struggles as inseparable. I had the honour of going and hanging in Palestine and there are a lot of very similar issues to Detroit. You have people’s homes being demolished, community being uprooted, and the government uses the excuse that they have to get rid of them, because of people being terrorists and criminals or in Detroit it’s selling drugs. But in reality they’re not looking at the root problems. In Detroit, and other cities in the U.S., drugs were flooded into poor communities. All other economies were disinvested from our communities and so drugs became an unhealthy alternative, but it is the only economic alternative for the most part. The focus of our song Locusts is that we still need to create development in our communities but in a way that’s accountable to the community itself. Of course what’s happening in Palestine and Detroit are connected, because all of our communities are trying to figure out how to solve our problems, and the more that we are in communication with each other the more that we can learn from each other’s approaches to solving the problems. It will help us to be able to solve things locally and on an international scale, to really have some concrete blueprints and models that we can exchange.
BASICS: You mentioned, Finale, that your grandfather spent some time taking the both of you around Detroit and sharing his knowledge and memories. Could you talk a bit about that with us, what you saw and how people are organizing to resist and fight back against gentrification and displacement?
Finale: My grandfather has been in the city from day one so he’s seen everything changed. From when we had a neighbourhood in Detroit called Blackbottom totally run by blacks, everyone used to come here, Joe Louis and everyone, we had our own doctors, lawyers, and everything. Then the city changes took everyone out. My grandfather took us around to different areas and told us what used to be and what is now. He said downtown doesn’t look the same, the old hangouts are all gone.
Invincible: I really realized from looking around with his grandfather that the whole history of our city is being erased. For example, the Motown building was an international landmark. Motown internationally changed how music is listened to and performed, and the Motown building was torn down for a parking lot for the Superbowl. That’s a really shocking blatant example of how our history is being laid to waste not just locally but internationally. Beyond just the sentimental value of a historic landmark like that, there’s real spirit and community attachment to those types of places. I have a song on my album called People not Places that deals with the fact that although people constantly change their relationship to land, there are still certain aspects of it that you can’t disconnect. Some people look at displacement as a natural course of things, they think that people’s neighbourhoods and the make up of who’s living there are always going to change so we should just get over it. But when there’s a community like Blackbottom or Paradise Valley in Detroit, it’s a historic neighbourhood with a strong infrastructure. When these communities are completely uprooted it has a long lasting impact on the whole community on many many levels.
To give you a concrete example, in several US issues (and this is probably true in Canada as well) whenever there was a self-reliant community of colour, especially Black communities, that’s where the highways were built, right through those neighbourhoods. And now what we have is that in all those neighbourhoods that are communities of colour that’s where for the most part condos are being built, it’s like a new pattern. In many cities there are very strong infrastructures economically, of small businesses and people really taking care of one another and building micro-economies. Every time the destruction and displacement happens it completely uproots that, and people have to start all over again.
In certain places it happened very blatantly like for example when Katrina hit New Orleans, we saw the next day all these developers like Haliburton coming in and displacing everybody by tearing down project buildings that were still inhabitable. Or take it back more historically to a place like Kansas. There was a place in Kansas called the Black Wall street with hundreds of businesses and that area was bombed by the white communities around it. These are blatant examples, but now what we have happening is a more insidious approach to how those communities are being uprooted. It’s not happening as blatantly, it’s happening drawn out over 30 or 40 years with a long period of disinvestment in that community. We have to really look at the connections because it’s going to happen differently in each place, whether it’s in Palestine with the colonization from 1948 and on until now, or whether it’s on a smaller scale with gentrifying our communities.
BASICS: Do you find it easy or difficult to navigate being an artist and trying to make a living and at the same time trying to stay true to the political principles that you have? Also can you talk a little bit about your experience of connecting with other artists who are also politically motivated and what you are trying to do to build those networks?
Finale: I believe the way to get your message out is to not be too preachy. You lose when you over-preach stuff. I might be in the middle of a verse that’s bangin' and slip in a little consciousness, and my job is done. Knowing how to navigate and balance it is important, you can’t go over the top, and you have to try to ride that line. It’s definitely possible and we’re doing it right now. It’s a way to put your message behind your music and that’s what hip-hop is for. Independent hip-hop is on the rise. People want to hear about what’s happening around them. They need some inspiration, and that’s where our music and other politically conscious artists’ music come in.
BASICS: If I can throw a wrench in that, though, last summer I was down in NYC for Rock the Bells and I still have a picture that I use as reference point. It’s a shot of the crowd with hands all up, but all the hands are white. How do you see that in terms of the way that hip-hop is going? I’ve seen the same thing in Toronto shows. You’ve got someone like Talib or Mos or Common and it’s a mostly white crowd. Then you’ve got someone like T.I. coming and that’s really where the black youth come out.
Finale: I think that hip-hop shows do get marketed to a predominantly white crowd, a suburban crowd. It’s the artists’ prerogative to take the music to the hood or where the ghetto kids get too. I take my music where I grew up. I want people from the East Side of Detroit to feel my music just like I want people in suburban Michigan to feel my music. Part of balancing it is the artist’s obligation to take it to different communities. Take it there. Artists have to stand up. If you let someone navigate you as an artist, they’re going to take you where the money's at. And the money’s not in the inner cities right now.
Invincible: To answer the initial question, it’s very few artists that are able to make quality art and not let their conscience overshadow that, or vice versa. Some artists might make quality art but the message gets watered down. For me, I strive to make sure that my music is not an essay or a lecture, because if I want to do that I can do that in a different forum. I got to make good songs, with the message inherently in there. I also want to point out something that it’s very important to me: the music is not the end all be all of the message . Like you said, someone like T.I., he may not be the most overtly political artist musically, but you don’t know what he may doing in his neighbourhood back in Atlanta. That’s not to make excuses for counterproductive content. For instance Master P did a lot of things in New Orleans for that community but his content in his music was sometimes counterproductive. So I’m not saying it makes up for counterproductive messages, but you have to look at the whole picture. Because some cats they got message, but they’re studio activists. What they do outside of there is not that effective. You got to look at the whole picture.
As far as going to hip-hop shows with mostly white audiences, I think it has to do with when you make music that’s thinking music, that makes people think and not just party or have a good time music, but you’re actually combining thinking and having a good time, in general you’re not going to be able to have as wide of a reach. It’s not as marketable. With us, we reach a lot of youth and we reach a lot of people that we want to reach but we do it on a small scale. We will go to the community centres and do a small event. We’ll organize something small. Let’s say we’re doing a show in a city where the show is not going to necessarily reach who we want to reach. We will do that show, but then we’ll organize a second event in a neighbourhood where the people might not have been able to come to the main venue. We will go to the people.
Artists who are doing this on a larger scale have the marketing behind them to be able to reach the kids who are only influenced by MTV or BET and others in the media monopoly machine. But for us, we’re going against the status quo. We’re going to still reach them, but we’re going to reach them on a smaller scale. Maybe when you go to an Immortal Technique show or a Kwali show you see all white hands, but I know these artists do hundreds of speaking engagements with youth on a small scale. Immortal Technique will go to every single migrant worker village in California when he does those big shows in L.A.
Everybody has their own personality. We’re all real people, we’re not out here trying to be politicians, we’re artists. It’s a complex thing when as an artists you’re trying to balance your music and your message and trying to make a living. For me it really comes down to building a relationship with your listenership. I just started a label called Emergence Music (emergencemusic.net is the website) and before I was on a label called Interdependent Media. Both go under the same concept, that we’re part of a larger community, we’re not just artists in a vacuum putting on a spectacle for a crowd. We’re part of a community and we’re making music that represents our larger community as well as our own expression. And so we really want to build connections with those listening to our music and through that have a mutual support type of thing.
I want to make music that’s accountable to that community that’s listening to me, as opposed to making music that’s accountable to major labels that are completely disconnected from our communities. And that’s going to be a longer road to really do that successfully. I’ve been doing this for 12 years and I am just releasing my first solo album. Finale’s been doing this for 7 or 8 years and he’s just now about to release his first solo album. It is a longer road but to me it builds a much more stable foundation. And then also to balance it with your message. Not all your message has to be in your music. Some music can just be about having fun, good times, but then on the side you’re really doing the work with the youth or in that community.
BASICS: Ok last two questions! Are the Pistons going to have a chance against the Celtics and if they beat them, who do you want them to face the Lakers or the Hornets?
Finale: Aw man! I believe in the Pistons. We the bad boys so I’m looking forward to a Pistons and Lakers clash.
Invincible: Detroit in general, we’re the under-dog-est city in the world. We got to root for the underdog. Our official city motto is rising up from the ashes, so even if we have the worst loss in one game, we going to do that because that’s our official city motto. We’re always going to have that mentality where all the odds are stacked we’re going to change that crisis into an opportunity for a new beginning and be the world champions once again. We’re visualizing it right now!
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid hosted Detroit-based emcees and community activists, Invincible and Finale, with headliner Dam, for an incredible show at El Mocambo on May 15, 2008. BASICS got a chance to hook up an interview with emcees Invincible and Finale, and the following is an excerpt.
BASICS: We’re here with Invincible and Finale who just finished ripping it on stage here in Toronto. Is this your first time in Toronto?
Finale: It’s my first time in Toronto, yeah.
Invincible: I been here a couple of times but this is my first official solo show up here. I’ve been up here before with the Pied Pipers but have never been up here doing my own material and never been up here with Finale. We do most of my shows together. It was a real big event tonight, especially opening up for Dam because they’re one of my biggest inspirations to keep making hip-hop. They really go back to the essence of using hip-hop as a tool of resistance.
BASICS: How did you guys find the Toronto crowd?
Finale: It was a hit once they got into it. They had to get used to us but once they got used to us it was cool.
Invincible: We’re very lyrical and when the sound isn’t perfect you got to slow it down and do a couple of acapellas for them. Once they heard what we were talking about and they could really feel the production – we got Detroit production on most of our music - they warmed up to us and were able to really vibe with it.
BASICS: Your music has a lot of conscious, social lyrical content and some crazy flow. Why is it important for you to have social lyrical content in your music?
Finale: It’s important to have a message behind whatever you do. I talk about my city because I grew up on the East Side of Detroit and I’ve seen what’s happened to it, what’s happening to it now and where it’s headed. In order to avert that and change that, we have to work for the youth and for that work it’s really important to have a message behind what you say out there. If there’s nothing behind it then you’ll lose them in 5 minutes.
Invincible: I feel that everything has a message to it. No one is apolitical. For me a lot of our music has overt messages to it but some of the music we just slip the medicine in. We might be focussing on the flows, and put less emphasis on the lyricism but when you listen close you’ll hear the references slipped in there. Like a battle rhyme, you know what I mean? We always try to slip the message in and make it accessible to people who might not normally hear the message. That’s one of the greatest things about hip-hip as a whole, is that you can make something accessible for people. With hip-hop you can take something that normally feels like someone is preaching to you or talking over your head and you can make it relatable and accessible through the music.BASICS: Today's show was put on by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA). Why are you performing at an event for a group that is a political group focussed on an international issue? What does Palestine mean to y’all when you’re from Detroit?
Finale: There are a lot of similarities between Palestine and Detroit. No matter where we are on the planet there’s so much that we can relate to with people. My community might be similar to their community, and that’s the way music bridges the gap. For me to have that message behind my music and for them to have a similar message behind theirs is great to see. I’m here to support them.
Invincible: We really see our struggles as inseparable. I had the honour of going and hanging in Palestine and there are a lot of very similar issues to Detroit. You have people’s homes being demolished, community being uprooted, and the government uses the excuse that they have to get rid of them, because of people being terrorists and criminals or in Detroit it’s selling drugs. But in reality they’re not looking at the root problems. In Detroit, and other cities in the U.S., drugs were flooded into poor communities. All other economies were disinvested from our communities and so drugs became an unhealthy alternative, but it is the only economic alternative for the most part. The focus of our song Locusts is that we still need to create development in our communities but in a way that’s accountable to the community itself. Of course what’s happening in Palestine and Detroit are connected, because all of our communities are trying to figure out how to solve our problems, and the more that we are in communication with each other the more that we can learn from each other’s approaches to solving the problems. It will help us to be able to solve things locally and on an international scale, to really have some concrete blueprints and models that we can exchange.
BASICS: You mentioned, Finale, that your grandfather spent some time taking the both of you around Detroit and sharing his knowledge and memories. Could you talk a bit about that with us, what you saw and how people are organizing to resist and fight back against gentrification and displacement?
Finale: My grandfather has been in the city from day one so he’s seen everything changed. From when we had a neighbourhood in Detroit called Blackbottom totally run by blacks, everyone used to come here, Joe Louis and everyone, we had our own doctors, lawyers, and everything. Then the city changes took everyone out. My grandfather took us around to different areas and told us what used to be and what is now. He said downtown doesn’t look the same, the old hangouts are all gone.Invincible: I really realized from looking around with his grandfather that the whole history of our city is being erased. For example, the Motown building was an international landmark. Motown internationally changed how music is listened to and performed, and the Motown building was torn down for a parking lot for the Superbowl. That’s a really shocking blatant example of how our history is being laid to waste not just locally but internationally. Beyond just the sentimental value of a historic landmark like that, there’s real spirit and community attachment to those types of places. I have a song on my album called People not Places that deals with the fact that although people constantly change their relationship to land, there are still certain aspects of it that you can’t disconnect. Some people look at displacement as a natural course of things, they think that people’s neighbourhoods and the make up of who’s living there are always going to change so we should just get over it. But when there’s a community like Blackbottom or Paradise Valley in Detroit, it’s a historic neighbourhood with a strong infrastructure. When these communities are completely uprooted it has a long lasting impact on the whole community on many many levels.
To give you a concrete example, in several US issues (and this is probably true in Canada as well) whenever there was a self-reliant community of colour, especially Black communities, that’s where the highways were built, right through those neighbourhoods. And now what we have is that in all those neighbourhoods that are communities of colour that’s where for the most part condos are being built, it’s like a new pattern. In many cities there are very strong infrastructures economically, of small businesses and people really taking care of one another and building micro-economies. Every time the destruction and displacement happens it completely uproots that, and people have to start all over again.
In certain places it happened very blatantly like for example when Katrina hit New Orleans, we saw the next day all these developers like Haliburton coming in and displacing everybody by tearing down project buildings that were still inhabitable. Or take it back more historically to a place like Kansas. There was a place in Kansas called the Black Wall street with hundreds of businesses and that area was bombed by the white communities around it. These are blatant examples, but now what we have happening is a more insidious approach to how those communities are being uprooted. It’s not happening as blatantly, it’s happening drawn out over 30 or 40 years with a long period of disinvestment in that community. We have to really look at the connections because it’s going to happen differently in each place, whether it’s in Palestine with the colonization from 1948 and on until now, or whether it’s on a smaller scale with gentrifying our communities.
BASICS: Do you find it easy or difficult to navigate being an artist and trying to make a living and at the same time trying to stay true to the political principles that you have? Also can you talk a little bit about your experience of connecting with other artists who are also politically motivated and what you are trying to do to build those networks?
Finale: I believe the way to get your message out is to not be too preachy. You lose when you over-preach stuff. I might be in the middle of a verse that’s bangin' and slip in a little consciousness, and my job is done. Knowing how to navigate and balance it is important, you can’t go over the top, and you have to try to ride that line. It’s definitely possible and we’re doing it right now. It’s a way to put your message behind your music and that’s what hip-hop is for. Independent hip-hop is on the rise. People want to hear about what’s happening around them. They need some inspiration, and that’s where our music and other politically conscious artists’ music come in.
BASICS: If I can throw a wrench in that, though, last summer I was down in NYC for Rock the Bells and I still have a picture that I use as reference point. It’s a shot of the crowd with hands all up, but all the hands are white. How do you see that in terms of the way that hip-hop is going? I’ve seen the same thing in Toronto shows. You’ve got someone like Talib or Mos or Common and it’s a mostly white crowd. Then you’ve got someone like T.I. coming and that’s really where the black youth come out.
Finale: I think that hip-hop shows do get marketed to a predominantly white crowd, a suburban crowd. It’s the artists’ prerogative to take the music to the hood or where the ghetto kids get too. I take my music where I grew up. I want people from the East Side of Detroit to feel my music just like I want people in suburban Michigan to feel my music. Part of balancing it is the artist’s obligation to take it to different communities. Take it there. Artists have to stand up. If you let someone navigate you as an artist, they’re going to take you where the money's at. And the money’s not in the inner cities right now.
Invincible: To answer the initial question, it’s very few artists that are able to make quality art and not let their conscience overshadow that, or vice versa. Some artists might make quality art but the message gets watered down. For me, I strive to make sure that my music is not an essay or a lecture, because if I want to do that I can do that in a different forum. I got to make good songs, with the message inherently in there. I also want to point out something that it’s very important to me: the music is not the end all be all of the message . Like you said, someone like T.I., he may not be the most overtly political artist musically, but you don’t know what he may doing in his neighbourhood back in Atlanta. That’s not to make excuses for counterproductive content. For instance Master P did a lot of things in New Orleans for that community but his content in his music was sometimes counterproductive. So I’m not saying it makes up for counterproductive messages, but you have to look at the whole picture. Because some cats they got message, but they’re studio activists. What they do outside of there is not that effective. You got to look at the whole picture.
As far as going to hip-hop shows with mostly white audiences, I think it has to do with when you make music that’s thinking music, that makes people think and not just party or have a good time music, but you’re actually combining thinking and having a good time, in general you’re not going to be able to have as wide of a reach. It’s not as marketable. With us, we reach a lot of youth and we reach a lot of people that we want to reach but we do it on a small scale. We will go to the community centres and do a small event. We’ll organize something small. Let’s say we’re doing a show in a city where the show is not going to necessarily reach who we want to reach. We will do that show, but then we’ll organize a second event in a neighbourhood where the people might not have been able to come to the main venue. We will go to the people.
Artists who are doing this on a larger scale have the marketing behind them to be able to reach the kids who are only influenced by MTV or BET and others in the media monopoly machine. But for us, we’re going against the status quo. We’re going to still reach them, but we’re going to reach them on a smaller scale. Maybe when you go to an Immortal Technique show or a Kwali show you see all white hands, but I know these artists do hundreds of speaking engagements with youth on a small scale. Immortal Technique will go to every single migrant worker village in California when he does those big shows in L.A.
Everybody has their own personality. We’re all real people, we’re not out here trying to be politicians, we’re artists. It’s a complex thing when as an artists you’re trying to balance your music and your message and trying to make a living. For me it really comes down to building a relationship with your listenership. I just started a label called Emergence Music (emergencemusic.net is the website) and before I was on a label called Interdependent Media. Both go under the same concept, that we’re part of a larger community, we’re not just artists in a vacuum putting on a spectacle for a crowd. We’re part of a community and we’re making music that represents our larger community as well as our own expression. And so we really want to build connections with those listening to our music and through that have a mutual support type of thing.
I want to make music that’s accountable to that community that’s listening to me, as opposed to making music that’s accountable to major labels that are completely disconnected from our communities. And that’s going to be a longer road to really do that successfully. I’ve been doing this for 12 years and I am just releasing my first solo album. Finale’s been doing this for 7 or 8 years and he’s just now about to release his first solo album. It is a longer road but to me it builds a much more stable foundation. And then also to balance it with your message. Not all your message has to be in your music. Some music can just be about having fun, good times, but then on the side you’re really doing the work with the youth or in that community.
BASICS: Ok last two questions! Are the Pistons going to have a chance against the Celtics and if they beat them, who do you want them to face the Lakers or the Hornets?
Finale: Aw man! I believe in the Pistons. We the bad boys so I’m looking forward to a Pistons and Lakers clash.
Invincible: Detroit in general, we’re the under-dog-est city in the world. We got to root for the underdog. Our official city motto is rising up from the ashes, so even if we have the worst loss in one game, we going to do that because that’s our official city motto. We’re always going to have that mentality where all the odds are stacked we’re going to change that crisis into an opportunity for a new beginning and be the world champions once again. We’re visualizing it right now!
Hip-Hop Unites Revolutionary Native, Black, and White Youth at Six Nations
by Wasun
Basics Issue #10 (Aug / Sep 2008)
On Friday, July 11, 2008 youth from the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) attended the Six Nations Youth Rally at Chiefswood Park in Ohsweken, Ontario. The rally was organized by Six Nations youth organizers to mobilize local youth to fight for a youth recreation center on the reserve, which is long overdue. The opening evening of the concert was dominated by revolutionary rappers from across Ontario.
BADC organized a diverse group of artists to perform at the rally. Toronto-based Wasun and Lameck Williams performed new tracks from the Underground Railroad Mixtape, Volume 1. Shing Shing Regime out of Hamilton, Ontario, representing the Nations of Gods and Earths, performed their new tracks.
Testament, an Arab anti-poverty activist from London, Ontario blessed the mic with hard hitting anti-imperialist lyrics drawing connections between the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the Six Nations land reclamation against Canadian colonialism. Finally, School of Thought, a group of white working-class youth from Barrie, Ontario came together with all of the MCs present to do a throwback freestyle set on a series of classic Wu-Tang Clan instrumentals. The Six Nations Youth Rally Concert was a good example of how revolutionary hip hop is being used to unify native, black, and white working-class youth in our common struggles for liberation.
Basics Issue #10 (Aug / Sep 2008)
On Friday, July 11, 2008 youth from the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) attended the Six Nations Youth Rally at Chiefswood Park in Ohsweken, Ontario. The rally was organized by Six Nations youth organizers to mobilize local youth to fight for a youth recreation center on the reserve, which is long overdue. The opening evening of the concert was dominated by revolutionary rappers from across Ontario.
BADC organized a diverse group of artists to perform at the rally. Toronto-based Wasun and Lameck Williams performed new tracks from the Underground Railroad Mixtape, Volume 1. Shing Shing Regime out of Hamilton, Ontario, representing the Nations of Gods and Earths, performed their new tracks.
Testament, an Arab anti-poverty activist from London, Ontario blessed the mic with hard hitting anti-imperialist lyrics drawing connections between the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the Six Nations land reclamation against Canadian colonialism. Finally, School of Thought, a group of white working-class youth from Barrie, Ontario came together with all of the MCs present to do a throwback freestyle set on a series of classic Wu-Tang Clan instrumentals. The Six Nations Youth Rally Concert was a good example of how revolutionary hip hop is being used to unify native, black, and white working-class youth in our common struggles for liberation.
Attacking History: Black August Film is Not the Real George Jackson
by Michael Brito Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)Recently released straight-to-DVD film Black August tells the story of former Black Panther Party Field Marshall George Jackson, portrayed by CSI’s Gary Dourdan. You definitely won’t find a copy of this film in blockbuster, but you can check it online or through your local DVD or mixtape hustler.
Not many people know what indeterminate sentencing was, but not so long ago in many states in the US a person convicted could be sentenced to any amount of years to life. What that means is that after you serve your mandatory minimum, then its up to the parole board to decide when you can actually get out. In the case of George Jackson, he was arrested for stealing $70 from a gas station in his late teens and was sentenced for one year to life. He was never released after serving his minimum and spent the next eleven years of his life locked up in California’s concentration camps. While in prison he studied and organized, developing to become an important revolutionary theorist for the Black Liberation Struggles of the 1960’s and 70’s. While locked down, often for years in solitary confinement, he published two books: Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye. He was implicated in the death of a prison guard in 1970, and through a highly publicized defense campaign became a radical celebrity. He was murdered by guards in San Quentin on August 21, 1971.
The recently released movie Black August will provide many people in our generation with an introduction to George Jackson. Young people in particular will benefit from learning of this man who was able to maintain himself through 11 years of imprisonment, keeping his dignity while organizing prisoners to rebel against the system from within its dungeons.
However, while the film may touch those unfamiliar to George Jackson, those who know his history, fought alongside him, or have simply read his works will find the film to be a shallow depiction at best, if not an outright malicious attack on the man.
In a critique of the film, Shaka At-Thinnin of the Black August Coordinating Committee has written that “the many brothers left in isolation behind the walls who still live half lives due to their commitment to collective revolutionary ideals have no connection to or input in any aspect of this concoction… The people who put together this collection of indictments against true revolutionaries both gone and surviving have no knowledge or understanding of the times or characters of the individuals portrayed.”
According to At-Thinnin, George Jackson never had emotional temper tantrums nor was he paranoid, as the movie depicts. “There were no one sided ass whippings given to comrade George the entire time he was in prison”, though the film depicts the contrary. And George Jackson never had a love affair with Angela Davis, as the film suggests. More important to challenge, At-Thinnin continues, are the malicious suggestions that George instructed his younger brother Jonathan to carry out the armed action at Marin county courthouse on August 7, 1970. The film also suggests that George Jackson was the culprit of the murder of a prison guard who was thrown from an upper tier of the prison.
The biggest piece of fiction, At-Thinnin continues, “is that piece of fiction put out by the state and glamorized by the movie” that a gun was snuck into the jail for George Jackson the day he was assassinated. At-Thinnin points out that the level of security that George was regularly subjected to would have made this absolutely impossible.
But should we be surprised? As is always the case when Hollywood makes a film about a historical or revolutionary figure, one needs to keep an open and critical mind. If the media lies to us about everything else, why wouldn’t they lie to us about our heroes?
If you come across this film and decide to watch it, don’t stop there. Get a copy of George Jackson’s books to get a sense of what this brother was really all about, such as Soledad Brother or his more theoretical work in Blood In My Eye.
People need to hear Comrade George’s message today more than ever, given the growing prison populations both in Canada and the US, increased state repression and surveillance, racist police violence, imperialist wars abroad and all these greedy capitalist pigs trying to ruin the whole planet.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Youth Stand Up Against Police Brutality With Music and Protest
by Sara Cain & Salma Al-Nadhir
Basics Issue #9 (May 2008)
On March 15, 2008 the Justice for Alwy Campaign had two amazing events in Toronto. First there was a rally in front of Police Headquarters at College and Bay to demand justice for Alwy al-Nadhir, who was shot dead by police on October 31, 2007. Approximately 200 people rallied, with a number of speakers from Black Action Defence Committee (BADC), No One is Illegal (NOII), Central Neighbourhood House (CNH), Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), and Basics Community Newsletter. The rally was very successful. Family, friends, and supporters spoke about police brutality and memories of Alwy. People were angry, upset and disappointed especially that the police officers who were patrolling the rally were laughing. Their disrespectful laughter did not intimidate the people, it just made them stronger.
The rally was followed by a march from Toronto Police Headquarters to City Hall where the people demanded that the police be held accountable for the murder of Alwy al-Nadhir. They also vowed to continue their struggle to end police brutality.
Later that evening a benefit concert was held in memory of Alwy Al-Nadhir at the Holy Trinity Church. Approximately 200 people attended the concert to show their support. Various talented artists spoke up about different struggles. Performers included Lal, Waleed Kush, Boonaa Mohammed, Wasun, Bighead and many others. A special song dedicated to Alwy - written and performed by The Voyce –outlined the story of Alwy’s murder and how it fits into a larger pattern of police brutality in our communities.
Since these successful events the members of the campaign have continued to fight hard to bring down police brutality – even while some government-funded organizations have closed their doors on our face. First, the Regent Park South Community Centre refused to let us host our March 1 Memorial for Alwy. Upon further investigation we found out that the councillor for the ward where Regent Park South Community Centre is located is Pam McConnell, the vice-chair of the police services board. We exposed the hypocrisy of a community centre working for the police instead of for the community by writing an open letter to the manager of the community centre, Lucky Booth and by talking to Now Magazine who has been following the story of Alwy closely.
Then again, on Saturday May 3, members of the campaign were blocked at the last minute from speaking at a conference organized by the Arab Community Centre of Toronto called, ”Arab and Muslim Identities on Trial: Youth Step Up and Speak Out.” The Canadian Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration-funded Arab Community Centre closed its doors to us because the topic of police brutality was a “liability”, even though Alwy Al-Nadhir was an Arab, Muslim youth. This proves to us that neither the government, nor most organizations funded by it, will help us in our struggle. Instead we need to organize ourselves.
Later that day on May 3 at the No One is Illegal May Day / Immigrants’ Rights march, we were given the chance to expose the hypocrisy of the Arab Community Centre and deliver our message of organizing against police brutality in front of hundreds of people.
The Justice for Alwy Campaign continues to do outreach in different communities to educate people about police brutality through our stories of lost loved ones and our struggles. Our goal is to mobilize the communities and bring everyone together because “the people united will never be defeated”. ∗MCs Iman and Sara after a long night.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hip-Hop’s Revolutionaries: UMI of P.O.W.
Interview 3 of 3 / See Parts 1 and 2 with M1 of Dead Prez and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers
Umi from Brooklyn, New York has worked with Prisoners of War (P.O.W.), the People’s Army and the RBG (Red, Black, and Green) Family – all revolutionary hip-hop cliques in the U.S. Umi’s solo debut album comes out in late 2008, and his film Under the Gun will be released in June 2008. Basics caught up with Umi in Lawrence Heights back in the summer of 2007.
Basics Interviewer: Umi, you were at Lawrence Heights on your trip to Toronto – the largest social housing project in Canada , with Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) as the largest landlord in Canada. The area is located very close to a big mall [Yorkdale], and what the government is trying to do is demolish part of the area and sell it off to condo developers, and then move out the people who are currently living there, low-income working-class peoples, most being East African and West Indian. Is this process happening in the U.S. too?
Umi: The gentrification process you’re talking about has been going on for a long time. It used to be about race, but now it’s about economics. Right now, the rich are saying, “We don’t want to be secluded in the suburbs anymore.” You know, in the 1960s, they wanted to be in the suburbs to get away from the Civil Rights movement, which they felt was our day of reckoning - African people getting courage. But not just Africans, Browns too. Our struggle to be mobilized as a people affects rich people’s positioning. So, back then, they said “We don’t wanna be downtown, we wanna be in the suburbs.” And the suburbs used to be all the furthest spots of the hood that you could go out to in most cities. So they condemned them, and turned them into suburbs. And now, it’s just the opposite, and this started in the early ‘90s, or late ‘80s. They said, “We wanna take downtown, we wanna revamp downtown.”
This started in the larger cities first. But it’s cities like Chicago that we don’t here a lot about, where people are the most disenfranchised because they’ve been doing this shit relentlessly for the last twenty years… Now they want the downtown areas, so they take black people and now they’re moving them to the suburbs. A lot of black people don’t have cars, so it’s fucked up, and a lot people are not accounted for. When they take their houses, they don’t replace them with new homes immediately, they get stuck with stipends to just survive day-to-day. Look at the shit they did at Katrina – don’t be fooled, that’s trickery right there: that’s another form of gentrification right there. That’s something that’s gotta be studied because that’s something that’s been planned for over 55 years. They knew Katrina was going to happen – and they were just waiting to take land from certain people.
Basics: You all are not just artists in the RBG Family – obviously fantastic artists – but you’re revolutionaries too. You’re organizing, you’re out there with the people. How have people in the U.S. been responding to the ongoing process of gentrification?
Umi: Well, people are mad as hell. We are aware of this negative process, and the way the system stings us. We can’t help but feel the effects. But the problem is that we haven’t organized ourselves and come up with a strategy as a community that can combat to put ourselves in a better position.
The things that are affecting me as a man affected my father as he became a man. What I am most adamant about is not just talking about shit – when I go into the communities I’m linking with people like Fred Hampton Jr. in Chicago, for instance. I try to link with people who are doings things that can help people transform their communities in a strategic way.
At this point, they’re actually trying to destroy us as a people. It’s not just about taking over some property – they are crippling and destroying people’s families… If you cripple a man first, dehumanizing him to the point where it affects his family. At this point, we’ve got to come together and combat this process.
Basics: With the organizing we’re doing in the community against gentrification, can we count on you to come back and help us build this struggle.
Umi: Anytime, anywhere, I’m there. Umi, P.O.W. – even Dead Prez, RBG, I can speak for us all. You call on us and we’ll be there.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
My Life: A Poem in the Loving Memory of Alwy Al Nadhir
by Fatma Al Nadhir (Age: 14)
Everyday’s a struggle,
When you’re not around.
I live up to my full potential,
Because I know you’re looking down.
I can’t concentrate, I feel like there’s no
point.
Why should I try?
Have you ever felt the pain I go through?
These days I don’t even know what I’m
going to do.
They killed my brother! What did he do?
Now I have to suffer, because of what he
went through.
I miss you Alwy!
What happened the other day?
We have no clue,
But don’t tell me my brother did wrong,
I know that’s not true!
I remember the day Alwy, Basma and I
stayed till about 5 in the morning
playing monopoly.
I will never forget you Alwy.
There’s not one day I go without
thinking about you.
You made us laugh, and cry.
Remember the day I started crying
because I got mad at you…
And then you started laughing, and
tried to make me smile,
You always wanted to see us happy.
Alwy, words can’t express
how much I miss you.
I want justice for you, Alwy… ∗
The spirit of the Justice for Alwy campaign: Salma, Besma, and Fatma Al Nadhir
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Wise Intelligent: Drugs, Gangs, and Gentrification
Part 2 of a 3 part series interviewing some of the progressive militants of the hip hop culture.
Basics: Could you speak about the kind of work that’s being done in New York or Jersey right now with gangs and youth?
Wise: The government is taking on this lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key policy. The prison industrial complex is alive and thriving, and the youth are a commodity now, an investment to the prison-industrial complex. So we’re giving the youth some political orientation and giving them some knowledge of the environment in which they are embedded that’s imposing a lot of negative behaviors on you… You’re not the one who is sick, it’s the society that you’re in that’s sick, and that’s what needs to be broken down and taken out of the way.
Basics: Right now, the government, is bringing in mandatory minimum sentencing, and is putting hundreds of millions of tax payers’ dollars into building up the prison system. Can you comment on how the whole prison industrial system developed in the 1980s and 1990s in New York, and how what the community’s going through now?
Wise: It was the psychologist BF Skinner who said that behavior is shaped by its consequences, which means that they can control your behavior by modifying certain aspects of your environment. When we look back on the late‘70s/early’80s, we see a lot of closings of factories and plants in the inner city that employed a lot of inner-city black families. This created a large population of unemployed African-American men, who were in supervisor and management positions in a lot of these companies. And these black men were bringing their sons in to these jobs. So it was a perpetual employment routine. We lost that economy in the black community. This is what started the ‘urban decay’, and ‘white flight’ and ‘suburban sprawl’ that followed the factories leaving.
The government understood that all they had to do was bring in drugs from Laos, from the war in Nicaragua, and flood the black community with those drugs, and then these unemployed, stressed-out black men are going to do one or the other: they gonna sell the drugs or they gonna smoke the drugs. Then they enforced their ‘War on Drugs’, which was a policy of designed to perpetuate the prison-industrial complex. At the exact same time they went public on the market with prison-building companies, like Wackenhut Corporation and Corrections Corporation of America. These companies are on the New York Stock Exchange. You can actually go and purchase stock in these companies and invest in the incarceration of young black youth throughout the country. So, it’s a business, it’s a very big business.
Basics: What do you see as the prospects for transforming the youth caught up in this struggle into revolutionary organizations to challenge their conditions?
Wise: The weapons of this day and time are information – the truth is the weapon. At this point, we have to disseminate the truth – like with your magazine, Basics. It was Marcus Garvey who taught us that to know thy enemy is part of the complete education of a man. In order to keep a people subjugated to you, you must keep that people ignorant of their culture. They imposed a state of ignorance on non-white people in order to create this slave-master relationship that we’re dealing with today. We have to really deal with the youth on a level of truth, get the truth and information out there because once they learn who they are, they’re going to know who their enemy is.
Next issue: Umi from P.O.W.
Afghanistan in Lights
Depiction of Afghan people in popular media troubling.
This December, two movies were released that are prime examples of the use of popular films to push the agenda of the powerful.
‘The Kite Runner,’ based on the celebrated book by Afghan-American novelist, Khaled Husseini, is the story of the friendship between two boys, one from the upper class, the other his servant. What could have been a touching story unfortunately turns into a series of stereotypical images of crazy Afghans with horrific scenes of murder and sexual abuse while life in the US meanwhile is highly idealized. This overly simplistic comparison of the two societies fails to reveal the diversity and complex history of either one.
‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ is based on the covert American financing of the Afghani Mujahideen in the early 80s. Wilson, a Democrat congressman, and Joanne Herring, an ultra-right wing wealthy socialite, make it their mission to make the war in Afghanistan the first major defeat of the USSR. The final message of the film - that if only Americans continued to finance ‘reconstruction’ efforts in Afghanistan after the Soviets lost the war, everything would have been okay - is a thinly veiled attempt to muster support for the continuation of the current occupation of Afghanistan.
Despite their glitz and glamour, the real message of both films is support for occupation through perpetuation of stereotypical images of savagery in the Middle East when Muslims are left to their own devices - obscuring what went on in Afghanistan and what is going on today.
It is important to note that these films were released around the same time that George W. Bush praised Canada for ‘pulling its weight’ in Afghanistan and encouraged other NATO countries to show similar commitment to the American-led effort.
It is not only Hollywood that is pushing this message. CBC radio aired ‘Afghanada,’ a radio drama about the life of Canadian troops in Afghanistan that is aimed at generating sympathy for the plight of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and encouraging Canadians to support them - and therefore the occupation. These propaganda pieces obscure who the real victims of the conflict are: Afghan people just trying to live their lives amidst an American and Canadian-led war and occupation.
This December, two movies were released that are prime examples of the use of popular films to push the agenda of the powerful.
‘The Kite Runner,’ based on the celebrated book by Afghan-American novelist, Khaled Husseini, is the story of the friendship between two boys, one from the upper class, the other his servant. What could have been a touching story unfortunately turns into a series of stereotypical images of crazy Afghans with horrific scenes of murder and sexual abuse while life in the US meanwhile is highly idealized. This overly simplistic comparison of the two societies fails to reveal the diversity and complex history of either one.
‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ is based on the covert American financing of the Afghani Mujahideen in the early 80s. Wilson, a Democrat congressman, and Joanne Herring, an ultra-right wing wealthy socialite, make it their mission to make the war in Afghanistan the first major defeat of the USSR. The final message of the film - that if only Americans continued to finance ‘reconstruction’ efforts in Afghanistan after the Soviets lost the war, everything would have been okay - is a thinly veiled attempt to muster support for the continuation of the current occupation of Afghanistan.
Despite their glitz and glamour, the real message of both films is support for occupation through perpetuation of stereotypical images of savagery in the Middle East when Muslims are left to their own devices - obscuring what went on in Afghanistan and what is going on today.
It is important to note that these films were released around the same time that George W. Bush praised Canada for ‘pulling its weight’ in Afghanistan and encouraged other NATO countries to show similar commitment to the American-led effort.
It is not only Hollywood that is pushing this message. CBC radio aired ‘Afghanada,’ a radio drama about the life of Canadian troops in Afghanistan that is aimed at generating sympathy for the plight of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and encouraging Canadians to support them - and therefore the occupation. These propaganda pieces obscure who the real victims of the conflict are: Afghan people just trying to live their lives amidst an American and Canadian-led war and occupation.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Jerry Seinfeld’s New Kids’ Flick “Bee Movie”: Selling Slavery and Colonialism to Young Minds
If you’re taking your kids out to watch Jerry Seinfeld’s “Bee Movie”, you should be prepared to challenge your kids about the ideologies of slavery and colonialism being promoted in this film.
The film begins with the main character Barry B. Benson graduating from his bee hive college and facing the big question of what he’s going to do with his life. Within minutes of his graduation, Barry is swept into the industrial rhythm of honey production in his society ,where he learns that he has nothing to look forward to in life but taking up a position in the honey production of his hive. But Barry, who is presented as a youthful idealist, believes that he was meant to do far bigger things in life. So Barry decides to venture out into the human world.
After exploring New York City for some time and making a human friend, Barry shockingly discovers that honey is sold in human stores. Knowing well that only bees can make honey, the naïve Barry searches out the source of all the honey. What he discovers are industrial honey farms where bees are enslaved and the product of their labour is stolen by humans and sold for profit by big corporations.
The film quickly turns into a court-room legal battle between Barry and the big honey corporations, with Barry (representing the bees of the world) suing the big corporations to return all the honey they have stolen. Representing the corporations is a buffoon-like fat lawyer whose initial trial strategy is to try to win over the jury by demonizing the bees as violent creatures who will never change their stinging ways. When vilifying the bees doesn’t work, the corporate lawyer warns the jury in his closing statement that returning the honey to the bees would be overturning the perfect “order of things”.
Against all odds, justice prevails in the human courts, and the bees of the world win back all the honey stocks of the world. But the rest of the movie's message is that there is no freedom but slavery and misery.
With the bees getting all their honey back, they become lazy and refuse to work. Because the bees stop pollinating, all the flowers of the world begin to die. It is here that the once revolutionary Barry transforms himself into the greatest champion of restoring slavery to the bees. The bees, led by Barry, undertake a great campaign to repollinate the world and restore the “order of things”. The film could not be more obvious in its celebration of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.
This silly story of bees working in industrial-like settings their whole lives for the benefit of humans is quite clearly the story of 80% of the world's peoples who are dominated by the imperialism of countries like America and Canada.
Barry is supposed to represent the naïve youngster who thinks he can change the world, who is labelled a conspiracy-theorist by his fellow bees at one point in the movie, but but who ends up fitting very comfortably into the system by the end of it. Unfortunately in capitalism, 90% of the world's people will never be able to make the choice to fit in comfortably with the system.
At first, we are not meant to take seriously the stupid, fat lawyer who demonizes the bees (just like the American media demonizes Muslims and non-white peoples) and who warns about disrupting the “order of things”. But by the end of the movie what seemed like fascist (religion, demonization of the bees) excuses prove to be correct when all the flowers of the world begin to die (flowers, of course, being a metaphor for all things good).
That Barry - who sells out his fellow bees to save the human “order of things” - is praised as a hero in the movie is a message for all oppressed peoples that they should only aspire to succeed within the status quo, like becoming a capitalist “hero” such as a wealthy professional, superstar, politician or sports athlete.
The repatriation of honey to the bees is an obvious reference to the struggles of colonized peoples struggling for reparations, peasants demanding land, or socialist movements organizing workers to take control of factories. The message sent to young children is that any change to capitalism would be disastrous for the world. What this hideous capitalist and imperialist propaganda attempts to do is strike out all the marvelous advances made by the great revolutions of recent history: as if the Haitian slave revolution of 1804 did not defeat the French Empire, with the former Haitian slaves going on to help liberate Latin America from the Spanish. As if the workers and peasants of Russia in 1917 did not wage their revolutionary struggle and bring about the end of the First World War to go on to make great advances for their own society, including their historic defeat of fascism in the early 1940s. And as if the persistence of the Cuban revolution to this day does not show us a living example of the power of workers and peasants to build a better world.
The messages of slavery and colonialism in the “Bee Movie” come at a time when Iraqi, Haitian, Afghani, Somali, Palestinians, and Kurdish peoples continue to wage their armed struggles for national liberation from foreign occupations and when the revolutionary struggles today in places like Venezuela, Nepal, or the Philippines have already won great advances for their own peoples.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Rock the Bells
July 28, New York City
The biggest hip-hop event of the summer was undoubtedly “Rock the Bells”, headlined by Wu-Tang Clan and Rage Against the Machine. In addition to the stellar performances of these two giants of hip hop, the Saturday NYC show on Randall’s Island showcased Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Public Enemy, the Roots and Cypress Hill. Some of the highlights included the air-tight performance of the Roots who played a seamless set of vintage classics and new tracks from “Game Theory”, the ridiculous on stage antics of Flava Flav (who insisted on introducing the entire audience to his children), and the crowd-rocking beats of Cypress Hill against the backdrop of their twenty-five foot inflatable gold Buddha with a ganja-leaf on his belly. The entire Wu-Tang Clan was there (with the exception of Old Dirty Bastard, of course), and gave a great show.
Rage’s reunion left nothing to be desired, and was topped off by Zack De La Rocha’s comparison of George W. Bush to notorious Italian fascist Benito Mussolini through a call for Mr. Bush’s trial and public hanging. De La Rocha found a lot of support in the crowd and throughout the concert the World Can’t Wait Coalition, an organization that calls for and end to the imperialist war against our brothers and sisters n Iraq and the impeachment of President Bush, sold paraphernalia and engaged with individual concert-goers.
It seemed that a good time was had by all though it was obvious from the demographics of the crowd – particularly the lack of Black and Latino fans in the crowd - that the ticket price prevented many fans from low-income and racialized communities from attending. Also, as a hip-hop fan it pained me to see absence of female hip-hop artists on every stage during the Saturday NYC “Rock the Bells” show. Hip hop needs to recognizes and supports the talents female hip hop performers, and by failing to include any women (except for Erykah Badhu during the Sunday concert) that is exactly what the groups and producers involved in “Rock the Bells” did not do.
300
Rating: *
There are apparently 300 ways to try and convince the people that waging war on the Middle East is a good idea. One of them is to take a historical account of an attack on a Greek city, add some amazing visual effects, insert post 9/11 terminology and imagery and package it as a movie (now out on DVD)
300 is a film adaptation of the graphic novel by Frank Miller (author of Sin City). It is a heavily fictionalized account of the Battle of Thermopylae of 480BC, when King Leonidis of Sparta organized 300 men to resist the invading Persian Empire, a world super power bent on conquest. Though drastically outnumbered by the attacking Persians (modern estimates are upwards of 200 to 1), the Spartans used their superior training, discipline, and knowledge of local terrain to inflict heavy casualties on the Persians, allowing the Greek army enough time to assemble. Though they were eventually overwhelmed and killed to the last man, the 300 Spartans’ heroic sacrifice in the cause of national independence rallied the Greeks and led to the later defeat of the invading imperial forces.
300 chronicles this epic battle, but the story twisted into a pro-imperialist exercise in war porn in an obvious attempt to equate King Leonidis with George W. Bush. Sparta is upheld as a beacon of freedom and democracy that can only be protected by unilateral military adventure. The Spartans opposing the war are depicted as corrupt and cowardly, using bureaucratic methods to stop this noble mission. The Persians on the other hand are portrayed as a jumbled collection of Middle Eastern and African stereotypes - amoral, decadent, dark skinned primitives - which underscores the racist under-currents of the flick.
There is no doubt that the movie is entertaining from a visual perspective, but even impressive camera work and editing do not make for the fact that the movie appears to be little more than a well produced commercial for the American and European war machines as they gear up to launch an attack on Iran.
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