Given the relatively dominant position that hip hop occupies atop the dizzying heights of the global entertainment-industrial-complex, it can be easy to lose sight of its humble beginnings and its enduring role as a source of revolutionary politics. I got a letter from the government The other day I opened and read it It said they were suckers I know this for a fact, you don't like how I act. You claim I'm sellin' crack But you be doin' that I'd rather say "see ya" Cause I would never be ya Be a officer? You wicked overseer! Call me Little Bobby Hutton, cause I'm first to push the button Rappers don't be saying nothing to the system, we say fuck 'em That's why we say “fuck” That's why we make hip-hop We don't care about your badge, baton or Glock Your mind's in shock fucking cop stop Remember that time passes and never stops in the clock Though it didn’t really break out until the late 70s and early 80s, hip hop’s genesis story began in the summer of 1973, in the South Bronx. At the time, New York City’s northernmost borough was by all appearances a war zone. Decades of neglect, ill-thought out public infrastructure projects, white flight, racist redlining policies and urban decay had reduced entire city blocks to rubble. Rampant poverty and unemployment had created a vacuum that was filled by street gangs, with hundreds of small crews constantly battling over territory, and literally setting large sections of the city on fire. Out of this simmering cauldron of social and economic tension, hip hop emerged as a vibrant DIY subculture, spread through house parties thrown by working-class Black and Puerto Rican youth who were alienated and excluded from New York’s decadent disco scene. A catalyzing moment of the emerging hip hop scene was the formation of the Universal Zulu Nation, on November 12th, 1973. ...cars continue to change, nothing stays the same, there were always renegades Like Chief Sitting Bull, Tom Payne Like Martin Luther King, Malcom X. They were renegades of the atomic age Founded by members of a gang called the Black Spades, the Zulu Nation built hip hop into a tool for community organizing – bringing members of different gangs together, settling street-level beefs and introducing codes of conduct, all while imbuing the scene with formative political values of street-based community solidarity and pan-Afrikan consciousness. The Zulu Nation is credited with constructing the foundation of hip hop culture, forged around five core elements: Mcs, Djs, Graffiti, B-boys & B-girls, and the fifth element: street knowledge. But then I got wise and I begin to listen To the whack teachers and the wick-wack system My mother put me in Weusi Shule Which means black school in Swahili And there is where I learned black history And how to be the best that I can be We don't talk to police, we don't make a peacebond We don't trust in the judicial system, we shoot guns We rely on the streets we do battle in the hood I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood In the decades that have followed, hip hop has been transformed into a global phenomenon, and a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right. But the five foundational elements have survived and adapted over the years, providing a sustained authenticity that has allowed radical artists to continue to innovate, carve out space, and even fight back against the industry’s overall creep towards commercialization. Over the next thirty minutes, we will explore hip hop as a potent and persistent source of revolutionary culture rooted in the oppression, exploitation and criminalization faced by youth and particularly poor youth of colour. Along the way we’ll speak with a number of grassroots artists who are continuing to spit truth to power, all while organizing their communities, tearing up stages and making a whole lot of trouble. Hip hop stands for “His or Her Infinite Power Helping Oppressed People”. That comes from the temple of hip hop. Okay so that's from you know OGs like KRS-One and other people getting together and figuring how to effectively uplift the more positive elements of the culture that are based in community liberation and empowerment. Hip hop to me is a way to be able to spread a message of resistance to a large audience. Hip hop to me is a way to share my story before anybody else has a chance to twist up my words or to twist up my experiences. It is resistance and creativity, that's what hip hop is to me. Hip hop initially rose up speaking to injustices, eventually it rose into stories speaking to the issues of the oppressed. The early days was very humble, there wasn't a lot of money there wasn't a big budget. It was kind of put together by people with whatever they had. People had come up with this medium of going through the rubble and putting graffiti up and break-dancing and MCing and DJing and you know it was a way of resistance. The same youth that were throwing bricks and rocks and pushing back the police, they had something to say. For me, hip-hop is a tool for transformation A culture that has some life principles And some these are unity, love and respect But specially, having fun, to fill the need to defend happiness There's a quote by DJ Grandmaster Caz It says that hip-hop did not invent anything The hip-hop re-invented everything We peeped the allegory at the campfire listening as elders shared the stories of the vampire's victims. How do I not make the same mistake? Wisdom. Generate the vision, obliterate the prison. Freedom's all I wanted but I couldn't afford it, my baby's got the spirit, just brilliant and gorgeous. Oh yes, the self defence endorsement, always quiet when she about to load it. Hold it, esa morra's bout to load it. Oh shit, and the whole barrio support it. Seen a whole lotta people want friends. Seen a whole lotta people want Benz. Seen a whole lotta people can't get what they want so a whole lotta people pop zans. They say that means don't justify the ends. Do the ends ever justify the means? And would we end all of this hardship if we just put rich bigots in the guillotine? Cuz I can't watch these kids die and then lie like I give a fuck and not do a fuckin thing but lie down like I've given up. So get a gun if you ready, we grippin' on the machete for anybody involved we got a problem forgetting. Thinking for yourself is an expensive luxury For them it's not convenient that you leave the herd They win more if they keep us ignorant Keep the people poor, more power for the state Fuck the parliament, fuck the cops and fuck the robber baron bosses and fuck their offices, predominant model of economics and elephant cock in their ballot boxes. It came from the Bronx in the 70s in New York City and now it's world wide. Hip hop is like folk music, it's very much a historical record. These are stories that are telling of the American empire you know, looking from within. And I think that's why it's so compelling and that's why it resonated people may not know it but I think the reason that hip hop spread is because they're stories that everyone needs to hear and is interested in hearing. Hip-hop is a universal culture That starts from a context of marginalization poverty and criminalization That's a very specific context from 1970's New York City That starts from a context of marginalization poverty and criminalization That's a very specific context from 1970's New York City But that's similar to other problems in other places Like exploitation, lack of housing, the lack of opportunities It came from people who had been displaced historically from the continent of Africa to North America, to Central America, South America and the Caribbean. It also came from ethnicities that had been mixed in the process of the colonial subjugation and conquest of the so called new world. That was significant in drawing me in because we learned that we had a shared story. We had a story not only of oppression but of resistance. We can measure history in terms of what we know about our experience here in the United States as descendants of people who were stolen from the continent of Africa. But we also have to be able to measure our existence and our influence on what happened before that, what's currently happening in the African diaspora and on the African continent and struggles for liberation and self determination. The driving force is just the songs of my ancestors the songs that they sung to be able to speak to resistance to speak to fighting, to speak towards challenging and removing any and all people that wish to destroy our people. Some of the major influences that I've had musically have been folks who share their narratives in a really honest way in a really vulnerable way especially when they go to represent their anger and their rage with the way that these systems of oppression are set up around us. I recognize first and foremost that I am a guest in the house of hip hop. I don't take someone else's experience and try to whiteify it. I see things through the lens of white people and so I feel like it's my job to criticize white culture in the way that a white dude can. So I use my music to confront the shittiest parts about white culture: imperialism and colonialism and capitalism and authoritarianism. Although it has since spread all around the globe, hip hop first emerged from, and has always remained rooted in the lived experiences of Black and LatinX youth hustling to survive in America’s inner-city ghettos. And the so-called “Golden Age” of hip hop, spanning the late 80s to the mid 90s, were specially turbulent times. The flooding of poor, racialized neighbourhoods with crack in the mid-80s provided the spark for a rapid surge in street violence, waged between increasingly well-funded and heavily militarized gangs. This, in turn, provided the justification for the ramping up of Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, a policy framework for the wholesale criminalization of Black and brown communities that opened the door to enhanced police repression and mass incarceration, twin pillars of US domestic counter insurgency strategy that continue to this day. In 1986 a group formed in South Central, LA, that fed off this raw sense of desperation and rage, forever changing the face of hip hop in the process. That group was NWA, the first successful pioneers of a new subgenre of hip hop: gangsta rap. These days, it’s hard to appreciate the shock and terror that NWA provoked in America’s white supremacist power structure, and specially its front-line troops, the cops. Rap music promotes by its very language and by its very actions, promotes violence against authority and consequently violence against law enforcement. Songs like ‘Fuck Tha Police’ became rallying cries for a generation of Black and Brown youth whose rage would soon find popular expression in the LA Riots of ‘92. Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground. A young nigga got it bad cause I'm brown. And not the other color, so police think, they have the authority to kill a minority. But while NWA provided a megaphone to Black youth’s widespread hatred towards the police, they also injected mainstream hip hop with a violent strain of misogyny and homophobia that continues to fester to this day. They also provided the emerging hip hop industry, largely controlled by the white capitalist power structure that they were rebelling against, an opportunity to make millions of dollars selling records that glorify Black and Brown youth killing one another over nothing. A lot of the brothers that were my same age man, they were involved in the type of shit where they were killing each other. You know, they were killing cats that they grew up with, that they went to church with, that they went to school with, that they played ball with, trying to be part of the whole gang set culture you know what I mean? Or they were trying to get their money selling that dope and like that's cool, whatever... But really? I was living during the crack era and so the criminalization that began this whole mass incarceration that we have now, this new Jim Crow, it was heavily going on during that crack era all the way through the 90s. And so of course the theme in the music was about either fighting against this new drug that was dropped on to our community or else using it as a means to get out of the community. And so it's always been a part of the music from the very early days. Let's use the phrase "The Personal is Political" as a starting point Because even if we think our actions are personal They are going to affect our family and our close friends Because even if we think our actions are personal They are going to affect our family and our close friends And in the community and the society that we are part of There's a difference between telling your story and glorifying some of the things that you have to do to get by. So I appreciate you know, when artists can yeah maybe talk about the gang-banging past, talk about the past where you had to sell some shit, you had to do some shit that you're glad you don't have to do anymore. Government plans, fencin' us in, life in the pen' For sellin' shit you put in our hood, knowin' I'll do it We desperate, starvin' and dyin' to eat, die in the street For a fraction of what I get now for a soundin' fly on the beat I feel the weight of not glorifying some of the things I've done in my past because I see it happening with other artist with their songs. Cold gang with the cocaine. The more money make more rain. Pourin' up a pint while I'm baggin' propane. Point blank range give a nigga nose rings. Skip to my lou with a pack in the cat. Jiffy, Lube where the bricks where they at? In hip hop they might call it, bitches, hos, guns, money, sex, murder and all that but if you look at the army, navy, airforce, marines, and the US government, that's all it is. It's a reflection of the culture that we live in. It's the values that we've inherited as part of the conditions of survival in this country, to prioritize the things that are going to get us pussy, get us respect and get us paid and get another motha fucker to recognize us you know, and that is some bullshit. It's been really motivational to me when artists cast aside all of the parameters of respectability politics and are willing to speak their truths without coddling the feelings of those who are oppressing us. That's the job of my music, to challenge everything that has been imposed upon us to say no and go drastic with it. Again like, I don't follow the format, the status quo of hip hop. I'm also still unlearning a lot because it wasn't like I grew up in a Native community, I grew up in a city, because of the fact that people that came generations before me were removed from their homelands and placed into cities. What you won't find me doing in my music, lyrically, you won't find me killing niggas, you won't find me on some exploitative, downgrading shit about women, you won't find me talking about killing faggots and faggot this and faggot that. There's lots of people saying fucked up shit in the world of hip hop, to me I can't have that. You know I'm not going to throw a show where I book those guys or I can't do collabos with them, I can't work with them, I'm not going to taint the work that I'm doing with this hate right? I try to promote the kind of hip hop that I like to see, I work with people that are doing the kind of hip hop that I like to see. No matter what the content there's a political context from where it comes from Becuase there's a need to reclaim our history And even though it may not seem like "real" activism There is an intention to survive a reality of violence I feel like it's extremely important that you are responsible and disciplined and mature enough to not abuse that platform. To be predatorial, to escape any accountability for patriarchal tendencies. I learned early that I had to be three times better than the guys to even remotely get even recognized and it made me already come out swinging and I never stopped swinging because I already recognized that I had a disadvantage or I was already seeing patriarchy and sexism. Whenever I do a show and I'm the only woman on the lineup, we have to call it out, we have to address the fact that I'm not the only woman there because I'm the only woman with something worth saying with something worth listening to, I'm the only woman there because we don't listen enough to the women around us and we don't give up the mic, men don't give up the mic enough. I put my face in a book ‘cause my people are profiled erased from the books and my people are told lies Sky’s the limit? Go fly! Cali green? We go high I mean back in ‘05, already knew I'd grow wise Queen and Master of the chaos I inhabit Sometimes a tyrant, sometimes outlaw The best battle, is with myself I'm self government, my flag is anarchist When I wake up, no makeup, half naked, I feel like I’m the shit Pardon my language, but hang ups do not define the kid No, I’m not flawless, I’m scarred up and I’m fine with it My body art a laundry list of all of life’s unkindnesses A lot has changed in the 45 years since hip hop’s founding. For one thing, many of the iconic inner-city neighbourhoods where hip hop first flourished have been redeveloped, their former communities scattered to the winds of gentrification. Far from the dilapidated pressure cookers of revolt and subversive urban decay that they were in the 70s, these neighbourhoods have become homogeneous sites of high-rise condos, hipster indie venues and Starbucks franchises. Which is not to say that this process is a done deal... and even less so that the social contradictions that birthed hip hop have disappeared. The South Bronx is still a largely working-class area plagued by racist police violence, and there is tons of vibrant hip hop coming out of America’s traditional urban centers, from Baltimore to Oakland. Bam! The target of poverty by the white devil Because I wasn't testing at my reading level I was testing any of these busters Yo, where you from? Pare?! Lola’s like, “Bakit ka nag tatambay dun sa calle parate?!” But as urban demographics have shifted, so too has hip hop’s centre of gravity. In the United States, this shift has been most notable with the rise of Southern Rap, beginning in the early 2000’s, and the emergence of Atlanta as a new hip hop epicentre. Similarly, as it has spread to countries all around the world, hip hop has been transformed and enriched by countless local culture and traditions, each of which has added their own mark, while generally honouring the spirit of youthful defiance and resistance to authority that’s been so key to hip hop’s global appeal. Hip hop culture is an expression of oppressed people's reality. Hip hop is so global now that literally every neighbourhood, every community is representing. I see people doing hip hop in Palestine. Native artists are just really standing up globally and representing and telling a story that really needs to be heard and it reminds me of the early days of hip hop. It's not like packaged and pretty and fake. Just raw truth and raw facts so big ups to all my native comrades out there holdin' it down with hip hop. We never even knew what it was like to be poor until money was shown to us in the first place, we didn't know what poverty was and so we're always trying to catch up to something that really we don't belong to, that in fact, our culture is at odds with, our traditions are at odds with. Let's remember that a lot of art is elitist That it sometimes comes and it's valued in certain places But hip-hop allows that from from the streets from the ghettoes, from marginality These voices can be created I feel like music is, specially important in sharing political ideals with youth, taking care of our people, to maintaining our identities. So it's absolutely like, foundational. What is black? Black is a response to white supremacist categorization of human beings. Something that doesn't even begin to encompass the vastness of history and cultural reality. When I'm in Zimbabwe as an 'ambassador' if you will for hip hop, I encounter people that are Shona, people that are into balée, people that are of these different cultural realities doing hip hop. South Africa is big right now with the resistance music. Y'all we've been colonized, it's not a lie, working class let's start to organize. I believe the masses will arrive, revolution will rise and decolonize. It is time to mobilize... For people all over the continent to have taken hip hop, not in an exploitative, oppressive way, but in an empowering way. Taken Black culture born in the united states, created as a result of the separation from the continent of Africa, taking that back, reinterpreting it and it being a bridge for Black people all over the fucking planet Earth, that's a powerful thing man! Anti-establishment feelings that I have, it could have been harnessed by a million things but it was harnessed by good, radical, politics, through music. Music has an opportunity to word things that are hard to say, music has a way of cutting through to the heart of something it has the power to give voice to a situation or to paint a picture about a situation in a way that writing doesn't. Every time that you're doing a show you have to carry that message regardless if it's two people, or two hundred people or a thousand people in the crowd. I think smaller shows become more intimate so you have the ability to be able to interact with people there and also to be able to not just do the show and not just be the entertainment but also to have the conversation with people and talk more about resistance afterwards. I want to connect with people that are doing real work and doing radical work and doing revolutionary work and I want to bolster their movements and I want to use music to be involved in that. That's what I love most you know, when I get to play at an actual site of resistance. It's like taking it back to the roots of what the music was created for. The free shows we do for the youth, the ghetto youth, are always the most powerful shows because they don't have the constraints that the commercial shows do. The truth rests upon the lies, our people been traumatized, so donald trump ain't no different than barrack obama in our eyes. They are part of the system that wishes we was gone and history talks with forked tongues so the misery goes on in this illegally occupied territory of death. A number of shows that I ended up doing outdoors at standing rock had the same kind of energy. It was powerful in what that was coming together and the spirit of resistance and then we've had a number of shows with just a bunch of kids on the res, the same kind of energy. We the survivors, we the up-risers, yea we them savages banging on the colonizers, yea we them savages banging on the colonizers we are finally facing the end of the cycle an end of the terror fueled by the bible... join the struggle, or live in denial. There's a bunch of indigenous communities that are rapping in their language There's mural art that's intersecting with graffiti and the old scriptures Now we see a meeting between past cultures And newer cultures But what hip-hop allows It's that you can incorporate into the current reality Something that was being lost There's a difference when I'm on a reservation or when I'm at like an inner-city program, doing a show for kids who might also be undocumented you know, doing a show for young women that have never been on stage but would like to be or have poems that they wanna write or whatever. It's so much more of a reciprocal occasion when it's folks who share identities. It's like one of the last things that we have is our ability to speak out. Even if we feel powerlessness, hip hop makes us feel powerful. Island woman rise, walang, makakatigil Brown, brown woman, rise, alamin ang yung ugat They got nothin’ on us Nothin’ on us Nothin’ on us Nothin’ on us Within revolutionary circles, often times we can get bogged down in abstract theoretical debates, and lost in what can seem like an endless cycle of protests, actions and organizing campaigns. And while these engagements are essential and should not be dismissed, it’s also important to keep in mind the vital role that culture plays in building effective movements of resistance. At the end of the day, capitalism and the state are not just material forces, but ideological systems as well. This is something our enemies are well aware of, which is why they devote so much time, energy and resources towards creating propaganda – much of it masquerading as entertainment. From the countless high budget TV shows and Hollywood movies glorifying police and the military, to music promoting frivolous consumerism, a look at the dominant forms of cultural production can tell you a lot about the values being promoted by the powers-that-be. But thankfully, we have the ability to fight back, by producing and promoting subversive countercultures that promote our own values of solidarity, mutual aid, direct action, and antagonism to capitalism and the forces of the state. Let’s not squander the opportunity. Here we go yo, here we go yo, so what's the, what's the, what's the scenario? Here we go yo, here we go yo, so what's the, what's the, what's the scenario? Just don't sell the fuck out man, it's simple, just stay true to what the fuck you represent and don't change up Haters are always going to exist But the need to do it It's what's going to motivate us Be ready to do it against all odds, be ready to do it by yourself, but also be very intentional about building community with others. Don't be afraid to link a network with people that aren't in your neighbourhood, you gotta connect and you can't just preach to yourself, you can't just talk to yourself you have to connect with people. If you want to make it, yeah you can upload something to soundcloud, but to get the full experience of the art and for people to hear you, to get exposure, you're gonna have to go out there and perform, and you're gonna have to go out there and link up with other people. Backpack smacker, testament dropper, Amaru respecter, been to the hotter, kin to Assata, studied it all, past to the present, resurrected You have a duty if you're making radical music, you need to help build the foundation in your community for radical music to come in. So you have to help book the shows, you have to help find the spaces, you have to get the sound systems, you have to help facilitate that. You're not just making music and radical music, you need to help with fostering radical music community. The term is 'many hands make light work', we can get more done together than we can by ourselves in certain formats. And then sometimes, less is more, sometimes you have to cut dead weight and you have to step away from people who don't have the same priorities as you and you have to be okay with doing that. You also have to be very observant of your reality Stop and look at what's going on Listen and open your ears to hear what's going on around you Becuase using words comes with responsibility And if you are going to use them you have to be honest as to who you are and where you are coming from And it adds value to your community nobody's gonna do this for you you know, look at the D.I.Y ethic of punk music, it needs to be applied to hip hop more, and we need to do for ourselves, and we need to build up our own spaces, our own community, our own networks and we need to share that amongst each other and everybody can rise together. The goal of my making music isn't to explain myself to someone who doesn't understand my background. The goal is to connect with the folks who share that same path and who find strength and healing in hearing their story being told, who may otherwise feel very much alone. It's cold because I can probably only speak to indigenous MCs based on an indigenous message because for me I understand that talking about resistance, talking about decolonization, talking about revolution, whatever it may be, the average person does not like to hear the indigenous perspective, the true indigenous perspective of resistance because it challenges even their existence. Don't be afraid, don't cut yourself off, and don't listen to people who say “this hasn't been done so you can't do it” or “it's weird and it's different”. Some of our best artists were doing something that nobody else was doing before and it's okay, it's alright to not rap in the same cadence that everyone else is rhyming in, it's okay to mix your music with other genres, it's okay to be different and to not sound like everyone else. Sometimes people aren't going to want to fuck with you you know, but stick with it because eventually what happens is, after years and years, you get better about what you're doing, you get clearer about what you're doing, you learn from your mistakes, and when that is combined with a sustained sense of joy in relation to why and how you work, you're unstoppable. If you're going to try and build a radical current towards indigenous resistance, you can't waiver, you can't switch up based on the fact that you're not getting support. You're not going to get support. There's going to be so much stacked up against you, you have to be uncompromising because everything that you represent is problematic to the average person, even those people that suggest they support indigenous resistance. Stop inviting women to just the 'all-women events'. Don't be embarrased when we grab the microphone and rock it in your circle full of guys. When people start to look at diversity in that way of inviting people to the table so that we all can break bread and do this thing that we call our culture, it'll change. And if they don't open the door, break the fucking door down, kick it open, fuck asking. These record labels slang our tapes like dope You can be next in line and signed and still be writing rhymes and broke You would rather have a Lexus or justice, a dream or some substance? A Beamer, a necklace, or freedom? Still a nigga like me don't playa-hate, I just stay awake, this real hip-hop and it don't stop 'Til we get the po-po off the block, they call it hip hop, hip hop, hip hop, hip It's bigger than hip hop, hip hop, hip hop As we continue to resist the resurgence of far-right reaction, further entrenched inequality, gentrification and an increasingly repressive state apparatus, it is very important that anarchists build and strengthen connections with those outside our immediate circles. Part of this requires that we actively spread our politics through popular subcultures like hip hop, that resonate with millions of people who share our hatred of police and capitalist society, but won’t necessarily be inclined to come out to all our meetings, rallies or reading circles. And the other part involves listening and learning from established histories of resistance and struggle, in order to better understand and identify points of affinity and possible collaboration. Thankfully, there are lots of amazing individuals already doing this important work... but we need more of them. So at this point, we’d like to remind you that Trouble is intended to be watched in groups, and to be used as a resource to promote discussion and collective organizing. Are you a hip hop head interested in helping to contribute to your local radical scene? or looking to build one in a town where it doesn’t exist? Consider getting together with some comrades, organizing a screening of this film, and discussing where to get started. Interested in running regular screenings of Trouble at your campus, infoshop, community center, or even just at home with friends? Become a Trouble-Maker! For 10 bucks a month, we’ll hook you up with an advanced copy of the show, and a screening kit featuring additional resources and some questions you can use to get a discussion going. If you can’t afford to support us financially, no worries! You can stream and/or download all our content for free off our website: sub.media/trouble If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics, or just want to get in touch, drop us a line at trouble@sub.media. If you want to hear some tracks from the artists featured on this episode, check out the latest Burning Cop Car, our radical hip hop podcast, at sub.Media/bcc. Just a heads up that since subMedia is a fully crowd-funded project, we’ll be starting our annual fundraiser drive soon, to make sure we can keep cranking out videos year round. This episode would not have been possible without the generous support of Todd, Marius and AvispaMidia. Stay tuned next month for Trouble # 16, as we take a closer look at the trial of the so-called J20 defendants, who were mass arrested in the streets of DC, at the historic protests against the presidential inauguration of US War Criminal in Chief, Donald J Trump. No one wanted to just show up and just show out, like there was a definite message about disrupting the inauguration. Now get out there…. and make some trouble!