Rebel Frequencies

Wherever His Flag's Flown...

2012-01-31T17:06:00.000-05:00

The real question is: are folks really that surprised? Bruce Springsteen has kept a flag flying for progressive working class values for over thirty years now, during a time when it has been incredibly hard to do so. We already know that he's far from the only one who's been looking for a sign of hope for far too long. Even if that hope has come in a very unexpected form--after all, could anyone really have predicted Occupy?--the fact that the Boss has has enthusiastically embraced it can't really be considered out of character.

Some folks, both liberal and conservative, do indeed seem to be a bit perplexed with "We Take Care of Our Own," the first single off of Bruce's upcoming album Wrecking Ball. This excellent blog post sent out via the Rock & Rap Confidential mailing list sums up the way in which some establishment newspapers have prematurely pigeonholed the album as Springsteen's "angriest." The piece is correct in pointing out that this is essentially a back-door attempt at discrediting the actual content of the album.

On the other end of the spectrum there's Salon.com's Stephen Deusner. Deusner provides an excellent, albeit brief, rundown of the Boss' strengths as a songwriter who is able to distill "political" messages into personal parables (i.e. "The River," "Born In the USA," the entire content of The Ghost of Tom Joad). He also sets up a hell of a tall order for Wrecking Ball: "If the first single... is any indication, this will be to Occupy Wall Street what The Rising was to 9/11: the moment when Springsteen takes up a cause and makes sense of an event that has stymied other musicians."

However, he goes on to claim that none of this is really evident in "We Take Care of Our Own." Deusner's exact words are that "Rather than view this historical moment through the eyes of a character, Springsteen writes like he’s using bumper stickers like magnetic poetry. There’s nothing in the song to personalize the outrage, to give it relevance or impact or specificity."

The Hollywood Reporter's take is quite apparently wrong (I'll get to that in a moment), but in some respects, so is the encapsulation at Salon. Interestingly enough, both are wrong for basically similar reasons.

First, the Reporter description of this album as his angriest, at least based off of what we hear in "We Take Care," is laughable. The content of past albums like Magic, Devils and Dust, and even The Rising is much angrier than what this particular song offers up to us. True enough, the tension is audibly there, but there is also a feeling that hope might actually, this time around, be much closer on the horizon this time around, despite the obvious betrayal of America's leaders, than it's ever been.

There's an obvious agenda for establishment press to discredit Springsteen at this point in time. As the critique of the anti-Springsteen hatchet job points out, the accusations of him being a "limousine liberal" and "fake farmer" aren't really that new. The oblique label of "anger" is simply the last feeble attempt at dodging the actual content of the album. Discredit the messenger, and there's no real reason to argue against the message.

At the same time, what has made Deusner's critique miss the mark (not completely but still noticeably) is his own refusal to put this song in context. Working On a Dream, Bruce's previous album, was the first time that I actually felt that his songs lacked real hunger. Just as a reminder, this was his first post-Obama record, when the euphoria of the '08 elections still rang in people's ears. Now, for all of the reasons one would expect, the hunger is back.

In a general sense, the reason that this hunger has returned is possibly the same reason that the Boss has shifted the narrative voice. It's because for the first time in over thirty years, there is a sustained, open-ended movement seeking to give a voice to working people that couldn't care less about what the establishment says about them. It's a movement that has given voice to what countless people have been thinking in absence of that mass voice. That narrative has now been shifted--however insufficiently--in the direction of people power. Maybe Bruce doesn't need to give a face to this movement because that face is its most prominent feature.

The final judgment will certainly have to be reserved on this album for when it is released. If this song is an indicator, though, then this isn't just a return to form for the Boss. It's a return to form in an atmosphere that he and many others have been waiting for: when our artists are providing a soundtrack to struggle rather than substitute for it.

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Wrecking Ball will be released on March 6th. There will definitely be a review of it here at Rebel Frequencies. Last week's interview with Ani DiFranco was republished today at SociallistWorker.org, so those who haven't read it yet most definitely should.

We Want More Rebel Art!

2012-01-30T14:07:00.000-05:00

Several months ago I announced that I had joined the Arts & Recreation committee of Occupy Chicago. After some time of hard work and meetings, the committee has made the decision to formally launch the Occupy Chicago Rebel Arts Collective.

OCRAC, as it's being called for short:

"[E]xists for the purpose of connecting with artists of all stripes–painting and sculpture, music and poetry, theater and dance–and mobilizing the power of art in the name of a more just and equal world.

"Culture is a right, not a privilege. Times like these are when the spirit of solidarity can break the segregation of the entertainment and arts industries and make our culture more vital, more relevant. When new images, new sounds and new ways of approaching art are forged. When we show that ordinary people have ability to run create culture without the meddling of the upper 1%."

A quick glance at the "Artists" page will see several artists from all over Chicago signing on to the call for solidarity, including Agents of Change, Phillip Morris, Graham Czach and others. We are, however, in great need of other artists (especially non-musicians!) to sign on to the call. If you want to help deepen the movement's roots in the cultural sphere, then by all means, let us know!

To the Moon, Newt!

2012-01-29T00:46:00.001-05:00

I'd be willing to guess that Newt Gingrich has never heard Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey On the Moon." True, it's a well-known enough track--possibly Gil at his best. Less than a year after his death, his star is arguably bigger than ever. Such is the tragic dynamic of music's most iconic rebels.

Famous as the piece is, I'm still willing to bet that Gingrich hasn't heard it. Why? Probably because in his head, it's "food-stamp music." I also know he's never heard the song because if he had, he'd probably be a little wiser than to demand that we colonize the moon in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Depression. After all the money wasted on bailouts, with forces abroad still stretched thin in the Middle East and Central Asia, with unemployment still stuck at around nine percent, it either takes profound ignorance or profound hubris to talk about space exploration.

So, this one's for Newt. He probably won't be president, and I don't expect he'll learn anything this time either. But the rest of us deserve to keep in mind that it's because of dithering idiots like him that history is once again going in circles forty years later.

New BBU Single: "The Hood"

2012-01-26T16:04:00.003-05:00

As any of Rebel Frequencies' regular readers over the past few years will certainly know that I've done my best to always pump BBU's material whenever I get the chance. Their new single "The Hood" sees one of Chicago's best homegrown militant rap groups evolving stretching into new territory while remaining very true to what it is that has given them such a devoted following in the Midwest.

"The Hood" sees them slow it down just a tad, letting go some of their signature mania (but only a little bit) in favor a hard groove that really lets the lyrics--including by Chicago staple GLC--breathe and stretch out. Yes, you read that right: GLC. Because BBU are, well, blowin' up just that much!

And of course, the guys of BBU continue their knack for an almost eerie sense of timeliness with this release. Seems that nowadays, with Republicans putting food-stamps in their sights and labeling anything vaguely smacking of poverty or non-white skin as depraved, this song comes swaggering into our streams at just the right time.

I could say more, but as always, that's better left to the artists themselves...

The Rhyme of Revolution

2012-01-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

The Egyptian revolution is easily one of the most significant uprisings in decades. Millions of workers, students and unemployed took to the streets demanding that the US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak step down; it’s a struggle that continues even now, several months after Mubarak was overthrown.

Like any true revolution, the massive demonstrations and strikes sent a shock wave through the nation’s culture. Left-wing reporters and bloggers gained global attention, revolutionary poems were written and performed often on the fly in Tahrir Square, and countless songs dedicated to the uprising rocketed around the Internet.

Two of these songs, “Rebel,” and “Not Your Prisoner,” came courtesy of the trio Arabian Knightz, widely regarded as the first hip-hop group in Egypt. Both quickly became anthems of the revolution. After being vaulted to a national and international profile, Arabian Knightz are preparing their first international tour, and are releasing their new album Uknighted States of Arabia on 25 January--the one-year anniversary of the protests that sparked the revolution.

One of their members, Hesham Alofoq (aka “Sphinx”) spoke to the Electronic Intifada about the history of hip-hop in Egypt and the Middle East, the future of the Egyptian uprising, and the role that music plays in the revolt.

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Alexander Billet: There may be a good amount of our audience who don’t know of Arabian Knightz. Can you tell us how the group came together?

Hesham Alofoq: Well, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but my family’s from Egypt. I went out to Cairo about six years ago for vacation, and when I was out there I met up with Karim and E-Money. I was always an MC, and they said “we do Arabic rap,” and I thought “yeah, right; there’s no such thing as Arabic rap.” So Karim spit a few bars for me and I liked it, and then E-Money came through, and he started rapping and I was like “that’s it, I’m sold! Let’s do something!” We put up a song on MySpace, and we got 30-40,000 views in the first week or something like that! So we thought maybe this can do something; without any promotion, with just word of mouth, our stuff was getting out there and we were getting really good responses. From there, we just said, let’s keep going and see what we can do with this. That was the summer of ‘05.

AB: Hip-hop in the Arab world--in particular Egypt--has a history that people in the West just don’t know about. Could you tell me what you know about the scene out there?

HA: Well, I’ve heard that people were rapping back in the early ’90s and late ’80s, a couple of tapes could get passed around, but there was no real “scene” at that point. Another group came out, maybe in the early 2000s, and they dropped a couple albums. And I don’t want to give names, but they weren’t really hip-hop. They were rapping in the songs, but it wasn’t really rap--it’s hard to explain, you’d have to hear it. People weren’t really feeling it.

So, when we came in, we wanted to take it to the next level. We did the first actual Arabic hip-hop show in Egypt. We rocked the house and people started feeling it, and people started actually believing that rap could happen in Egypt. I didn’t see the scene really start to spread until after we started playing shows and dropping our videos.

AB: Was there a conscious decision for you guys to write political lyrics or did that come more organically?

HA: Well, whenever I was writing in my art or in my poetry, there would always be some political element to it. And whenever I’m talking with somebody, politics always comes up. It’s something that’s always been really dear to us, because seeing everything that’s been going on in the Middle East for so long, you want to speak some truth on it. Maybe you want to debate about it a little bit and let people know what’s going on out there, but politics is always on all of our minds.

AB: Is that one of the things that initially attracted you to hip-hop?

HA: Aw, yeah man. I mean, I was in college when I started getting into Immortal Technique and some of the really dope underground hip-hop--you know, besides all of the old school stuff that paved the way for it like Public Enemy and whatnot. Before I went out to Cairo I was always thinking about American politics. Especially after 11 September 2001, I would do open mics and spoken word, whatever I could do to shed some light on the situation with Islam and Arabic culture.

AB: Do you notice a difference now in the way hip-hop is received in Egypt since the revolution?

HA: Oh yeah! Everybody’s rapping now! Literally! I mean people used to tell us, you’ll never be able to do anything with rap in Egypt, nobody understands hip-hop. Now, just about every university or high school kid, even elementary school kid, is spitting verses in Egypt! You can go on YouTube or on their Facebook accounts and see that they’re spitting their rap, they’re doing something. It’s amazing because I saw it happen from while I was there!

AB: I read an interview with Arabian Knightz from well before Mubarak fell in which you said that “we’re as political as possible without going to prison.” So how did Arabian Knightz survive before the revolution kicked off?

HA: Well you know that song “Not Your Prisoner” is a four-year-old song. We didn’t actually write it during the revolution. Before the revolution it was crazy because the government hated that song! After we recorded it, there would be cops outside our shows saying you can’t perform that song. They warned us, you have to give us your lyrics, you have to let us know everything you’re going to say from the stage, and if you say anything political you’re going to go to jail. So we’d have to give the cops our lyrics before every show we did, and I would take “Not Your Prisoner” and all of our songs and completely change the words. I would just make it as poppy and rainbow-bright as possible and tell the cops, yeah, that’s what we’re rapping about: money and rainbows and stars in the sky and all that bullshit.

Sometimes they’d just leave and sometimes they’d stay and listen, but I guess because we rap too fast or something like that they didn’t catch on most of the time. But still I’d get phone calls about our songs late at night. People would call and say things like, I know what you’re doing, or, if you don’t stop making these songs you’re going to be thrown behind the sun. We’d get email threats and all sorts of crazy shit too.

AB: So it’s pretty fair to say that Mubarak’s regime was pretty repressive toward the hip-hop scene.

HA: Not just hip-hop man, all art. He came out and said, "let the artists be artists. You talk about art. Leave the politics to the politicians and just go paint" So it was any kind of art. There are a lot of poets in Egypt that really dig against the government. There are some of them that are still in jail until recently because of their poetry. So it was all forms of art: artists who would paint pictures about Egyptian politics, cartoonists who would go to jail, bloggers that would go to jail, everything. Anyone that went into the realm of politics it was open season on.

AB: Is that why you think “Not Your Prisoner” took on a whole new life after the revolution?

HA: Yeah, because it was always banned! But after the revolution took off we just chose to put it on the Internet. It was released maybe the 1st or 2nd of February, so it was maybe a week before Mubarak stepped down. Everyone knew he was good as gone, though, so we just said, okay, now’s our chance, and just took it.

AB: There are also apparently a lot of folks in Egypt who would go after you for being too “westernized.” How do you respond to that?

HA: You know, we’ve always been about Arab unity and Arab culture or Islamic culture. And yet, because we’re wearing “hip-hop clothing” and because the music we perform is “western music” they say that kind of shit. But what they forget is that there were people in Saudi Arabia fourteen hundred years ago beating on drums and battling each other with poetry even before Islam. That’s hip-hop. Yes, it developed in America before it became hip-hop itself, but it’s international.

I think hip-hop is ultimately music for the oppressed, a place where the voiceless can have a voice. You know, when you watch TV you see Arabs you see a lot of them wearing Dolce and Gabbana or whatever Paris Hilton’s wearing. How is that any less western? All cultures have already started to merge together by now; there’s no single culture anymore in any one place. And I think that’s how it should be, you know? There should be a give-and-take and we should be using culture to learn from each other. That’s what Islam teaches us in the first place.

AB: Is that one of the reasons you guys rap in Arabic as well as English? To reach across cultures?

HA: Well yeah; you know, it’s a message, and we want everyone to understand it. We want the Arabs to understand that the west isn’t all that bad--the governments are fucked up, but the people in general are good. And vice versa when we talk to English-speaking people; we want to talk about Islam and Arabic culture and show people that terrorism is not synonymous with either of those to things.

AB: So tell me about the song “Rebel.” This is another one of the songs that Arabian Knightz have become really well-known for outside Egypt. Its lyrics pull heavily on the themes of protest, Arab unity, the corruption in Mubarak’s regime, and really everything that you said could get you arrested. The rumor is that it was written and recorded the night before Egypt’s first big “Day of Rage” just as the revolution was beginning to gain steam.

HA: Not really. I got the beat from a German producer named Iron Curtain eight months before the revolution. And the song was basically the same: I just wanted people to rebel, for there to actually be an Arab revolution with the oppressed Palestinians and Iraqis and Egyptians. And then, the day before they shut the Internet off in Egypt, I said, Rush [another member of Arabian Knightz], throw a verse on there! We’re gonna release it today! I had it ready and wasn’t sure if it would just be a throw-away, but I didn’t mix it or anything. Before that I didn’t even know if I was going to use that beat, but I just sent it to Rush and he put a verse on it and uploaded it to YouTube. Two minutes after it uploaded, the Internet was shut off in Egypt for a week!

AB: Did you have any idea how much attention the song was going to get?

HA: Nah! Like I said, we just wanted to get our voice out there. Maybe someone will hear it, maybe they won’t, but we just wanted it out there. We didn’t expect everyone to be screaming it in Tahrir Square. I mean they were singing the part from Lauryn Hill out there in the street while they were protesting. It was amazing to see and hear that.

AB: You left the country not long before Mubarak fell, though. What made you want to leave?

HA: The reason I had to leave Egypt was because I live in a neighborhood in Cairo that’s surrounded by all the jails. So when the interior minister released all the prisoners and told them to go crush the protests, they had to pass right by my house to get further into the center of Cairo. They’re passing right by my neighborhood and these motherfuckers were given AK-47s, tech nines, any kind of automatic weapon. They were on trucks and motorcycles just shooting at random.

All the ex-military people in our neighborhood still had their guns, though, so they just started shooting back. I was literally watching the Wild West off of my balcony--and I’m on the first floor. I have a little daughter, and so when I saw that they were doing evacuations I just decided we’d evacuate. So I’ve been out here in LA ever since, but I’ll be back there in Egypt soon.

AB: That’s another thing that the US media didn’t really talk about--how all the neighborhoods organized to defend themselves when the government fought back.

HA: Oh yeah. At that point we would just go downstairs with sticks or knives or whatever weapon we had--because not everybody had guns. There were people already out there and we couldn’t just leave them by themselves. You know, seven or eight people with guns going up against all these motherfuckers? So we just set up roadblocks and hid behind them and when they’d come by we’d do everything we could to stop them. It was nuts, though man, I can still see it so freshly right now. And I’m from LA.

AB: That leads me into my next topic. Mubarak’s gone, but the protests haven’t stopped. According to the western media it’s chaos, but in reality it’s just that the revolution is continuing.

HA: You’ve got to keep reminding the government that the people are still here. It’s completely obvious that the so-called Salafists that Mubarak warned us about are just out there because of him. Some people say that the fundamentalists or Salafists are going to take over and we’ll be just like Iran. But no, the people don’t want to live in Iran; they’re going to vote for who they want to vote for.

AB: What do you think needs to happen for the people’s side to win?

HA: Well, I already know that there’s no such thing as a perfect government--absolute power corrupts absolutely. But we’ve got to be organized. We’ve got to start somewhere. There are still people in Egypt who are going hungry and we need a way to get those people food. We need to fix everything that needs fixing in Egypt--period.

AB: Are you encouraged by the strikes that are continuing since Mubarak left power?

HA: Oh yeah. Because so many people are saying, well, Mubarak’s out so let’s just get back to normal life. No. Normal life has to start once the things we’ve requested have been implemented. You know, people died in this revolution, we can’t just forget about that.

AB: That brings me back to the music. I hear a lot of different themes that keep coming back in your music--Arab unity, radical and responsive democracy, redistribution of wealth, an end to US meddling in Egypt. Do you think these can ultimately be won? And what do you think the role of music is in fighting for these things?

HA: Well, everyone listens to music first of all. It’s a voice for us. It’s a way to reflect what’s happening in the streets back to the masses. You know, for us as Arabian Knightz, we have a lot to say and we want to put it out there. And luckily, a lot of people are agreeing with us nowadays. I think our music has helped encourage people to keep going — I mean, people were out in Tahrir Square singing our songs.

We used to get made fun of because our songs are so political. People used to say to us, you guys really think a revolution is going to happen in the Middle East? You guys are crazy. But we believed in it, we kept talking about it. And now, well, it’s funny how turned out.

AB: Tell me if you’ve heard of this: Al Jazeera recently reported on a program being initiated by the US State Department to recruit hip-hop acts as “cultural diplomats” to the Arab world. In the article, certain officials are quoted as saying this is a direct attempt to gain greater support for American policy.

HA: Whether the US is using hip hop as a tool for “diplomacy” or not doesn’t change the fact that hip-hop was already growing in the region. They might have just realized that and tried to infiltrate it for their own gains as they always do, but hip hop in Arabia is still pure and for the people by the people. So on the contrary, we’re using hip hop to re-educate the youth as a push to get them to question their surroundings, and a realization that they do have a voice.

AB: It’s interesting to me that Arab hip-hop has been around for so long but it’s taken a revolution for it to start getting more attention in the West.

HA: Well, if you look at even the most oppressed countries like Palestine--Palestinian hip-hop has been around since the early ’90s. You know, we work with the group DAM and they’ve been doing their thing for a while. And they’re out partners; they’re part of Arab League Records like we are, which also has artists from all around the Middle East as well as Arab rappers in the West holding it down.

So all this reflects that hip-hop in the Arab world has been around for a long time, it’s just now that the revolutions have taken place and people are fighting back, now it’s getting attention. It was already progressing and getting bigger and better regionally, but the fact that it’s getting the attention it is now--I’ll definitely blame that on the revolution.

First appeared at the Electronic Intifada

Arabian Knightz’ website is http://www.myspace.com/arabianknightz

As Many Roles As People Make It: An Interview With Ani DiFranco

2012-01-24T13:19:00.001-05:00

She’s dealt with a lot of obstacles--dismissal of her music, sexist condescension, even attempts from Clear Channel to shut down her concerts. But over the past two decades, Ani DiFranco has remained thankfully relentless, and become a force to be reckoned with in the music world. Making it all the more impressive is that she’s done so almost entirely outside the circles of “the business,” maintaining her own independent label Righteous Babe Records while refusing to back down in her defense of feminism, anti-racism, and passionate anti-corporate politics.

Naturally, she’s seen her share of changes in music and the world at large. But then, she’s also seen all too many inequities stubbornly persist. It’s enough to make you glad she’s stuck around; even happier to know that there are countless radical artists of every stripe who have been influenced by her.

The title of DiFranco’s new album ¿Which Side Are You On? is, of course, a reference to one of the original American rebel songs. Calling it a “tribute” wouldn’t be quite sufficient, however. She spoke with Alexander Billet about the album, the evolution of her own work, and her belief in music as a force for social change.

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Alexander Billet: I’m going to start with an obvious question. This new album and its title track are, of course, taken from one of the most famous labor songs of all time. It’s been covered a bunch of times already, but why did you want to do it now in this time and place?

Ani DiFranco: Well, my relationship with that song started two or three years ago at Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration. I got invited to it, and everyone who played at it was tasked with playing one of the many songs that Pete had played and carried around the world over the years. So my assignment was to play “Which Side Are You On?” with Bruce Cockburn and “Hole In the Bucket” with Kris Kristofferson.

So, I set about learning that song for Pete’s party, and you know, I just immediately started tinkering with it. In one sense it’s a timeless song; the sentiment of the chorus is a very invigorating call to action. But the original verses are quite simple and a little antiquated. I started updating it, and I couldn’t stop. It just ended in a massive rewrite! And I’ve been playing it ever since that night in my live shows for a few years now and just decided somewhere along the way to include it in the record. And then the record, as it was beginning to take shape as a “big-P-political” record, it seemed like in the endgame the best title track.

AB: You mentioned the rewrites, and the lyrics you’ve put to the track go well beyond the original theme of worker’s rights. There are a lot of different things you pull on, but in particular there appears to be a connection between worker’s rights and feminism.

AD: It’s interesting you bring up that connection specifically because my feminism plays a central role on this new record in general. I guess I’ve been feeling lately more compelled than ever to speak to it. In this day and age with all these modern, 21st century political issues that we’re faced with--implosion of the environment, these ongoing escalating wars, an economic crisis--I keep coming back to what I believe to be the root cause of all our social problems, which is patriarchy.

And I really feel strongly that we need to evolve our understanding of feminism as not just about women’s rights anymore. You know, as I say in that last verse in “¿Which Side,” “Feminism ain’t for women / That’s not who it is for / It’s about shifting consciousness / It’ll bring an end to war.” I feel like we need to understand feminism more as a tool to mediate, counteract, to ultimately defeat patriarchy and restore balance to our government, our culture and our ways of thinking and structuring the world. I think we’ve had a very “masculine” sensibility for a long time, and I think we need to go back to the roots of social imbalance. I think we have to try to right that first, and from there and all these more pressing issues will follow.

AB: Much of your more recent work, in particular Red Letter Year, has had more of a contemplative, personal angle. You’ve always made it a point to bring together the personal and political, but ¿Which Side appears to be a bit more outward and have a lightness. Is there anything in the world at large that has influenced this?

AD: Well, I’m a happier person now than I was three years ago, and happier still than I was five or ten years ago. So you can probably hear that in the sounds that come out of me; I’ve had recent developments in my life that have brought me more peace than I’ve ever felt.

It sounds like you’re suggesting, though, that there were perhaps some political developments in that too. And maybe so! Certainly the election of Obama after eight years of George W was an incredibly uplifting event and a victory for many people. I was just over in England performing and talking to a lot of people about various things. One of the things that came up was the event of Hurricane Katrina, and I heard myself saying--and this was a big reminder--that Katrina was sort of turning point. If you remember back, there was so very precious little criticism in the media at all of the Bush administration. It was surreal; 9/11 happened and all of a sudden he was King Yahoo-Shit! Everyone was lining up to praise him and the network news was reading the White House press releases like drones. There was just this veil of silence falling over an incredibly destructive administration wasn’t even elected!

It wasn’t until after Katrina that you really started to see legitimate criticism in the media. I think that’s when the social tide turned in a certain sense. It’s what got people’s eyes opened and got people motivated in a new way. The election of Obama was one of the results of that shift. But of course, like a lot of people, I had this naive hope that Obama would fix everything quickly. You know, the culture of celebrity in this country leads us away from democratic ways of thinking and into this hero worship. And so of course, one man cannot swoop in and fix everything on his own. It’s much more complicated and difficult than that, and progressives in this country since then have had to come to terms with the fact that we need to do more than actually get out of our house and vote. It’s an ongoing process to turn the tide.

I think that’s what we’re seeing now, and thank goodness! People are really starting to rise to that occasion.

AB: It’s incredible to think how much has changed even in the past year too, from the Arab uprisings to Occupy, on and on.

AD: Yeah, when I was in England I visited Occupy London and I was talking to people there. Like you say, it’s happening in the Middle East, there’s a people’s uprising in Nigeria. And all over Europe there are mirroring encampments and activists building energy and education and organizing along with every city in the United States. It’s an incredibly hopeful atmosphere; one that we haven’t seen in a very long time. I think that, as I was making this album over the past few years, that spirit of hope was not yet in the air, but I think it was brewing in the same way it was brewing in the rest of the ninety-nine monkeys!

AB: Well said! [Laughs] I want to get back to Katrina and New Orleans in a bit, but I also have a follow-up question. There’s this running theme on ¿Which Side about growing older and evolving as a human being and artist. You’ve been making music for somewhere around twenty years, and throughout you’ve remained completely independent. Is there a lot you’ve seen change in those twenty years?

AD: Oh big changes! Big, big changes! You know when I was a teenager in the ‘80s, I was the only girl in the guitar shop. Now if you walk into a music store, it’s mostly teenage girls. It’s great! It’s an expansion of possibilities for young women, finding a way to tools even if they aren’t directly handed those tools by adults.

Of course, when I was eighteen I decided I was going to have my own label; I wasn’t going to be a whore for a big corporation. There wasn’t a lot of precedence for it and there wasn’t a lot of respect for it! One of the huge things I experienced in the early years wasn’t just exclusion but condescension. Now, it seems that to be independent of a major label and just plug away on your own--there’s more of a respect for it. In fact, there is more of a necessity for it as the major record industry implodes. So certainly lots has changed since I started doing this.

AB: At the same time, though, there’s a lot that still has to change. The song that comes to mind off of ¿Which Side is “Amendment.” Could you tell me about that?

AD: Well, that song in particular addresses the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. You know, I was talking to a young fellow in a recent interview and he was like “oh, wait! That didn’t pass?” Folks sort of assume it’s law, but it hasn’t even passed! It really indicates this sweeping under the rug of not just women’s issues but the work of feminism. A lot of people just think it’s old news. Like I say in the song: “Chicks got it good now / They can almost be president!” We’re all emancipated in this system right? But of course, globally, women are still the underclass, and even in this society there are very poignant disparities that still exist.

For instance: abortion. This still isn’t considered a civil right in the modern world for women to be totally free. It’s still daily contested and fought, and it’s still a state-by-state, moment-by-moment right that could be taken away any minute. It’s also, as the song puts forward, a very powerful device that the conservative right uses to divide people. They have encouraged us over the years to hate each other over differences of opinion about abortion. And therefore, they divide workers and get them to fight each other and vote against their own interests.

So this was a song that I labored over a lot! It was an arduous song for me to write, it’s an arduous song to play; it’s long, it’s got so many words and concepts in it. And I have to stand so firmly in my boots to try and deliver it to people successfully and in the right spirit. But I thought if I don’t write this song, who’s going to? [Laughs] This is apparently my job in life and so I’ve got to rise to it!

I think I’ve always been the kind of person to push the envelope in music, politics, art. So I challenged myself to push it even more, like “how about the world ‘abortion?’ Do I even sing the word ‘abortion’?” When I first wrote that song I was really scared to play it onstage. Even though you might think everyone who shows up at an Ani DiFranco show is a progressive, people come with their own contradictions and come to my work from a different place. I’m not always just preaching to the choir. So I really worked hard to write a song that could really put out concepts of women’s civil rights, feminism, the evolution of our relationship with abortion without alienating people. I wanted to make it a song that even somebody of a different opinion could hear and might plant a seed for a future change of mind.

AB: Getting back to Katrina, you live in New Orleans now, and the song “J” really puts out there some of the incredible burdens that the city and the Gulf continue to bear. Could you tell us a bit more about that song?

AD: Well, there are so many things to talk about, aren’t there? One of the other elephants in the room for me other than patriarchy is slavery. I think when a society has such a profoundly dark and awful evil such as slavery in its history, then it leaves scars that are very, very deep. And unless we collectively address them and really put our effort to healing them, they’ll perpetuate. The United States of America are still suffering from the echoes of slavery. I think we’re still reeling from all the pain that is a result of it, and that’s a reality.

The song “J” I wrote last year as the BP oil spill was happening. You know, they were burning the oil on the surface of the Gulf every day for weeks and weeks and the smell just blanketed New Orleans, and we were all breathing it in! It was this daily reminder that we are all plummeting in the wrong direction, squeezing the Earth of the last few drops of blood, not only toward environmental peril but into international wars over this dwindling resource.

One thing that Obama promised, one thing that we all know we must do is evolve our industry and our technology to being green and sustainable. We need to move away from fossil fuels and nuclear power, both of which I think spell doom for human society. I was trying to make a lot of connections in that song “J,” including a lot of connections that I was aching to see made around me. People were hit very hard economically and environmentally down here, and immediately you’d see people putting up posters that said “Boycott BP!” It seemed very narrow in focus to me and didn’t make the connections in addressing the root of the problem.

AB: Final question: What role do you think music has in changing the world and are you hopeful about its prospects in doing so?

AD: Oh yeah! Music has as many roles as people make it. I traveled to Burma once years ago to witness the people’s struggle for democracy, meet some people and learn some stuff. And I had this incredible experience over and over again in the Burmese jungle or refugee camps or health clinics with very oppressed, very devastated people. I show up, and I’m white and I’m American and I’m privileged and I have an experience that these people can’t fathom and vice versa. There was this huge chasm when I met people for all good reasons. And then, in these meetings, what would invariably happen was that a group of children would get up and sing an invocation, which opened people’s hearts up a bit. Then the guitar would come out, and I would sing along with the people I was traveling with.

As soon as that happened, everyone there was family. And it was a daily reminder of what music is and what it can do. It can connect people from opposite realms of experience or the planet or the universe, and it can bring them together. It was an amazing trip that really reminded me why I do what I do. So yes, I do believe that music has an intense power to connect us together, to inspire us to become ourselves. I think that’s why I gravitated toward music when I was younger. I was attracted to a lot of different art-forms--dancing, painting. But there’s something about music that people hold so close. It’s such a powerful art-form, and that’s why I live for it.

First published at ZNet and CounterPunch

Link to DiFranco via her Facebook or Twitter

My interview with Arabian Knightz' Sphinx also went up at Electronic Intifada today. It will be posted here at RF tomorrow, but for those who can't wait, click here!

BDS Update: A Letter To Zdob si Zdub

2012-01-23T18:55:00.000-05:00

This went up just today at the Punks Against Apartheid website. As is noted in the letter--and in previous posts here at Rebel Frequencies--Zdob si Zdub originally delayed their gig in Israel back in November, a tactic that some have speculated is actually an attempt to buy time as the band discusses their options. If that's the case, then it's not only a sign that the BDS campaign is having an effect, but that it has room to really win this one!

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Dear Zdob si Zdub,

We are an international group of punks from the Punks Against Apartheid network who support the human rights-based Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and we are writing you because we strongly believe in music’s potential to transform peoples’ lives. The concert you have scheduled in Israel, however, will not be able to transform the lives of Palestinians living under Occupation and apartheid. In fact, it will play right into the hands of a deliberate strategy by the state of Israel to play up international acts like yours to portray an image of “business as usual” in the apartheid state. Therefore, we urge you to cancel your show and join the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

The “business as usual” attitude that Israel wants you to support means lending your voice to a military occupation and siege of an entire people, racial apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and mass banishment of refugees. An Israeli called Boycott from Within, which supports cultural boycott, writes:

"Many artists and public figures who have come to this realization are now publicly supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, which is backed by almost the entire community of Palestinian cultural workers. Among those supporters are Roger Waters, David R Randall and Maxi Jazz of Faithless, Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, filmmakers Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, 500 Montreal artists, over 200 Irish artists, prominent Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South-African Artists Against Apartheid, The Creative Workers Union of South Africa, and the international alliance Artists Against Apartheid. Other artists cancelled their performances in Israel in response to growing appeals, including Elvis Costello, the Pixies, actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman, UK band Tindersticks, American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, and Mexican American rock guitarist Carlos Santana."

Furthermore, as musicians who played the final concert for Queerfest 2011’s “Stop Homophobia!” concert, you should know that Israel has also exploited struggles for LGBTQ liberation and has hidden its oppression of Palestinian queers by portraying Israel as a “safe haven” for Arab queers. Palestinian LGBTQ activists have called this “pinkwashing”. Palestinian Queers for BDS (PQBDS) writes, “The Israeli foreign affairs ministry, Israeli academic institutions, international Zionist and pro Israel groups, and some Israeli LGBTQ organizations/groups [have] worked to capitalize on the modest successes of the Israeli LGBTQ community and pander to anti-Arab, Islamophobic biases by painting Palestinian society as maliciously homophobic.” Not only is this racist in and of itself, but more importantly, Israel simply cannot be a safe haven for any Arab, Palestinian, queer, or otherwise, when a system of racial exclusivity and military separation and occupation is in place. In the words of Haneen Maikey, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldiers."

It is our intention that no group in the international punk community should be able to feign innocence or ignorance about Palestinian resistance to Israeli domination. You see, as punks, we were raised in a counter-culture that taught us that racism, militarism, sexism, and all forms of oppression were not welcome in our spaces.

In an interview with SUNETE magazine, one of your own members, Roman Iagupov, spoke about how “it’s... hard to cross the borders. To take part in events abroad you have to struggle to get a visa, which is not much fun for an artist”. We ask you to imagine what it is like for a Palestinian artist or fan who would have a very difficult time even getting into Tel Aviv to come to your show, much less any other part of Israel. Palestinians’ lives are governed by the constant presence of borders big and small in the form of Israeli military check points, meaning that most Palestinians don’t even have the luxury of visiting family members only a few towns away without being harassed by Israeli soldiers, whether they have the right “visa” or not. In the case of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are literally enclosed and under siege and are bombed with impunity by Israeli aircraft when it is politically expedient. Under these conditions, border crossing is not only “not fun”, but nightmarish and inhumane.

Out of respect for and solidarity with Palestinians who must resist these realities on a daily basis, we implore you to cancel your show and refuse to cross the international picket line that has been formed against the state of Israel until it fulfills the three basic tenets of the BDS call: ending the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, dismantling racial apartheid inside of Israel, and to respect the right of return for refugees.

We took notice that you rescheduled your concert date–after some pressure from activists–to March 2012, but that the show still hasn’t made its way onto your March schedule. So now is your chance to come out and say it, to make a commitment to supporting Palestinian liberation! And we want to give you the benefit of the doubt, here: if this was indeed to give yourselves time to learn about the situation and make the ethical choice, then we respect your decision to hold off with the show and offer an open invitation to speak with you and share with you the experience of Palestinians resisting Israel occupation so that you can get a better sense of what we are asking you to do. We are always open to dialogue, so please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions, concerns, or doubts, and we will do our best to respond with respect and care.

On the other hand, if the delay was meant to quietly put the "issue" down and avoid undue attention, then we are sorry to say that you are sorely mistaken–we are here to bring it back up again and make sure you don’t forget!

No support for criminal occupation, ethnic cleansing, and racial apartheid!
Vive le Palestina! Vive le punk!

Up the punx,
Punks Against Apartheid

Blues and Badness: What Etta James Gave to Music

2012-01-20T23:27:00.000-05:00

Etta James was truly larger than life. Categorizing her, attempting to put your finger on just what it was her transcendent voice did to you, even trying to find one musical style she did best, was bound to be met with frustration. The greats are like that. And when she died of Leukemia this January 20th, that’s what we lost: one of the greats.

And true to form, she never limited herself to just one genre, never stopped trying to blend elements in her own songs. The blues might have been, as she said, “her business,” and there’s no doubt she sang the blues second to none. But she also could more than pull off jazz, soul, rock, even funk. Those who think that her contribution to music began and ended with “At Last” are simply missing out.

She was a living reminder of those years when music was evolving by leaps and bounds, when a few of the best were able to shatter molds and give us some of contemporary pop’s most iconic songs. Just as other “blues” artists like Didley and Berry unexpectedly gave us what we now know to be rock and roll, Etta James went from being in another dime-a-dozen girl group to giving us our modern idea of soul and R&B.

It’s all the more remarkable when one considers the time from which James emerged was one in which artists were categorized and segregated in the most obvious ways. Even jukeboxes were separated into white and black when the young Jamesetta Hawkins began performing in the 1950s.

Born in Los Angeles in 1938, she never knew her father (who was rumored to be white). Her mother Dorothy was only 14 when she gave birth to Jamesetta, and was only sporadically around during these early years. One of her caregivers, a man she referred to in later years as “Sarge,” would often drunkenly awake her late at night to sing on demand for his poker buddies. These were traumatic experiences for the young Jamesetta.

All of this considered, it might have been easy for the young singer to completely lose her interest in singing, let alone keep exploring her voice. Other obstacles abounded. Though rock and roll was beginning to burgeon, the term itself offended the conservative sensibilities of 1950s America. When she recorded her first single “Roll With Me, Henry” with the influential Johnny Otis in 1954, its very title was considered sexually suggestive.

"At that time, you weren't allowed to say 'roll' because it was considered vulgar,” she recalled in an interview years later. “So when Georgia Gibbs did her version, she renamed it 'Dance With Me, Henry' and it went to No. 1 on the pop charts.” Gibbs, by the way, was white; it wasn’t rare in those days for white singers to gain much greater acclaim for Black artists’ work.

This raunchiness might fly in the face of those who have only hear the gentility of “At Last,” but then, the newly renamed Etta James was in many ways the archetypal early ‘50s rebel. At the age of sixteen she even forged her mother’s signature on a note declaring her to be of legal age in order to tour.

In her 1995 autobiography Rage to Survive, she wrote: "The bad girls ... had the look that I liked," she wrote in her 1995 autobiography, Rage to Survive. ''I wanted to be rare, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be exotic as a Cotton Club chorus girl, and I wanted to be obvious as the most flamboyant hooker on the street. I just wanted to be."

At a time when Blacks hanging our with whites (like, for example, Johnny Otis) provoked derision in many communities, and when a woman asserting her sexuality was enough to bring scandal down on anyone who dared, “just being” was itself a dangerous affair. But then, hearing the versatility of James’ singing voice, ranging from the gravelly gut-wrenching lows to the bright highs, was to hear honesty itself sung out. Regardless of any obstacle, social or personal, when she dared to sing, the words took on an irresistible power.

In the midst of the mythos that surrounded James’ later years, it became easy to forget just how real those obstacles were. She became addicted to heroin in the early ‘60s, and it was an addiction she struggled with clear into the 1980s.

Then there’s specifically the amount that’s forgotten about “At Last.” Any listener comparing the song to James’ earlier work will no doubt notice how strongly the string-laden poppiness of “At Last” contrasts with the ribald R&B of before. Leonard Chess, of the famed Chess records, was experimenting with turning James into a “crossover” star. What’s now regarded as her signature song charted appeared only briefly on the charts.

Separating the greatness of James’ work from her own personal struggles became even easier after the release of 2008’s Cadillac Records. Though the movie was openly fictionalized, James’ character was portrayed by Beyoncé Knowles as lovers with Leonard Chess, which was never true.

Like plenty others of her generation, James never really got the credit she deserved--even after her resurgence in popularity in the late ‘80s. It was Knowles, not James, who sang “At Last” at Barack Obama’s inaugural ball in early 2009. James rightly felt slighted, and it was hard to argue with her comments to an audience a few days later:

"Your President, the one with the big ears... he had that woman singing my song. She gone get her ass whipped... The great Beyoncé... I can't stand Beyoncé!”

Even as the greatness of Etta James the artist became inorganically severed from Etta James the human being, nobody could deny that her music was the real deal. This was true no matter if she was singing “Roll With Me, Henry,” “Tell Mama” or “At Last,” whether she was covering John Fogerty’s “Born On the Bayou” or Billie Holiday’s “Body and Soul,” she always made it her own.

Radical activist and professor Mark Naison at Fordham University put it this way:

“No artist ever performed with more passion, more grit, more raw energy, and more brilliance than she did. Or more integrity. Whenever I teach my ‘Rock and Roll To Hip Hop’ class, I play her music to show what could not cross over, could not be co-opted, could not be appropriated, could not be tamed, could not be imitated, could not be packaged.”

In other words, Etta James made music that mattered like few other artists could muster. It was music that told a story and made you feel it as she retold it every time. She also showed that if you’re going to come even close to doing that, you have to be a little bad and break a few boundaries.

First published at SOCIARTS.com

The Meaning of SOPA

2012-01-19T21:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Chicago's city council passed laws that severely restrict the right to free speech within the city limits. Thank the "liberal" Rahm Emanuel and his countless "progressive" lackeys for that. As mentioned in yesterday's post, there is a national context for all this: the fact that Obama (the man who only a couple years ago claimed he was bound to shut down Guantanamo) signed the NDAA into law has basically given the nation's ruling parties, both Democrat and Republican, the green light to be as brazen as possible in restricting protests against their austerity agenda.

Enter SOPA and PIPA. Once again, it was mentioned in yesterday's post that these laws are essentially the Internet equivalent of what Obama has done on a national level (and now, Rahm and other mayors on a city-wide, municipal level). Seems certain elements within Obama's Justice Department are chomping at the bit for these bills to be passed and take effect.

Evidence? The shutdown of MegaUpload today. We should be under no illusions that this file-sharing site is some kind of fringe element ripping off artists. In fact, it wasn't long ago that several well-known artists such as Kanye West, Alicia Keys and (somewhat quizzically) Will.I.Am publicly endorsed the site. That supposed "darlings" of the RIAA could buck the apparent trend by saying they were okay with their work being shared on this site revealed the hypocrisy behind the "protecting artists" rhetoric.

Granted, that line of argument hasn't carried much water for some time. But corporate America knows very well that if you can't win the propaganda war, then you just resort to outright war. In fact, on the nation's streets, that's what rulers are increasingly having to resort to. So it was for the Justice Department when they tried to make an example of MegaUpload.

Today, federal prosecutors in Virginia demanded MegaUpload shut down, claiming that they have "cost copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue." It's worth pointing out that the copyright holders of the world aren't the Kanyes or Alicias of the world, but the labels, who have profited untold sums off of stealing the fruits of artists' labor for entirely too long. And personally, I have no problem with anyone willing to stick it to these parasites, the real pirates in this grand scheme.

Of course, the Justice Department wasn't just acting on its own whims--and anyone who thinks they were is straight-up naive. The RIAA, MPAA and others were no doubt overjoyed at the prospect of MegaUpload being shut down. Whether or not the hack-tivists at Anonymous are ultimately effective by shutting down these industry groups' websites is somewhat besides the point here. The point, if you will, is that a lot more people blacked out their sites in protest at SOPA and PIPA than they ever will for the RIAA, MPAA or any of their ilk.

Who's the Real Pirate?

2012-01-18T19:04:00.003-05:00

The Stop Online Piracy Act in the US House and its Senate counterpart the Protect IP Act are both some scary pieces of the legislation. Unfortunately, they're also not out of place in a country willing to pass laws criminalizing protest (paging Mayor Emanuel).

You've probably heard of these acts by now; they've caused a stir among some high-profile tech-heads and various writers on the left. Even Wikipedia has blacked out its site today to raise awareness of SOPA and PIPA.

For good reason too. In a commentary on SocialistWorker.org today, Alan Maass and Ben Silverman bluntly and correctly assert that SOPA "could break the Internet." Freedom of expression on what is arguably the world's most important source of information could become a thing of the past. For music in particular, the implications are dreadful.

The main thrust of SOPA and PIPA would mandate websites to censor any material that might be copyrighted. Furthermore, any company who feels they have been infringed upon can bring their case to the Department of Justice and demand that they shut the site down. It sets a dangerous precedent. Chief behind these bills? You guessed it: the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. SOPA is only their most recent attempt at keeping a lid on people's access to information and culture.

Under these laws, a high school rock band could have their MySpace taken down for posting a picture from Rolling Stone. An independent DJ could have his site shut down for sampling beats that might be copyrighted. And lest we think that the Justice Department wouldn't bother with such "small fishes," it should be remembered that courts have had no problem bringing suits against single moms and twelve-year-old girls at the RIAA's behest.

Obama has hinted that he has no intention of signing either bill into law. But, as others have pointed out, he said the same thing about the NDAA. The comparison between this batch of laws and the NDAA is rather telling. Censorship and repression always serves a corporate agenda in one way or another. The indefinite detention of anyone accused of "terrorism" might be couched in the language of national security, but SOPA is one of those moments when the business-friendliness of this government is particularly naked.

A PSA On Elections From Mr. Boots Riley

2012-01-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

With the ongoing circus of the Republican primaries now unavoidably plastered across our news feeds and TV screens, this seems a good time to re-publish this statement from the Coup's Boots Riley. It was posted on his Facebook page earlier this month before the Iowa caucuses.

Obviously, no serious reader of Rebel Frequencies is considering voting for any of those clowns, but given the pressure that is already massing upon progressives to shut up and vote for Obama even in the face of his massive disappointments and failures, all of this is worth bearing in mind over the next several months. The elections won't be going away anytime soon, but neither will the new movements. It's the first time in a very long time that we've been able to say that.

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No matter what party is voted in--Democrat, Republican, Green, or whatever--politicians are controlled by whoever controls industry.

Under Capitalism, that is the ruling class.

It's not about personality or even intention. If I, as a communist, were elected as president- I would be powerless to enact any of my ideas as long as the economic system is capitalist. In order to even think I might get anything passed, I'd have to "play the game". "The game" is oppression and exploitation.

NONE of the major progressive changes that have come about in the last 100 years have come due to electing the right person into office.

Labor laws, the weekend, and the 8 hour day came as a result of strikes and physical battles between workers and the police.

The New Deal (which brought MediCare, Welfare, and Social Security) happened at a time when the Communist Party, USA, had a million card-carrying members and millions of other sympathizers. People were shutting down factories and having strikes all over the country. Places like Montana, Utah, Michigan, and Alabama were called "hotbeds of Communist Activity" by Hoover. FDR was actually afraid there would be a revolution. That's how those gains happened.

The Civil Rights Act happened because people were in the streets and in places of business, stopping commerce. Kennedy had made statements previously that were against a bill of that sort. But it was a necessary concession to stop a movement from growing that might demand even more.

Affirmative Action was passed under NIXON! Not because he cared about people- he was a right-wing racist, but because he, too, was scared of revolution. There was a mass, mostly radical movement at the time and there were revolutions happening all over the world. That legislation was passed as a concession to the movement.

The only way we're going to make substantive change is by making those that control industry lose profit, forcing them to choose between meeting our demands- which would mean they make less profit- and making no profit at all.

Strikes, shutdowns, and militant labor struggles. They used to be the language of an effective left.

Again, politicians are controlled by whoever controls industry. If we want to control the politicians, the people must make a movement in which we control industry through strikes, shut downs, and militant unions.

Once you have this, politicians in office will make legislation that attempts to at least seem like it benefits the people. Until then, it won't matter who you elect- they'll be forced to make decisions that hurt the people.

50's McCarthyism, the New Left of the 60's focus on students, and the proliferation of foundation-controlled non-profits have moved our tactics away from those effective tools.

There was a huge Anti-War movement in the US, but it got turned into a pro-Kerry movement for the 2004 elections, and that KILLED the Anti-War movement. It was almost non-existent after the elections. The Anti-War movement got built up again and was growing immensely, then it got turned into the pro-Obama campaign of 2008. The Anti-War movement was pretty much gone after that election. Electoral campaigns take massive amounts of time and energy from thousands of people, and there is an "end-game", a "finish line" that allows people to go home after an election- this is why electoral campaigns kill grassroots movements.

There is no historical evidence to support the idea that we can change the system through elections, yet many on the left keep pushing this.

Why?

Because we don't think we have the ability to create a large enough movement. But we do have that ability.

It's called the Occupy Wall Street movement. Join the one in your area. It may not look or work exactly the way you want it to right now, but give it some of your time and energy- help shape it, it's only a few months old.

And please don't try to turn the OWS movement into an electoral campaign. That is a quick way to kill the movement. Whoever you get into office will then not be effective anyway because there will be no movement that forces politicians to act like they're on the side of the people.

BDS Update: Boycott the Red Sea Jazz Festival

2012-01-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

There is now a push to get acts considering performing at the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat, Israel to cancel. One might wonder exactly what pulling out of a jazz fest, scheduled from the 19th to 22nd of January, might accomplish in terms of isolating Israeli apartheid. After all, it's a relatively small to-do, not even held in Tel Aviv.

As always, however, the case is much deeper. On top of the international picket line that basically hovers around the '48 borders, the Red Sea Jazz Festival is heavily sponsored by Israeli government departments--the ministries of tourism, of culture and sport most particularly. In other words, the RSJF is seen as an important component of Israel's attempts to appear a cultural hub in the midst of a savage Middle East.

It bears pointing out the obvious at this point--mainly jazz's origins in a daily reality of racist Jim Crow in the US. On top of the usual cultural propaganda points, there is quite a naked attempt to paint Israel as a land of unique tolerance.

Of course, anyone who is aware of the law passed just this past Tuesday will certainly see a contradiction here. This law, passed by the Knesset, essentially further codifies racial profiling, making it legal to detain asylum seekers without trial indefinitely. This is one of the lesser examined aspects of Israel's apartheid policies--specifically how the occupation of Palestine and systematic denial of basic rights to Palestinian living in Israel proper feeds into an all-around racism against non-whites and immigrants.

The campaign to get acts at RSJF to cancel isn't exactly walking an uncharted path. This past summer saw New Orleans' Tuba Skinny pull out of their gig mere days before the festival was slated to start. At the time it was the low-level assault launched into Palestine from Eilat--the fest's home--that pushed them into finally canceling. Whether this new law provokes a similar upsurge of discontent remains to be seen.

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An article taking up the return of Punks Against Apartheid will be published here later next week. In observation of Martin Luther King Day, Rebel Frequencies won't run publish on Monday; we'll return Tuesday, January 17th.

Hearts Starve As Well As Bodies

2012-01-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

January 11th was the 100th anniversary of the famed "Bread and Roses" strike, a struggle whose influence resonates through radical labor history to this very day. And out of that strike came a song whose influence is possibly even greater. It's above.

We Know Which Side

2012-01-11T17:59:00.001-05:00

Ani DiFranco's new album hits the shelves on January 17th. As a preview she has released this, the title track. Of course, many will recognize the tune. It's been updated time and again over the past seventy some-odd years.

This year, however, obviously sees its relevance increased tenfold. The reasons are apparent: Wisconsin, Occupy, Egypt, SlutWalk, Tunisia, the Indignados. And that's just from last year.

Ani has been doing this for some time. Around two decades in fact. If this track is any indication, then the album's feel stands in stark contrast to the more contemplative, introverted (yet brilliant) Red Letter Year. Little wonder why--lots has changed since '08. Whether or not our "side" can win by voting is its own debate (readers will surely know how incredibly critical I am of that). What seems obvious, however, is that for the first time in decades, our side--including Ani--is more ready to fight than it's been in a while.

¿Which Side Are You On? by Ani Difranco

There will be an interview with DiFranco here at RF not long after the album's release. So as always, stay tuned, subscribe, and, if you can spare the coin, donate.

There's Still a Bone To Pick With Capitalism... and a Few To Break!

2012-01-10T13:03:00.000-05:00

There may still persist doubt out there that 2012 was going to be a flagship year for rebel music. True, we're not even two weeks in, but last night's news provides hopeful signs indeed!

A lot has happened in the fourteen years since Swedish small-C-communist hardcore innovators Refused decided to part ways. Many, including the group themselves, felt that they never had a chance to put their full weight behind The Shape of Punk To Come like they wanted to. Since then, Shape has become a landmark in punk, proving that the form can be continually revolutionized. It could be experimented with, manipulated, pushed forward in a way that still shunned "selling out" and integrated sound and slogan seamlessly.

While there's never been any lack of adherents disappointed that Refused were no more (or, rather, that they were "fuckin' dead"), nobody could ever say that Dennis Lyxzen didn't keep the flag flying. The front-man continued to be a force in the punk, hardcore and indie scenes with the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Lost Patrol, Invasionen and plenty of others. Still, there's never been much doubt that Refused continued to be held in a special place in most folks' hearts.

Then came this statement last night:

"Finally, after a decade and a half hiatus, Kristofer picked up the guitar again. Which made David want to play the drums again. Which in turn led to all four of us suddenly making new music in assorted constellations. As all this was brewing, Coachella got in touch. There were a couple of phone-calls, lots of skepticism, some hesitant enthusiasm before one of us basically said: '– This is ridiculous. There are friends of ours who would murder close relatives just to go see bands there. Let's just do it, one last time'... We never did 'The shape of punk to come' justice back when it came out, too tangled up in petty internal bickering to really focus on the job. And suddenly there's this possibility to do it like it was intended. We wanna do it over, do it right. For the people who've kept the music alive through the years, but also for our own sakes."

And let's face it, there has never been a more urgent time for a band like Refused to return to the world stage. An economic crisis that the world's rulers have absolutely no clue how to get out of. Revolutions, mass labor rebellion in Europe and Africa. Global youth revolt. We've already seen, as the band put it, "re-awoke the spirit of '68." And with that, it's fair to say that the space has been opened up for a new generation of radicals to be introduced to their material and what it means to revolutionize music.

Speculation has been flying around that Refused are only reuniting for Coachella. But since their original announcement they've also announced their intent to play the Way Out Festival in Gotheburg, Sweden. And their mention of new material similarly keeps hope alive that they may be headed for the studio and a full-fledged tour. Here's to hoping. In any event, there's little argument that the world is in dire need for acts like this to revive!

Fallen Idols

2012-01-09T16:48:00.002-05:00

If there is one single moment in music that best defined the utterly idiotic circus of American politics at the end of 2011, then it came from Kelly Clarkson.

Surely, the American Idol’s now-infamous Tweet supporting Ron Paul was only one turd in a vast, stinking mass of media fertilizer that is only bound to pile up around this time in election season. Celebrity endorsements of politicians arguably mean less now than they ever have. What few of the talking heads and spin doctors seem to get, however, is just what Clarkson’s support and the subsequent backlash against her represent.

Initial reports had Clarkson’s own album sales spiking in the days directly following her endorsement of the fellow-Texan and arch libertarian congressman (“I love Ron Paul... If we wins the nomination for the Republican party in 2012 he’s got my vote”). Paul even publicly quipped a few days later that his own supporters were responsible for this bump.

We now know that these reports were false, or at best, wishful thinking. In fact, if anything her music became less popular than it was prior to her endorsement. The week ending on January 1st saw sales of her new album Stronger drop some forty percent. Though Stronger did indeed find a higher place in the charts, it was only a result in a more dramatic drop in sales among the other top albums. At best, the “Ron Paul effect” has been negligible for Clarkson’s bank account.

It’s also clear that plenty of the singer’s fans were more than a little unhappy with Clarkson’s endorsement. The Twittersphere was positively lit up by followers incensed at the endorsement. The uproar was apparently so unavoidable that country star Blake Shelton felt the need to weigh in on her side: “I love you!!! I’ll listen to your view points anytime. And I really wouldn’t mind throat punching someone for you either!!”

More surprising than the stream of online protest against Clarkson has been how, well, surprised anyone can be at this series of events. Or, for that matter, that any writer or pundit thought it might be kosher to immediately declare an uptick in the singer’s own popularity.

Just in case anyone needs reminding, Clarkson’s endorsement came right at the end of an embarrassing few weeks for Ron Paul, when scrutiny over his racist and homophobic newsletters was finally unavoidable. Obviously, Paul was hoping for all this to blow over quickly. It didn’t. In fact, it gained steam as pictures of the congressman next to the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan current Stormfront.org founder Don Black began to surface. That Black publicly announced his own support for Paul hasn’t helped matters much either.

It is worth pointing out that the attacks against Clarkson weren’t for Paul’s supposed anti-war positions (as some of his erstwhile left-wing supporters might claim), but for the virulent bigotry that has always set him aside. It’s also these specific charges that Clarkson saw fit to defend herself against:

"I am really sorry if I have offended anyone. Obviously that was not my intent. I do not support racism. I support gay rights, straight rights, women's rights, men's rights, white/black/purple/orange rights. I like Ron Paul because he believes in less government and letting the people (all of us) make the decisions and mold our country. That is all. Out of all of the Republican nominees, he's my favorite."

In her own mind, Clarkson obviously sees no contradictions. She also is, at least publicly, oblivious to the much uglier side of candidate Paul. She has, for example, yet to say anything about his high approval rating from the white supremacist John Birch Society, his plans to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nor has she mentioned Paul’s intentions to do away with Social Security, public education, the minimum wage and anything else designed to help working people basically survive.

This election season will see candidates point fingers at each other over a stubbornly sluggish economy and lack of jobs. None, on either side of the aisle seems able to speak truthfully about the consequences for ordinary people--in particular people of color, who have bore a double brunt of this unrelenting economic crisis. Still, even in the Republican camp, a particularly nutty end of the cesspool, Ron Paul’s views stand out as extreme.

Is it really any wonder that nowadays, when revolutions and occupations have finally forced issues of inequality and poverty into the mainstream, so many of Clarkson’s fans revolted? Likewise, can we really be surprised that, just as a growing number of ordinary people have come to demand a more humane political and economic system, they have also come to expect the same from their culture?

This, to be blunt, is what Kelly Clarkson is truly oblivious to when she plays the victim for being lambasted. In a music industry so committed to painting its biggest stars as “better than the rest of us,” Clarkson ranks among the highest of singing, dancing cash-cows. Talented? Undeniably so. Artistically groundbreaking? Hardly. Marketed and focus-grouped to death so as to maximize profits every step of the way? Most definitely. In fact, her “big break” came on the first season of a show deliberately designed to create, mold and shape such stars.

It’s also what makes artists like her so ultimately disposable. That she was taken to task so vociferously by so many reveals how frustrated us “little people” have finally gotten with this kind of elitist impunity. For her own part, Clarkson has done her best to show some grace in defeat:

“I will listen to what you say and any articles or viewpoints you have when you say it with respect. I was raised to respect people and their decisions and beliefs and I hope you will grant me the same decency. If you don’t agree with me simply unfollow me.”

It would appear that plenty of Clarkson’s followers took her advice, dropping her from their Twitter. Stands to reason that many others have unceremoniously removed her from their CD collections, mp3 players, and their lives in general. We’ll all be a lot better off when we figure out how to do the same to this sick, sick system that gives so much to so few while leaving the rest of us to rot.

First appeared at SOCIARTS

Punk Rock Benefit for Occupy Chi at the Empty Bottle!

2012-01-06T11:15:00.001-05:00

You know a movement is serious when the high school punk bands start getting involved. Anyone in Chicago who can make it out to this by all means should!

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Come help When Flying Feels Like Falling support the Occupy Chicago movement by attending this benefit show at The Empty Bottle!

Doors: 11am
Show: 12pm
Buy tickets at the door: $8
All Ages, but The Empty Bottle is a 21+ club so ALL MINORS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT (1 adult can be the chaperone for a group)

LINE UP:

Ephemeral Sunrise- 12:00pm-12:25pm
Give Back- 12:35pm-1pm
The Bajas- 1:10pm-1:35pm
Going Backwards- 1:45pm-2:10pm
Waste- 2:20pm-2:45pm
THE CATHY SANTONIES- 2:55pm-3:25pm
WHEN FLYING FEELS LIKE FALLING- 3:35pm- 4:15pm

A Big thanks to the School Of Rock for providing the back-line!

Back For More In '12

2012-01-05T15:43:00.000-05:00

And I couldn't be more glad to announce it (despite the rather ham-handed re-entry with yesterday's article). As has been said before, 2011 was an incredible year for rebellion in general and rebel music in particular. If it's any indication then we have plenty of unpredictable radical energy in store for us in 2012.

That, of course, means much more coming up at Rebel Frequencies too, including an examination of punk rock's anti-apartheid history, an interview with British musician and revolutionary Dave Randall, and, later this summer, a piece on the legacy of Woody Guthrie on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

For those who missed some of the last articles of 2011 too, two of them have been republished. Over the break, the Punks Against Apartheid website re-ran my article on the Indonesian punk raids, and SocialistWorker.org republished my review of Lupe Fiasco's Friend of the People mixtape (which now comes endorsed by Lupe himself).

All of this means that there has never been a better time to subscribe to RF in one way or another. There will also be a new year's fund drive to support the site being launched in the coming weeks, but you can feel free to donate too in the meantime!

The Red Raiders vs. Scott Walker: "Union Maid" Invades the Rose Bowl

2012-01-04T12:20:00.002-05:00

Co-authored with Dave Zirin

Editor's Note: Pulaski Schools Superintendent Mel Lightner has denied that the song played by the Pulaski High Schools "Red Raiders" was Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid." He says it was a regular piece of the band's repertoire called the "Red Wing Polka," which has the same tune as "Union Maid." "Red Wing Polka," according to Superintendent Lightnter, was a favorite of the band leader's grandmother. We apologize for jumping the gun.

The Rose Bowl has always been the oldest and most storied game of the entire college football bowl season. Its roots extend back to 1902, earning the nickname "the Granddaddy of Them All.” Even today, floating in the septic tank that is the Bowl Championship Series, plastered with corporate branding and officially renamed the Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio, it has retained much of its' stature and glory. This year, the Oregon Ducks beat the Wisconsin Badgers in the highest scoring Rose Bowl in history, winning 45-38.

Despite the loss, the state of Wisconsin still made their mark in grand fashion. Per Rose Bowl (apologies: Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio) tradition high school marching bands from Wisconsin and Oregon performed as part of the festivities. One of the bands from Wisconsin, the Pulaski High School “Red Raiders,” abruptly interrupted their own performance of “On Wisconsin” and on live TV, and played a far different tune. It was the classic Woody Guthrie anthem for labor and women’s rights, "Union Maid."

After a year when Wisconsin became ground zero in a reemergence of mass struggle in the United States, and during a time when the people of the state of Wisconsin are attempting to recall their anti-union governor Scott Walker, the choice of "Union Maid" spoke volumes.

This is a song dripping with working class radicalism. Pete Seeger, Guthrie’s fellow Almanac Singer, recalls in his autobiography that he “was present when 'Union Maid' was written in June, 1940, in the plain little office of the Oklahoma City Communist Party. Bob Wood, local organizer, had asked Woody Guthrie and me to sing there the night before for a small group of striking oil workers.”

Guthrie had apparently been asked to write a union tune specifically taking up the women’s struggle. The song’s chorus leaves little room for ambiguity:

“Oh you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union!
I’m sticking to the union, ‘till the day I die!”

At the time of this writing, it’s not known whether Walker saw the telecast, let alone recognized the song. But for a small high school from a town of barely 3,000 people to break the mold at an event normally so tightly orchestrated as the Rose Bowl presented by Vizio, it was a remarkable moment.

Already there is a push by a right wing blog that calls itself Media Trackers stating that the band was actually playing “Red Wing,” an obscure polka from which the melody of “Union Maid” was taken. Their blog includes a quote not from the band leader or any of the students, but the district superintendent, insisting that there was no political message meant whatsoever, just a marching band straying from their prepared tune to play an obscure polka while the band members grinned with mischievous joy.

If thinking that this song was just a good ol’ fashioned polka helps Scott Walker's internet army sleep at night so be it. But they would be closing their eyes to just how deep the outrage continues to run in Wisconsin since Walker attempted to destroy collective bargaining rights last February. The surprise of the recall Walker campaign thus far is the support it's getting in small towns like Pulaski. If the marching band is any indication, Scott Walker is in some serious trouble. Walker attempted to scare the people of Wisconsin last February. Before there was even one protest against his anti-union legislation, Governor Walker put the National Guard on alert by saying that they were "prepared" for "whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for.”

Considering that the state of Wisconsin has not called in the National Guard since 1886, the response—thousands occupying and marching on the State Capitol for weeks—was all the more impressive. Walker’s threats didn’t make people scared. They just strengthened their resolve. It’s no wonder the band at Pulaski would be attracted to “Union Maid.” The song begins,

“There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks
and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.”

As for the Ayn Rand loving, union-busting, Paul Ryan fan-boy Scott Walker, he still doesn’t understand that his assault on workers' rights has had an effect quite opposite to what he intended, re-awakening what the late folksinger Utah Phillips once called the most dangerous idea in America: “the long memory.” Thanks to the Pulaski band for showing that Long Memory in action.

First appeared at TheNation.com

Update: “Red Wing, “Union Maid,” and the Awakening Long Memory

Time for us to admit what no one writer (let alone two) ever wants to ‘fess up to: we were wrong. Almost as soon as our our article celebrating the Pulaski marching band’s performance of “Union Maid” at the Rose Bowl parade went up at TheNation.com, the proof became incontrovertible that it was indeed, as the editors' note indicates above intended as “Red Wing Polka.”

Of course, the right-wing blogosphere, a la Media Trackers, are gleefully gloating at the fact that they were correct, and that the out-of-touch lefties simply lack the facts. And yet it should be asked why, even when the song was indeed its old Polka counterpart, so many readers were, in the words of Daily Kos contributor AnnieJo, “brought to tears” by the notion of “Union Maid” being played right in Scott Walker’s smug face? Might it reveal that the tradition of radical labor songs runs a lot deeper through American history than the right is willing to admit?

And why, amidst the factual tug-of-war, have the progressive sites (namely Daily Kos) been the only ones requesting that their readers donate to the Pulaski marching band booster fund? It comes down to what side you stand on. Walker and his minions remain willfully oblivious to the damage their cuts have done to our schools in general--and our arts programs in particular. The $150,000 the marching band took a year to raise could have been covered in the snap of the fingers if state officials weren’t so eager slash budgets in order to justify tax breaks for the rich.

While the Tea-baggers see school arts programs as nothing but a political bargaining chip, we see them as something urgently needed and worth supporting. That, in a nutshell, is why support for unions in Wisconsin remains high, and why the struggle that filled the State Capitol with thousands of indignants isn’t going anywhere. It’s why this year, which will mark what would have been Woody Guthrie’s hundredth birthday, is one he would have smiled upon. “Union Maid” or “Red Wing Polka,” Utah Phillips’ Long Memory, battered and bruised though it might be from decades of defeat, remains intact.

Peace...

2011-12-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

Yes, I've posted this in previous years around this time. And of course it ignores Kwanzaa and Hannukah, so just to be clear, no, I'm not throwing in my lot with the crowd harping about the "war on Christmas." I remain, for another year at least, an atheist.

But one doesn't have to be devout to know that "peace on earth" is a sentiment worth making into reality. And so, yet again, here is one of John Lennon's most legendary. Farewell 2011, you've been one hell of a year. The words of Lennon, Ono, Seeger, Guthrie, Simone, Strummer and the rest seem a lot less far off. If history is kind to us, there'll be even more revolutionary hope in store for us in 2012.

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Just a reminder that Rebel Frequencies will be suspending its normal Monday through Friday schedule until the new year. Publication will resume on January 9th.

Rihanna Strikes Back Against Racism and Sexism

2011-12-22T19:19:00.001-05:00

Let's be honest: there were a lot of people (myself included) who thought that Rihanna was going to be little more than a flash in the pop music pan. Lately, however, she's shown some real chops--not to mention made some gutsy moves that cut against dominant expectations for a female pop artist. First came her video for "Man Down," which, after being denounced by several parent groups, Rihanna rightfully defended as a statement against sexual abuse. It was a brave song to record and video to film.

Then comes this. Rihanna could have just let it slide when the editor of Holland's Jackie magazine resigned over an article calling RiRi "the ultimate niggabitch." Some "polite" circles might assert that the singer should be somehow "graceful" and let the editor, Eva Hoeke, step aside and let the controversy die.

In these cases, though, screw politeness. Hoeke's explanation for why she allowed the article to run in the first place was far from sufficient: "I realize that my first reaction through Twitter, in which I indicated that it was a joke, has been an incomplete description of what me, and also the author of the article, meant. The term ‘niggabitch’ came from America and we solely used it to describe a style of dress."

First of all, I've heard those two words used together, but I wouldn't exactly call it a term on its own, and certainly never to describe a style of dress. Second half-asses stabs at blaming a slur on cultural imperialism still don't excuse its usage. Evidently, Rihanna agreed, and even after Hoeke's resignation, let herself loose via Twitter:

"I hope u can read english, because your magazine is a poor representation of the evolution of human rights... There are 1000′s of Dutch girls who would love to be recognized for their contributions to your country, you could have given them an article. Instead, u paid to print one degrading an entire race! That’s your contribution to this world! To encourage segregation, to mislead the future leaders to act in the past! You put two words together with the intent of abasement, that made no sense... 'NIGGA BITCH'?!... Well with all respect, on behalf of my race, here are my two words for you... FUCK YOU!!!"

Plenty of people have said that she "overreacted," and that she shouldn't have cursed out the disgraced editor. But to be clear: Hoeke deserves every ounce of shame being heaped on her right now, especially from Rihanna. Those who say they aren't defending Hoeke's actions and yet also denounce the comeuppance automatically end up doing the former.

I have no idea how familiar RiRi is with Dutch politics (her mention of Dutch girls reveals she may know more than media may be led to believe), but it's also important to recognize that this whole incident is taking place in the context of the threat of a rising far-right in Europe. The Party of Freedom, led by hyper-bigot Geert Wilders, is currently the third largest in the Netherlands. Wilders, who is also infamous for saying "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam," has fronted the party's campaign against the "Islamization" or Holland and has publicly expressed his desire to have all foreign Muslims deported.

This has, unsurprisingly, opened the door for a more generalized backlash against all people of color. It's not far-fetched to say this atmosphere has rubbed off on a magazine editor. Luckily, there are still artists--even in the highest heights of the mainstream--who know when to call out bigotry for what it is.

Punk Is Not a Crime (and Neither Is Islam)

2011-12-21T15:37:00.001-05:00

One doesn’t have to sport a mohawk and listen to the Exploited to find this story utterly revolting. Still, since it was picked up two weeks ago, the millions of people who have had their lives touched by punk rock have found themselves not only moved but outraged. Rightfully so.

On December 10th, police in Banda Aceh, capital city of Indonesia’s Aceh territory, raided a local concert. Featuring several local punk groups, the show was held as a fundraiser for the area’s orphans; punks from all over Indonesia had reportedly travelled to attend. None of this apparently mattered to the police, who stormed into the venue with batons swinging. Of the 100 people in attendance, 64 were arrested and taken to a detention center 30 miles outside the city.

There, the 59 men and 5 women had their clothes confiscated: dog collars and chains, spiked belts and tight jeans. They were all given toothbrushes and ordered “use it!” by prison guards. After being taken outside, guards forcibly shaved off their mohawks and long hair; women were given a short bob. They were then bathed in a nearby lake before being subjected to “moral re-education” classes.

The Associated Press quoted one young punk, identified as 20-year-old Fauzan: “Why? Why my hair?” he said, pointing to his head. “We didn’t hurt anyone. This is how we’ve chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?”

Banda Aceh’s Deputy Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, remained unapologetic, claiming the detainees were in violation of the region’s interpretation of Islamic law: “The presence of the punk community is disturbing, and disrupts the life of the Banda Aceh public. This is a new social disease affecting Banda Aceh. If it is allowed to continue, the government will have to spend more money to handle them. Their morals are wrong… This training will be an example in Indonesia of the reeducation of the punks.

Meanwhile, perhaps feeling the pressure of international scrutiny, Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf claimed the punks’ reeducation wasn’t so much for sake of Islam as it was for their own good. Speaking at Indonesia’s presidential palace, he told reporters that “the government needs to think of their future.” Insisting that most don’t have jobs or go to school, he asked “if they don’t work, what will they be?”

This flies in the face of what some of the detainees have told reporters. One anonymous punk from the Medan area of North Sumatra said he worked as a contractor at a bank. “I’ll probably be sacked for not coming into work for a week.” Nonetheless, Djamal has promised the raids will continue until all punks have been caught and reeducated--personal consequences be damned.

At the time of this writing, the Banda Aceh 64 are scheduled to be released on Friday, December 23rd. For their own part, the detained punks have remained defiant.

Aceh is somewhat unique in Indonesia. After the 2004 tsunami, newly-elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono brokered a peace deal with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) that allowed for a relative amount of autonomy from the central government in Jakarta. Since then, the region has become Indonesia’s most conservative, embracing what governing politicians call “key elements of Sharia.” Adultery in Aceh is punishable by stoning to death, and residents fingered as gay or lesbian have been caned in public.

Persecution of music, however, isn’t as singular for Indonesian authorities. The 32-year rule of dictator Suharto (backed till the end by the US, of course) maintained a stranglehold on mainstream culture, including disappearances of dissident artists and musicians. When East Timor was occupied by the Indonesian military in 1976, traditional Timorese songs were banned. Bella Gahlos, a Timorese activist who fled the country in the early ‘90s, estimates that “thousands of people have been killed for singing these songs.

By the early ‘90s, not even MTV was allowed to broadcast in Indonesia (Suharto’s censors were notoriously paranoid of what they deemed culturally seditious). Nonetheless, songs from America’s “punk revival” began to seep through the nation’s archipelagic borders. It wasn’t too long until a growing number of bands began to spring out of an already vibrant underground rock community, armed with little more than a righteous sense of rage that had been pent up for way too long. Though still restricted to the extreme fringes of society, the burgeoning punk scene was an enthusiastic part of the revolutionary upsurge that overthrew Suharto in 1998. Says ethnomusicologist Jeremy Wallach:

"Almost from the beginning, musicians in the Indonesian underground movement performed songs attacking the corruption of the Suharto government, even when it was dangerous to do so. Thus, although Indonesian punk is as politically divided as its western counterparts, it is not surprising that many Indonesian punks place their movement and their allegiance in the context of the struggle against Suharto."

Punks’ support for that struggle could indeed be dangerous. Rumor has it that during these uprisings there was an unofficial order for army and police to “shoot anyone with a tattoo,” so widespread was the counter-culture’s involvement.

Now, almost fifteen years after the end of Suharto’s rule, the Indonesian punk scene is the most vibrant in Asia and, according to some, among the largest in the world. Its beginnings might have sprouted initially from the import of America’s most mainstream groups (Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid). But since then its roots have deepened, and the movement has blossomed into one both uniquely Indonesian and organically interwoven with a global sub-culture motivated by a strong DIY ethic and profound distrust of authority.

A small handful of bands, like Bali’s Superman Is Dead, have gone on to a measure of international acclaim and signed to Sony Records (even while encouraging their fans to “steal” their albums). Others, like Jakarta-based Marjinal, have made a name for themselves playing entirely in Indonesia’s kampung (poor urban neighborhoods), giving their tapes away for free and teaching street kids how to busk on trains and corners.

Homeless youth are among the most neglected and abused in Indonesian society. Since 2001, Jakarta’s government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “anti-poverty” initiatives that consist of nothing but hiring out local thugs to round up homeless youth and turn them into the police. Naturally, these types of programs have accelerated with the economic crisis. Given the popularity of the sub-culture among poor and working class youth, punks have found themselves frequently in the cross-hairs of such initiatives.

Mike, lead-singer of Marjinal, told a journalist for Time magazine in 2007 “Music gives these kids a way to survive, to make some kind of living… Punk, to me, is addressing the things that are rotten in society. It tells us that we have the ability to be independent and take care of each other.” It’s a spirit of camaraderie familiar to anyone who’s been in attendance at a local gig, be it in Milwaukee, Prague, Johannesburg or Tokyo.

Little wonder that the global punk community has rallied so fiercely around the Banda Aceh 64. When the Guardian and other major outlets picked up on the story, punk websites blew up in protest and solidarity. Propagandhi, well-known as a fiercely anarchist group for almost two decades (who also paid tribute to Bella Gahlos in 2001) was one of the first to release a statement:

"In the past Propagandhi has received letters from people in Banda Aceh and all over Indonesia so any one of these people could be the same people who have contacted us… In the off chance that they might see this post I’d like to say to all the Punks who’ve been victimized by authorities in Indonesia that we, the members of Propagandhi, are supporting you and admire that you have expressed yourselves even at your own expense."

They weren’t alone. A petition supporting the kids and released on Change.org gained over 8,500 signatures in five days. Seattle-based Aborted Society Records has announced a “mix tapes for Aceh” initiative, asking people to donate homemade mix CDs to eventually be sent to Aceh. German band Red Tape Parade have launched a similar campaign, urging their fans to send them not just CDs but ‘zines, records, shirts, pins and anything else for support.

Already, demonstrations and actions by local scenesters have taken place at Indonesian embassies and consulates in London, Moscow and Los Angeles. And in Jakarta, the Bendera Hitam punk collective protested outside the Aceh representative’s office.

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Almost as troubling as the events in Banda Aceh has been the reactions of some here in the western world–specifically the anti-Muslim bigotry that they’ve attempted to promote. Mainstream media, including the AP and Guardian, have emphasized the religious fundamentalism of Aceh’s government, meanwhile failing to provide a wider context.

For the most part, there’s been little mention of the vibrancy of Indonesia’s punk scene, its class characteristics, or the long history of harassment its endured, even in more moderate regions. And while questions are asked of Aceh’s governor, there don’t seem to be any questions asked about why the US continues to give support to a government guilty of such flagrant violations of cultural rights.

Instead, the problem is made out to be one of Sharia law, and, in turn, Islam. This has suited the “stop Islamization” crowd just fine, most of whom couldn’t care less about punk rock. Unfortunately, while many of these professional Islamophobes may be on the extreme right of the political spectrum, their ideas have become common currency, even in parts of the punk community.

PunkNews.org, an otherwise apolitical site who have nonetheless done an excellent job reporting in solidarity with the kids in Aceh, have been the most obvious example, albeit briefly. The site’s initial post on December 13th made the assertion that not just Aceh but all of Indonesia was under Sharia — a factual error. The editors were quickly called on it, and two days later they retracted that portion of the post. Even more disheartening, though, was that they linked to Robert Spencer’s reprehensible “Jihad Watch” blog.

Spencer, who many will surely remember from his role in the hate campaign against the “Ground Zero mosque” earlier this year, never misses a chance to smear Islam as a religion of hate. Though he obviously cares not an inkling for the right to cultural expression, he inevitably released a story on Jihad Watch entitled “In Aceh, Sheena is not a punk rocker.

Spencer may be smiling at the supposed cleverness of such a title (I happen to think it’s a bit cheap and obvious). His editorializing, however, is nothing but pure bigoted vitriol:

"Aceh is a case study in how creeping Sharia works. It gets a foot in the door with promises of moderation, tolerance, and limited applications... As its proponents gain confidence, enforcement of Sharia becomes more aggressive and intrusive on private behavior, because, in truth, Sharia is a comprehensive system of governance for every aspect of human life, and knows no compartmentalization of public and private behavior... Muhammad’s well-known antipathy toward musical instruments can’t help."

One might wonder which part of his own ass Spencer pulled this argument out of, but it’s hard to tell with his head still up there. He is willfully oblivious to the similarity his description holds with any form of religious fundamentalism, and to how such extreme ideas are more a tool of state repression rather than the root. Look, for example, at how the Christian fundamentalism of John Ashcroft and George W Bush ran perfect cover for the crimes at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

Spencer also deliberately ignores that what we have come to refer to as “Sharia” was, for most of its history, a set of clerical guidelines for living and governing rather than a political dogma. Deepa Kumar, in a recent article on political Islam, distinguishes: “While the clergy insisted that the potent rule society in a way that conformed to Sharia law, they viewed their role as censures of a bad ruler rather than rulers themselves.”

In other words, religious ideologies are bent to political agendas; not the other way round. As for the assertion that Muhammad hated musical instruments, it’s groundless. While zealous sects have interpreted it as such over the past hundred or so years, most mainstream Islamic scholars are in agreement that it was only vulgar songs that were proscribed; what counts as vulgar is open to interpretation. Muhammad was known to have musicians play and sing at his wedding.

The editors of PunkNews.org never responded to an email calling them on the inclusion of the link to Robert Spencer’s blog. They did, however, sever the link the next day. Once again, this is to their credit. However, if a reputable punk site can link to a blog like this without thinking twice, it reveals just how deep Islamophobia runs through post-9/11 America.

What makes this so especially tragic is that there is a brilliant history within punk of fighting bigotry. The very existence of a thriving Indonesian punk scene proves that it long ago ceased being a “white boy thing.” Back here on this side of the pond, there are punkers of every race and creed--from the Afro-punk movement to Chicano and Latino communities to yes, even Muslim punks.

Tanzila Ahmed, a Los Angeles activist and writer, lays it out straight up. “In America, being Muslim is an act of defiance,” says Ahmed. “That’s punk.” Ahmed, or “Taz” as she prefers to be called, runs the Taqwacore Webzine.

For the uninitiated, “Taqwacore” is the name for the movement of openly Muslim punk rockers that has taken hold over the past decade in North America. Since writer Michael Muhammad Knight’s 2002 novel The Taqwacores, the scene has coalesced around bands like Al Thawra and the Kominas. In 2010, director Omar Majeed released the documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, currently making the rounds at festivals around the world.

In a commentary on the site, Ahmed puts her identity, her faith, and the idiocy of both the Aceh “Sharia police” and American Islamophobia, all in perspective:

"My baptism wasn’t by lake water but by fire, avoiding the glares of Christian fundamentalists with their barking dogs on the street corner protesting outside my American mosque, or being pulled out by TSA in airport security lines. My Islamic baptism happens when I watch my back for hate-crimes when walking down the street defiantly brown in a white America or when I get told by drunk bigots at parties to go back to where I came from. My boycott these days is of a hardware supply store for not supporting a reality show. That is the American Muslim punk baptism right there."

Taz’s experience--absorbing the sneers of a repressive society bent on shoving you into a box--isn’t unique among punks. And it’s certainly not unique among Muslims. It could justifiably be said that Taqwacore kids bear a double burden. One of the most poignant and enraging scenes in Majeed’s doc is when a Detroit club cancels a Taqwa gig, claiming they’re wary of “the Muslim thing”.

It goes without saying that the righteous indignation that Spencer spewed out against the raid in Banda Aceh doesn’t extend to the kids who have their shows shut down thanks to anti-Muslim bigotry. Neither for the punks thrown in prison in Indonesia’s more “moderate” provinces, squatters evicted from viable homes in London’s St. Agnes Place in 2005 or the countless gigs shut down by cops every year in Europe and America.

For the most part, the response to the arrests in Aceh among punks in the west has dodged this kind of blatant anti-Muslim bigotry. Even before PunkNews.org severed the link to Jihad Watch, people who left comments like “Fuck Islam. If I could put a picture of Muhammed [sic] here I would” were quickly rebuked by several other visitors to the site. Perhaps that’s because the instinct among punks--that repression is repression is repression--continues to ring true. And with it the time-honored suspicion of well-dressed people with cowardly ideas.

In the midst of all this, it’s worth stepping back and asking why, thirty-five years after the Sex Pistols first called Bill Grundy a “dirty fucker” on national television, despite so many attempts to sanitize and market it, punk can still be a threat. Indeed, how is it that this culture hasn’t only refused to fade into oblivion, but found its niche in almost every nation on the planet?

Ultimately, it’s because amidst the crumbling economic casualties of corporate globalization there continues to be a vast, pulsing mass of human beings sick of being pushed to the margins. The flip-side of that coin, then, must be that these indignant many deserve to run the world for themselves--be they black, brown or white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist. It’s a dream that throughout history has been called a utopian pipe dream. But then, is there anything more punk than making the impossible possible?

First published at Dissident Voice.

Happy Holidays From Jail Guitar Doors!

2011-12-20T12:23:00.001-05:00

If anyone is still trying to figure out a last-minute Holiday gift then they should by all means consider a poster, t-shirt, cap or belt buckle from Jail Guitar Doors.

Not only are the graphics on these pretty bad-ass, but the proceeds go to a damned good cause: buying musical instruments, equipment and lessons for prison inmates. It's a project that originally got its start in the UK thanks to Billy Bragg, but was also picked up in 2009 on this side of the pond.

Here's a message on the merch from the legendary Wayne Kramer, former guitarist from the MC5 and spearhead of JGD:

"I know prison reform isn't exactly at the top of the list of favorite topics of conversation during the holidays. We all have busy lives and there's plenty in the world to be concerned about, but I also know that there are a lot of people who are interested in seeing our country live up to its precious principles of justice and equality. So, Jail Guitar Doors is making this conversation one about positive change, and you can help us by joining in to carry the message. If you'd like to support the JGD-USA mission, consider this fine gift for your justice loving friends and family who also happen to rock."

Hitched to War and Bigotry

2011-12-19T10:18:00.002-05:00

There are two types of atheists in the world. One is the kind for whom atheism is a means to an end. They observe the injustice in the world as a basic affront to reason, and thus see within this context their refusal to believe in a traditional higher power. It’s an incredibly humanistic urge: that the attempts to turn poverty, war and inequality into some kind of universal truth should be destined for the dustbin of history.

For these people, atheism is merely one aspect of a desire for a profoundly better world where human potential is filled in the here and now, not in some far-off heaven. Think of the atheist espoused by John Lennon when he urged us to “imagine no religion,” and you start to get a sense for what I’m talking about.

Then there are those atheists who behave more like petulant children being ignored at an adult dinner party. “Look over here,” they scream. “I’m an atheist and that’s more important than anything else! I’m right and all of you are idiotic chumps for not realizing it!”

For these people, everyone who believes in God is simply brainwashed and worthy of sneering contempt--no matter if they are your run-of-the-mill Evangelical or a liberation theologian culling the radical Jesus in a the fight against poverty. It’s an elitist kind of posture; their atheism doesn’t advance anyone’s cause, nor is it designed to. It’s designed to make them feel special. Despite their rationalistic veneer, no amount of reason or logic can puncture their smugness.

Christopher Hitchens is a rare thing. During his lifetime he went from being the first kind of atheist to the second. And on the way down he hit a particularly nasty branch on the ugly tree; it’s this branch that turned him into a remarkably un-reconstructed, arrogant, chest-thumping neo-con.

His loss of any meaningful rooting in real and meaningful humanism is what allowed him to stump for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq with an almost gleeful bloodlust, and call for the imprisonment of anti-war Members of Parliament like George Galloway. It’s what allowed him to equivocate in the “Ground Zero Mosque” debate, running cover for the bigots (many of them devout Christians) and calling Islamophobia a “fake term.” Plenty of solid writers have had their legacies soiled by being lured into the embrace of the establishment; that never makes it easier to witness.

When I first became an activist, I read Hitchens’ “Minority Report” column in The Nation religiously, if you’ll pardon the unfortunate turn of phrase. Call it a collision between my deep love of a well-written word and my burgeoning radicalism that naturally attracted me to his articles. Even by this moment, Hitch had poked more than a few holes in his leftist creds (supporting war in the Balkans, backing impeachment proceedings against Clinton on ostensibly left-wing grounds).

But there were plenty of other laudable moments. Before the first Gulf War, Hitchens had embarrassed a virulently pro-invasion Charlton Heston by asking him to name all of the countries bordering Iraq going clockwise; Heston couldn’t. When asked on television during the 2000 elections how we should regard the race between Bush and Gore, he replied “the same way they regard you: with contempt.” It’s hard as a writer to not want to be that good.

All of that came to an end of course after 9/11, when Hitch fully embraced the role of neo-conservative ideologue. Most of his former readers were chagrined by his turn to the right and vicious war-cries against “Islamofascism,” but it also made it easier to digest his departure from The Nation.

As my own path as a writer-activist gravitated me into music journalism, I paid less and less attention to Hitchens. For one thing, his racist, pro-war rants became simply part of the chorus, albeit better written than the likes of what Cheney, Rumsfeld and certainly Bush could muster. For another, he wasn’t in my “field.” Hell, I didn’t even know if Hitch listened to music.

There was, however, one exception, and it came in the months after the invasion of Iraq--the country Hitchens had once defended against the US’ imperial designs. Countless pundits joined in the witch-hunt that erupted after the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines said she the group “do not want this war, this violence,” and that they were “ashamed” George Bush was from their native Texas. Radio stations banned them, their CDs were steamrolled in public, Lipton dropped them as a sponsor.

Hitchens felt compelled to join in with this abuse. At a debate on the war in June 2003 he was asked asked about the Dixie Chicks and burst into an angry tirade: “Each day they dig up dead bodies in personal death camps run by a Caligula dictator, and I’m being asked to worry about these fucking fat slags--do me a favor!” Later that day, at another panel, he renewed his vindictive, calling the group “sluts.”

In this one sequence of sentences, Hitchens had finally broken with the eloquence and subtlety that had once made him respected among most rabble-rousers. This was a man who had spent the past two years fishing for every single argument he could pull out of his bag to support the US’ war on the Muslim world--including the charge that they “objectify women.” And yet, here he was displaying the same vitriol his supposed enemies were accused of. It was clumsy, it was cheap, and it was also very, very sexist.

It’s all this that makes me very glad that he never had a chance to comment on the detention of Indonesian punks in the name of “Shariah law.” Of course, nobody can know what a dead man is thinking, but the neo-con version of Hitch never missed an opportunity to pompously draw attention to “Islamic depravity.”

Hitchens had moved away from his own Trotskyist beginnings by the time punk began to take root around ‘76 or so, and it’s a good bet he never knew anything about it. But as the bottom-feeding Robert Spencer has already shown with his own writings, one doesn’t have to know a damn thing about punk rock to use it for your own nefarious purposes. Spencer, Pamela Geller and other professional Islamophobes have unsurprisingly written fawning obits for Hitch since his demise; after all, his use of the bully pulpit to thump hard against Islam opened the door for knuckle-draggers of their ilk.

All of this makes his story run deeper than simply going from the left to the right or anti-war to pro-war. It’s the story of a man who became everything he once ostensibly hated. Hitchens always tried to couch his turncoat-isms in some sense of continuity, hoping to pull one over on his readers. What he never got was that the rest of the world is a lot smarter than he thought. When he let his vitriol fly during his last decade, his unapologetic elitism was on undeniable display. And it’s something of a tragedy that this might be what he’s ultimately most remembered for.

First published at SOCIARTS.

BDS Update: Rock Against Apartheid

2011-12-16T13:49:00.008-05:00

One might be forgiven for being a little perplexed by someone like Joe Lynn Turner jumping onto the international call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel. The list of artists he's recorded with is long and impressive (over 60 albums), but it doesn't exactly scream "political." Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Yngwie Malmsteen... you get the point. I mean come on, look at that picture!

If someone like Turner is cancelling his shows in Tel Aviv, then it once again speaks to how deep this campaign is reaching. Tonight would have been the date of Turner's gig at the Reading Club. And yet, according to the Refrain Playing Israel website, Turner cancelled last-minute. Turner has yet to release a public statement, but given the last-minute nature of his pull-out, Reading Club will be losing a lot of money, and that does indeed send a message.

Far harder to accomplish will be the campaign to get the Red Hot Chili Peppers to cancel their show in September. Next year will most surely be a full one for proponents of BDS!

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No, I don't have anything to say about the death of Christopher Hitchens.

Update: I've changed my mind. Yes, I do have something to say about him. The media chorus is nauseating, and deserves to be punctured. Look for an article next week.

Islamophobia Ain't Punk... Or Hip-Hop

2011-12-15T18:06:00.004-05:00

It very well may be that Russell Simmons has his own agenda buying up ad space to promote his own RushCard on TLC's "All American Muslim" TV show. MLive.com's Aaron Foley makes a very good point about the risks of "pre-paid debit cards," which stand to make a lot of money for companies that issue them (a la Russell Simmons) but incur heavy fees for individuals using them. It shouldn't be forgotten that Simmons is, after all, a hip-hop capitalist before being a hip-hop activist.

That being said, one can't deny that there is definitely an anti-racist component here; Simmons does indeed have a history of standing up against anti-Muslim bigotry the way few other moguls in any genre have been able to muster. And so, when Simmons announced that he's be stepping in to fill the void left by Lowe's home improvement after they pulled their ads from the TV show featuring five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, it's hard to resist admitting that it looks good on hip-hop.

More important is how Simmons' actions may possibly open the door for more concrete acts of solidarity with the Islamic community in the US. Videos like the one from the Narycist and Shadia Mansour below (which express a proud identity and willingness to fight for it better than Simmons ever could). Absolutely, anyone seeking to fight religious bigotry in the US should boycott Lowe's, but with news of the "Shariah police" raid on a recent punk gig in Indonesia, the Islamophobia in the music world may be about to take a big step up. It's important that any fan of real rebel music--punk, rap, whatever--be ready to beat it back.

There will be an article taking on the recent events in Indonesia, hopefully published by the holiday break. Keep checking in here at RF.

Bono: Silencing the Truth

2011-12-14T13:02:00.008-05:00

Looks like the rabbit-hole of Bono's manipulation never ends. A recent email sent out by Dave Marsh and the folks at Rock & Rap Confidential reports that an Irish writer, Sean O'Nuallain, has been essentially "banned" from Wikipedia for attempting to add in truthful facts on U2's info page.

In particular was pointing out that U2's rise to fame was greatly aided by their management's willingness to silence other Irish acts. Their front label, Mother Records, has for several years (despite supposedly having shut down in 2000) signed countless Irish independent artists and then simply warehoused them, refusing to distribute these acts and tying them into contracts they can't get out of. It's a time-tested tactic in the music industry: silence artists that threaten your biggest money-makers.

An email sent out just today from RRC puts the silencing of O'Nuallain in context. Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm principally owned by Bono, has already donated close to a million dollars to Wikipedia. Of course, the singer has always been intensely dodgy about being confronted on the content of his Kipling-esque ONE campaign. Now it seems he can't even be bothered to answer questions of how exactly he got to where he is in the first place. It would appear, if these reports are true, that he got there the exact same way the rest of the one percent did: lie, cheat, steal.

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My article summing up this year's most important songs was republished today at SocialistWorker.org. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. And feel free to get swept up in the holiday spirit by donating to Rebel Frequencies too.

This World Ends Now...

2011-12-13T12:14:00.003-05:00

There is something very timely about listening to Lupe Fiasco’s new mixtape at this point in time. Part of it is obviously deliberate, dripping from the tape’s words and beats. Part of it is also, for lack of a better term, coincidental, the kind of happy half-accident that’s bound to arise when a grassroots movement captures the attention of people around the globe.

A few days before Lupe made Friend of the People: I Fight Evil. available--online, for free, over the Thanksgiving break--I had cracked open Jared Ball’s recent book I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto. Ball, a professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore and frequent contributor to the Black Agenda Report, puts forth a main point in the book that surely isn’t lost on hip-hop’s most faithful: that the mixtape, “rap music’s original mass medium” as he calls it, is one of the few avenues where radical, bottom-up ideas can be expressed without the meddling censorship of the music industry.

Says Ball:

"Unlike other popular forms of mass media today, the mixtape remains among the most viable spaces for the practice of emancipatory journalism and inclusion of dissident music or cultural expression. With few exceptions, the intentionally designed structure of commercial radio [as well as the record business -AB] exempts that space for any such content."

There are plenty of artists who know this first-hand, countless MCs who despite talent out their ears have been deemed too “controversial” by the biz. And as Lupe can attest, even those lucky few with a contract have no guaranteed freedom of speech. A version of Friend of the People was meant to hit the ‘Net last Christmas. But, presumably because of the two-year wrangling between Lupe and Atlantic Records over the content of his album Lasers, the mixtape was delayed indefinitely.

Even after Atlantic finally agreed, under threat of protests outside their headquarters, to release the album, its content was quite obviously compromised by record label meddling. Lupe himself admitted that this harrowing process, not rare in the music industry, took such a large toll that he was for a time thrust into full-blown depression.

The Lupe we hear on Friend of the People, however, is much different than that of Lasers. Right out of the gate we’re exposed to a melange of quotes from Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, and news soundbites of the crackdown at Occupy UC Davis. These are near-textbook examples of Ball’s emancipatory mixtape journalism--unabashedly radical and seamlessly interwoven with the content of the music.

The whole feel of Friend is one that runs the gamut between impending meltdown and plain-spoken, steadfast humanity. Sampled beats--the rusted-factory electronica of Justice, the longing shoegaze of M83, even John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”--are notably un-fucked-with, adding an extra air of underground, spur-of-the-moment guerrilla musicality.

And in case there’s any confusion about Lupe shaking off his own restrictions, he directs a few barbs against his own label on the opening track that no doubt make folks like Professor Ball smile and nod:

"You can stick that 360 between your ass-cheeks
Artists let’s mobilize and unionize like the athletes
Radio is making our craft weak
Forced to repeat the same dumb shit that work
Only as hot as your last beat
And rappers, they relating to that last piece"

The “360” is in reference to the “360 Deal,” an increasingly utilized contract giving labels not only a slice of album sales, but merchandise, ticket sales and just about anything else an artist does. It’s a contract format “innovated” in recent years by--you guessed it--Atlantic Records, who are no doubt a bit uncomfortable with one of their biggest acts dropping the U-word.

So what’s happened to transform Lupe from an embattled, seemingly isolated MC into one willing to so fiercely “bite the hand that feeds him”? In a word, Occupy. Lupe was one of the first to publicly support this new movement, donating tents, writing poetry in support of it, showing up to demonstrate shoulder-to-shoulder with occupiers in Los Angeles, Chicago and a handful of other cities.

His performance on the BET Hip-Hop Awards, decked out in an “#Occupy” t-shirt with a Palestinian flag draped on his microphone, has already become one of the most iconic moments in music of the past year. It has also come to represent a shift in the way ordinary people are approaching politics, economics, and even culture. Word is that the broadcast of the performance even played an indirect role in inspiring young activists to become involved in Occupy the Hood.

Friend of the People’s content doesn’t limit itself only to the straight political, though that’s undeniably there. Rather, the politics are only one part of a much wider missive incorporating Lupe’s pains, fears, hopes, his most vivid memories, and madcap musings on a whole variety of topics. From spinning his favorite scenes in the movie Friday into a somehow melancholy ending note (“Double Burger With Cheese”) to ruminations on the hardships of being a self-aware working musician (“Lightwork”).

In other words, contrasting with the quasi-sanitized content of Lasers, Friend comes off as Lupe conversing directly with his fans without the label’s interference. Warts and all. There is, obviously, something inherently more democratic about that — not to mention more exciting. Heard in the right context, Friend is an all-too-short glimpse on what music might look like without the one percent.

And so it’s appropriate that he end Friend of the People with what might be the mixtape’s most brilliant moment: “The End of the World.” Such a title might lead us to think we’re being left on a downer. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a more intensely uplifting and hopeful note than this track:

"The people, united, will never be defeated
And on the People’s Mic will this forever be repeated
Whose streets? Our streets! It’ll never be deleted
No matter how many cops that you send to try and beat it
This is revolution in the making
A rag-tag movement set to take over the nation"

In other words, it’s not the end of the world so much as it is the end of an order. An order propped up by greed, violence, racism and oppression. Whose vast majority are kept in poverty while a lucky few live in luxury, and whose soldiers are sent to die for nothing more than oil. Whose artists are lasso-ed into writing songs that sell before writing songs that count. If this is the world whose end is imminent, and if, as the chant goes, a better world is possible, we can all agree with Lupe that it’s about damned time.

First published at Dissident Voice.

Michele Bachmann and NBC: Roots of All Evil

2011-12-12T17:07:00.006-05:00

One doesn't have to defend or approve of the not-so-thin sexism in a song title like Fishbone's "Lyin' Ass Bitch" to know it's just a straight-up good song. Recognizing the song's shortcomings also doesn't prevent this writer from laughing it up at the knowledge that the Roots used it as the walk-on music for Michele Bachmann during her appearance on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon."

Since Bachmann obliviously walked on to Fallon's show as a guest last month, the Roots have since been forced to make a public apology to her, and now have to have all their songs cleared by NBC honchos before taping. Fallon has also issued an apology along with NBC executives. Bachmann has predictably expressed her dissatisfaction with the apologies, calling the whole incident "inappropriate, outrageous and disrespectful."

Ultimately, this whole situation is upside down. NBC obviously don't see anything "disrespectful" in giving a platform to a politician whose entire agenda is based on, well, lies. Why was there no apology issued to the network's LGBTQ viewers for having on someone who thinks gays should be "cured"? Why was there no mea culpa for the network's viewers of color distancing the show from Bachmann's endorsement of a document saying Black families were better off under slavery?

These are all, apparently, beyond the pale for television execs. The more appropriate response, in their eyes, is to simply tighten the censorship rope around the necks of TV's best late night house band.

The Sound of a Shutdown!

2011-12-09T13:58:00.003-05:00

Monday is an important day for both the Occupy and labor movements. Don't take my word for it; listen to what Mr. Boots Riley has to say about it. All out!

The Nine Most Important Songs of 2011

2011-12-08T15:22:00.004-05:00

Top Ten lists are of course, all the rage in our culture. This list is in no particular order of importance, but more to the point: why is it apparently incomplete? Why is this only nine, instead of the more familiar, and admittedly more round, number ten? The answer is simple: budget cuts.

Enough said, right? This was a year when the politicians, technocrats and modern barons of industry--that infamous “one percent”--were absolutely cramming austerity and poverty down our throats. Now, three years after the dawn of the Great Recession, it was hardly news to anyone that there’s something much deeper wrong with the system. As always, though, the solutions of society’s rulers has been to take it out on us rather than take responsibility for the mess they made.

This pain, however, was only one half of the story. The other half is much more inspiring: Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Spain, New York City, Oakland. These were just a handful of the locations around the world where real resistance took off in a way that hasn’t been seen in close to forty years. And so, naturally, the way this was played out in music was equally stunning. These struggles made themselves undeniably felt; from the near-center of the mainstream to the underground scenes in all corners of the globe. It’s no exaggeration to say that, while real rebel music has never completely faded into the background, 2011 saw it storm to the center of the stage with all the unpredictably chaotic glory we would expect of it.

El General, “Rais Lebled”

Mohammed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old man who immolated himself in protest against repression and poverty, is without a doubt the most important human symbol of the Tunisian revolution that overthrew the long-hated dictatorship of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. After him, however, comes Hamada Ben Amor, better known to the world as El General.

When word spread that Ben Amor had been locked up for recording a protest track, that track went viral overnight. “Rais Lebled,” also known as “Mr. President, Your People Are Dying,” was scathing toward Ben Ali. You didn’t have to understand the song’s Arabic lyrics to hear how angry Ben Amor was, or how inspired he had been to see his fellow Tunisians take to the street after twenty-three years of Ben Ali’s rule.

“Get to the streets, take a look,” he implored in his song, “People are turning mad, police are monsters / Speaking only with their batons, ‘Tac! Tac! Tac!’ they don’t care / As long as no one is there to say no / Our constitutional laws are nothing but a decoration.” Ben Ali’s thugs surely anticipated that Ben Amor would be another “disappearance” of the regime. They didn’t expect a world-wide solidarity drive that demanded he be released. He was, and the rest, including Ben Ali, is history. The former dictator is now in exile in Saudi Arabia. Ben Amor, meanwhile, has in the past year gone from a little-known MC in Sfax to one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Lady Gaga, “Born This Way”

Three years ago, Gaga was being presented to us (by both mainstream punditry and the record industry itself) as just another flash in the pan pop star whose admittedly shocking and unorthodox style was little more than gimmick. “Born This Way,” contradictions and all, showed that to not be the case, and there are a few things about the song that made it resonate.

First is the obvious shout-out to Gaga’s queer fan-base--not to be taken lightly nowadays, when non-straight folks are still treated like second-class citizens in the US. Second is what that conscious breaking of the mold represents broadly in the music industry. This is assuredly a ready-made club track, and Gaga without a doubt a pop artist. The way she has approached both--with real chops and a now-iconic subversiveness--is what stands out. This is a female artist well-aware of the ways in which others like her have been transformed into eye-candy for straight men and has, torpedoes be damned, set out to find creative ways to skewer that nasty sexism from the inside.

It’s this that has put the machinations of the industry in a sticky situation. For years, executives have been insisting that pop music can’t fly its freak-flag and move units at the same time. Gaga not only proved how out-of-touch this notion is, but proved that real, off-the-norm artists can actually have real staying power in the music world despite all the meddling of these same execs. It might be just a beginning, but a beginning is enough to build on.

Arabian Knightz, “Rebel”

If the music of El General provided the hip-hop soundtrack for the Tunisian revolt, then Arabian Knightz are his Egyptian counterparts. For years, Arabian Knightz--credited as one of the first hip-hop groups in Egypt--struggled against censorship and outright intimidation from Hosni Mubarak’s regime. According to Sphinx, one of AK’s three MCs, Mubarak’s cabal were openly repressive toward all art: “There are a lot of poets in Egypt that really dig against the government. There are some of them that are still in jail until recently because of their poetry! So it was all forms of art; artists who would paint pictures about Egyptian politics, cartoonists that would go to jail, bloggers that would go to jail, everything!”

That began to change after the Egyptian masses took the streets demanding Mubarak’s ouster. It changed for artists in general, and it changed for Arabian Knightz in particular. First came their Internet release of “Not Your Prisoner,” a four-year-old song that the group had never been able to officially release until that moment. After that track took off in popularity, AK quickly laid down “Rebel,” piecing together samples of Lauryn Hill with their own Arabic and English rhymes demanding an end to corruption and poverty, and calling for real people power and Arab unity on the streets.

Within minutes of releasing the song online, Mubarak’s regime shut down Egypt’s Internet for a week. But it was too late; the die had clearly been cast. Mubarak stepped down not long after--the second North African dictator toppled by revolution in a month--and Arabian Knightz had become, along with El General, the new world-renowned faces of a young, vibrant and militant Arab hip-hop.

The Nightwatchman, “Union Town”

Around the time that Mubarak was losing his final, tenuous grips on power, Tom Morello was at home half a world away watching the events on television. When the footage switched to a hundred thousand union workers and their supporters marching on the Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol to protest the governor’s draconian anti-worker legislation, he looked at his pregnant wife and said “Honey, our boys are gonna grow up to be union men.” According to Morello his wife simply sighed and replied “The Nightwatchman is needed. You should go.”

And go he did. Morello, in his Nightwatchman alter-ego, was one of literally dozens of artists who flew in from around the US to play for the workers and activists occupying the Capitol to defeat Scott Walker’s bill stripping state unions of their rights. And hundreds of other sent messages of support. In the aftermath what he jokingly called his “Frostbite and Freedom Tour,” he sat down to write this song: “Union Town.” In some ways, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the Nightwatchman--steadfast, relatively bare-bones rebel folk. But his calls of “we’ll give ‘em hell every time” is also nicely complimented by some of his signature, face-melting Rage-esque guitar solos.

One of the reasons Morello said he began writing as the Nightwatchman was that today’s protests seemed dominated by “these kind of old ‘Kumbaya’ jams. We need songs for right now!” It seems safe to say that these “right now” songs have been so few and far between is because America has for so long been dogged by such low and sporadic class struggle. The fight in Wisconsin--though ultimately unsuccessful--and songs like “Union Town” represented a moment when all of that changed.

Lethal Bizzle, “Pow 2011”

Lethal Bizzle has a real knack for being on the cutting edge of British rebel rap. This was a song released originally last December as an intended anthem for the student protests against the Conservative government’s education cuts. With its near-hypnotic chop-screw beat--signature of UK grime--and aggressive lyrics, it’s little wonder the track was taken up so enthusiastically by the young, left-behind masses willing to do battle with the cops.

The same can be said for the song’s resurgence during the urban uprisings that swept England like wildfire this past summer. Here’s a song that sounds not only like urban decay, but like the thousands of young kids picking up the crumbling shards of their housing estate and chucking them right at David Cameron’s forehead. Of course, in the aftermath of the riots, Bizzle was one of the most unapologetic, vocal and principled rappers defending his art-form against the culture-warriors looking to spin the blame back on hip-hop.

In many ways, “Pow 2011” revealed a whole host of those amazing coincidences that abound when music collides with real, on the streets rebellion. Of course, Bizzle had no clue that his song would be embraced during the “dubstep rebellions” of late 2010, let alone that it would have a notable resurgence this past summer. It did, however. And that’s certainly to his credit.

Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett, “Body and Soul”

Everyone who appreciated Amy Winehouse’s soulfully tortured voice had been hoping for some time that she would eventually conquer her demons. Admittedly, it hadn’t looked good for some time, but the sporadic rumors of a new album were enough to keep hopes alive. On July 23rd, however, those hopes were given the final dash.

“Body and Soul” was the last song that Winehouse ever recorded--a duet with Tony Bennett. Released by her family on what would have been her 28th birthday--September 14th--it was our first glimpse at the final batch of songs that more recently hit the shelves. Lioness: Hidden Treasures, gives the listener a sense of Winehouse’s intense and broad love of literally almost every genre: from pop-rock to soul to Jamaican ska. Bennett’s own experiences of recording this song in particular certainly reflect the dark place she had now irrevocably entered. Says Bennett: “she knew that she was in a lot of trouble; that she wasn’t going to live.” And it’s hard to hear her croon “it looks like the ending” without noting that simultaneous love for music and pain of life sung back to you.

It’s certainly a jazz standard, and comes across as such. Given, it doesn’t exactly come across with Winehouse’s signature bad-girl soulfulness. Listening to her part of the song, however, sung in her one-of-a-kind smokiness, it’s hard to not hear the poignancy of having lost a young voice whose final curtain call came way too soon this year.

Jasiri X, “I Am Troy Davis (T.R.O.Y.)”

Nobody on America’s brutal and shameful Death Rows has garnered so much support since Stan Tookie Williams. The reasons are obvious: no evidence, most witnesses recanted their testimony, the victim was a white cop killed by a Black man in the South. In the last weeks of his life, Troy Davis became an international symbol of not just the blatant racism and injustice he personally endured, but for countless prisoners locked up across the United States who are viewed as little more than pawns for politicians scoring law-and-order points.

Given that Davis’ case had gained international attention, it made sense that artists and musicians from Japan to France to Los Angeles came forward demanding he not be executed. Jasiri X was nowhere near the most well-known of these artists, but his song--recorded and released once again via the ‘Net--nonetheless garnered him wide attention. The past few years have seen Jasiri make an irreproachable credibility among the militant hip-hop community; he’s released joints protesting the police deaths of Sean Bell and Oscar Grant, and was among the many artists who traveled to Wisconsin to deliver solidarity to the struggle there.

“I Am Troy Davis” reminds us yet again why Jasiri has earned that cred. He has a clear knack for working on a moment’s notice when the struggle demands it. Within days of Davis’ death warrant being handed down, this song was written, recorded, and set to the video posted online. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that Jasiri can strike that perfect balance between smooth flow and confident rhymes rooted in an organic political urgency. Of course, Troy is no longer with us. Neither is his amazing crusading sister, Martina Correia. As long as there are MCs like Jasiri X around, though, it seems certain that the struggle both of them built will, as always, continue.

Lupe Fiasco, “Words I Never Said”

Here is a song that was already controversial when it was originally released in March. Lupe Fiasco had already been somewhat under the gun in his struggles with Atlantic Records to even release Lasers in the first place. When it was reported that the lead single “Words I Never Said” would include the line “Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist / Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit,” most mainstream outlets instantly made themselves look stupid (and more than a bit racist) by wondering why a rapper was criticizing Obama.

Then came the performance at the BET Hip-Hop Awards. It was a few weeks after the Occupy movement had taken hold in almost every major American city, and Lupe was performing the song with an “#Occupy” t-shirt, a Palestinian flag on his mic, and Erykah Badu singing in a burqa. Since then, Lupe has become something like the de facto musical mascot of Occupy, and this song intimately interwoven with its admittedly short history.

Lupe’s lyrics play at a similar point to that of his performance. In it he takes on the reality of ghetto life, the housing crisis, the “bullshit” war on terror and, of course, the sell-outs of Obama. Wrapped in all of this is the simple statement that has certainly been taken to heart by countless young people in the past several months: “If you don’t become an actor, you’ll never be a factor.” And in fact, all of these elements taken as a whole reveal a striking parallel to what the Occupy movement itself is confronting. You can say that the song is “unfocused,” or “unclear in its message,” but that pig-headed excuse misses the larger point: it’s the whole damned system. Tear it down.

Miley Cyrus, “Liberty Walk”

One thing should be made clear at the outset: there is, at least as of now, no reason to believe that Miley Cyrus--one of the biggest money-makers of the pop mainstream--is undergoing some massive artistic or political transformation. But during times of ascendant social movements, even the most sheltered, common-denominator artists can’t help but be affected. In the ‘60s, one example was Marianne Faithful, who went from sanitized girl-next-door to being arrested with Mick Jagger on drug charges and speaking out against the Vietnam War.

That’s the significance of “Liberty Walk,” Cyrus’ attempt at reaching out to the global Occupy movement. Artistically there is nothing of note here--the lyrics are shallow, the music seems to revel in its own mediocrity. And it’s been so processed as to render Cyrus’ already unremarkable singing voice without even the slightest tinge of soul. In other words, it sounds exactly how the one percent want our music to sound. When that same one percent feels no choice but to allow one of their most guaranteed commodities (and that is surely the way they view Cyrus) to support a movement that threatens their very existence, something is clearly in the air.

And really, you have to be under a rock to not get a whiff of it. Revolution, riot, resistance popping off in city after city, country after country. It has, undeniably, its own feel, its own iconic images, and yes, its own soundtrack. No longer is it quite so easy for the suits and execs to so easily turn their nose up at what happens in the world at large. No longer can they so quickly dismiss the fact that ordinary people are sick of the music business as usual.

Certainly, the kind of rebellion we’ve seen pour onto the world’s streets this past year has made actual living resistance (and not its fake, marketed variety) cool. Whether it can be ultimately commodified, its rough edges filed off and shrink-wrapped for safe consumption really does come down to our own actions and organization in the coming year.

First published at SOCIARTS.

You'll Never Silence the Voice of the Voiceless

2011-12-07T17:03:00.004-05:00

Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence was dropped today. Anyone who has spent any time trying to get campaigning around this most high-profile of cases is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief right now. Of course, it's never been about one lone former Black Panther--no matter how crucial his own political journalism has been. It's about the fact that if America can frame-up and execute that Panther as payback for standing up and speaking out against the racism of a city's police force, then they can do it to anyone bold enough to do the same. Now, with this announcement, it appears that perhaps the state feels less sure of itself than it did before, if only a little bit. In a time when victories are still measured in inches, a little bit can go a long way.

None of this means the struggle is over. When Philly's District Attorney Seth Williams announced today that the city will no longer attempt to have Mumia ruthlessly killed, Williams also put forth that he fully intends to keep this award-winning journalist caged for the rest of his life: "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."

Challenge accepted, Mr. Williams. In the meantime, as a celebration, feast the ear-drums on this. As Zack says, "my Panther, my brother, we are at war until you're free."

My article on how the Occupy movement is potentially changing the face of our music was republished at SocialistWorker.org today. If you haven't read it, then by all means please do. And don't forget to subscribe!

BDS Update: Israel and Springsteen Have Nothing In Common

2011-12-06T12:59:00.008-05:00

The campaign against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) has been in overdrive for quite some time--really ever since last summer when the attack on the Mavi Marmara prompted several high-profile artists to pull out of committed gigs. Though the scale and sheer number of acts nowadays hasn't quite recaptured that of 2010, the cancellations of Natacha Atlas, Tuba Skinny, and others has nonetheless kept Israeli concert promoters very nervous.

This letter, however, from David Brinn at the ISRAEL21c blog and republished at the Jerusalem Post, truly smacks of desperation. In it, Brinn directly addresses Bruce Springsteen, urging him to play in Israel. Springsteen has never played there before, and with the announcement of his upcoming European tour, Brinn seems to think that the time is ripe for the Boss to make his Middle East debut. Along the way, he also manages to make the case as political as possible, smearing and jabbing at the global BDS movement:

"[L]et’s not forget the headaches that await you with the 'boycott Israel' campaign folks who will be jamming your website and management with pleas, threats and calls to avoid playing in 'apartheid' Israel."

Of course, Brinn forgets to mention that nobody officially connected with any legitimate BDS group has ever delivered what one could credibly call a "threat" to their campaign targets. That, however, is really the least of Brinn's offenses against the facts. He continues:

"Your music and career have always been about grand gestures and small moments: the triumph of human spirit and battling against adversity, the celebration of life and freedom amid the realization of what the costs of such triumphs are.

"Those are the same qualities that Israel embodies--nobody knows about struggling with adversity and overcoming insurmountable obstacles better than we do, just as nobody has captured the concept of bittersweet joy as often as we have."

In other words, Israel, who have the fourth-largest military on the planet, the only country in the Middle East verified to have an operational nuclear arsenal, and backed to the hilt by the US, Britain, France, Germany and most of the Western powers, is somehow the underdog. Wow. As if to completely hammer home how clumsily this author has to grapple to make the point fit, he actually says at one point that Israel is "the Bruce Springsteen of the Middle East."

Irony of ironies is that Brinn acknowledges in his letter that Springsteen knows very well how to protect his songs from being appropriated by nefarious interests--in particular when Bruce spoke up against Reagan's usage of "Born In the USA" during his election campaign. Why exactly this writer thinks this would be any different, especially in a time when Israeli concert promoters are open about the propaganda role they play, isn't clear.

Perhaps the most telling part of Brinn's letter is a passage that's not even there anymore. According to Philip Weiss of the blog MondoWeiss, one commenter at ISRAEL21c pointed out an "unfortunate typo," which switched the word "adversity" for "diversity." The mistake made one sentence appear to say that Israel has "battled against diversity."

That about sums it up. Israel, as a state backed by Western empire, built on the ethnic cleansing of upwards of a million Palestinians, hasn't struggled "against adversity." It has, however, struggled against democracy--particularly democracy in Palestine. As everyone knows, one of the crucial characteristics in any democracy is diversity. Brinn's own Freudian slip speaks more volumes than his entire attempt at rebranding an apartheid state possibly can.

Best Book(s) of the Year

2011-12-05T13:14:00.003-05:00

The folks at Green Left Weekly in Australia asked me for my favorite book on music of 2011. As you can see below, I had some real trouble choosing. There will of course be much more "best of '11" coming in the next two weeks. So be sure to keep checking in. In the meantime, if you're looking for some holiday gifts for that real rebel music fan in your life, may I recommend both of these books?

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Woody Guthrie, American Radical by Will Kaufman
University of Illinois Press, 2011

I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto by Jared Ball
AK Press, 2011

It's a tie! This year saw not one but two books that each recapture long-buried aspects of real rebel music. With revolutions popping off in the Arab world, with the Occupy movement gripping American streets and the words "general strike" no longer an abstraction, they couldn't arrive at a more crucial point.

Woody Guthrie, American Radical reclaims America's best-known folk-singer for what he was - not some naive country bumpkin, but a real, dyed-in-the-wool socialist who sought to integrate his genuine belief in a workers' world into his songs. Lots of liberal, social-patriotic myths have been spun around Guthrie; professor Will Kaufman's book sets the record straight.

In the age of the internet, the hip-hop mixtape has been reclaimed as it once was: an opportunity to speak rhymes of truth to power outside the avenues of the music biz. To spin culture back in a direction of justice and racial equity. Jared Ball's thorough, passionate book reminds us what it is that made mixtapes so vital to cultural rebellion in the first place.

The End Of a (Very Loud) Year

2011-12-02T16:25:00.001-05:00

Rebel Frequencies will be going on a much-needed vacation on December 22nd and will be returning in the New Year. There's much more to say about the music of 2011, and it will be given a thorough run-down here in the coming final two weeks of the publishing year.

This past year is going to be remembered at a year of revolt, and when such a term could viably re-enter the cultural lexicon. And like all great revolts, we've had our soundtracks--from Arab rappers to folk-singers in Madison to the hundreds of overlooked troubadours of the Occupy movement.

It will all of course be discussed here in the next two weeks--particularly in the 2011 "post-mortem" article and a piece that will particularly enumerate the year's most important songs. Next year will see a lot more to come here at RF too, from the publication of the interview with Arabian Knightz' Sphinx to a review of White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race. So after the dawn of 2012 don't forget to tune back in. Before the 22nd, though, make sure to keep checking back in.

Rock For the Arrestees

2011-12-01T12:47:00.002-05:00

The Arts & Rec committee of Occupy Chicago has officially endorsed this event, which is taking place tomorrow night. All folks in the Chicago area who want to come get down to some excellent music and donate some money to a justified cause absolutely should! There are, of course, plenty of these events coming in the long-term, but the brothers and sisters arrested on those Saturdays when we tried to take Grant Park need our help. So please make it out of you can.

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The Gala presents: Occupy Multi-Kulti!

Friday, December 2nd
Multi-Kulti, 1000 N. Milwaukee
Doors @ 6pm
21+

The constitution guarantees the right to Freedom of Assembly. In the city of Chicago alone, hundreds of people have been arrested for exercising that right. This show is a fundraiser for legal fees incurred by activists with Occupy Chicago.

Poets performing include Kevin Coval, Jamillah Woods and Al DeGenova. Music will included performances from Organic Flow, Jungle of Cities, Cole DeGenova & the Peoples Republic and Sidewalk Chalk.

Sound Strike Rising and the New "Juan Crow"

2011-11-30T16:39:00.004-05:00

With so much else happening with the Occupy movement, it's easy to miss that there is another struggle (related, as they all are) taking place in Alabama. If you know what SB 1070 has been attempting to do to immigrants and Latinos in Arizona, then you know what Alabama's HB 56. This is a bill, voted into law earlier in the year, that cuts off urgently needed social services from anyone suspected of being undocumented, legally prevents them from working or owning a home, and, of course, opens the door for racial profiling.

Also like Arizona, though, the immigrant worker community hasn't taken this draconian and racist law lying down. October 12th saw immigrant activists launch a "Day Without an Immigrant" protests modeled on the 2006 mega-demos. Various civil disobedience actions--in particular one on November 13th--has seen both documented and undocumented stand shoulder to shoulder against this law from Mobile to Montgomery and across the state.

So it's no surprise perhaps that the Sound Strike is also growing. Yes, still. It hasn't gone away, nor has it faded by any means. Most recently, it's added dead prez, Jasiri X, Invincible and others to its roster. I have to admit I was a little more than a bit surprised when I heard this a couple weeks back--not because I wouldn't think these artists, among hip-hop's most visible and radical, would sign on. Rather, because I would have thought they did it a year ago!

Of course, their presence absolutely makes a difference. Any artist willing to join the picket line and say no to playing for Arizona's apartheid makes that picket line stronger. It also, as I've mentioned in passing before, opens the possibility to extend that same picket line.

After all, with Occupy being what it is, with new labor struggles beginning to pop off around the country, the avenues of solidarity are potentially wider than they've ever been. Might Alabama's own concert industry begin to bear the brunt of its state's racism? Only time can tell, but here's to hoping.

BDS Update: No Punk for Apartheid... and No Beats Either

2011-11-29T15:17:00.007-05:00

My interview on CKUT Montreal's "Roots Rock Rebel" radio show is now available for download. Aaron Lakoff (a.k.a. "Aaron Maiden"), host and fellow signatory of Punks Against Apartheid, asks me some excellent questions about the newly launched network. The interview starts around 35 minutes in, but it's also worth listening to the whole show; Aaron's taste in ska, punk and reggae is excellent! It was a blast doing the interview and plenty of thanks directed his way are in order.

As has been said before, Punks Against Apartheid enters an exciting fray culturally and politically. The global resistance is picking up, and so are the calls for artists to not play for an apartheid state. Thus, the campaign that was recently launched trying to convince MF Doom to cancel his gig in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, Doom went forward with that show. He shouldn't have. As the letter addressed to Doom from PACBI reads:

"Many of your fans have expressed their outrage over your coming performance in Tel Aviv. In fact, a local Palestinian contemporary of yours, Boikutt Kutt, has written on your Facebook page: 'You’re performing 30 minutes from where I live but I can’t come to your show simply because I’m Palestinian. I live in a prison called the West Bank and I’m a big supporter of your music. Don’t play for the oppressor, don’t play for colonialism, don’t play Apartheid "Israel" … Stand on the right side of history and respect the Palestinian call for boycott.' We join your fans in urging you to stand up for what is right."

Natch. We're talking about hip-hop here, a music and style that developed as a cry against invisibility. Israel isn't just forcing invisibility upon the Palestinians, if they continue on their present path, they'll be forcing oblivion on them too. Such a regime can't be given artists to run cover for it.

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I'll be writing an article in the coming weeks assessing the formation and future for Punks Against Apartheid for the Electronic Intifada. So, as always, well... you know.

The Movement, the Music, and Miley's Mediocrity

2011-11-28T12:03:00.005-05:00

The music presses have been reporting--many of them with straight-faces--that Miley Cyrus has become the latest musician to release a song in support of Occupy Wall Street. As much as it may pain many of us to say it, this is just one more example of how Occupy is really transforming our music. With that being said, I'll also repeat something I've said many times before: protest music still has to be good music.

It's not cynicism to say that Miley Cyrus has long represented the absolute lowest aspects of music under a profit-driven system. Her songs are meant to be easily consumed and then mindlessly forgotten after all the money has rolled into Disney's vaults. This doesn't necessarily mean that Cyrus likes playing that role--any human being at a certain point questions whether they want to be a walking billboard or not--but it's the role she's been deemed nonetheless. Ever since she came onto the scene, she's been held on a very tight leash.

Does this mean she's somehow snapping back at the hands holding her? Probably not. It's worth keeping in mind, however, that the industry Cyrus is so deeply embedded in has already become legendary for censoring artists looking to speak out politically. For her to (perhaps) identify with the protesters, and for her record label to allow one of their highest-profile money-makers to put it in a song, really do speak to just how high this movement, with all its contradictions, is pushing.

Then again, it's entirely possible that she's simply cashing in. That's not unheard of; I'm still quite suspicious of many of music's more well-off mainstream denizens showing up to support Occupy Wall Street or the other protests. But that's the point--even Katy Perry has actually shown up, which means that for Cyrus to release a song like this without bothering to show up, without endeavoring to support the movement financially, may make the song's inherent meaning about as light as its actual content. This movement may be against the evil that money has created in the world, but that doesn't mean you still don't have to put it where your mouth is.

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It's this argument that has been trotted out a lot lately. More specifically, it's an argument that's been trotted out to cynically paint all artists standing up for the Occupy movement. It was brought up during my recent speaking engagement in Corpus Christi, and most currently, it has been the subject of a thread on my PopMatters article that appeared last Wednesday (if anyone wants to do me a solid by showing up and chiming it, it would be appreciated).

Such an argument isn't just cynical, it clumsily writes off the importance of this movement. Furthermore, it forgets that there is something separating the Perrys and Cyruses of the world from the Talib Kwelis and Ani DiFrancos. And, for that matter, separating them from the thousands of artists who have signed on to OccupyMusicians.com, most of whom aren't "names," but are solid, working artists trying to make ends meet like the rest of us.

Take, for example, Lupe Fiasco's mixtape; the one he released on Friday. Its content plumbs much deeper levels, reappropriating and twisting old and new beats into sound-bites of the UC Davis protesters and Howard Zinn's speeches and his own intricate rhymes, which tie it all together beautifully.

Folks need to just download the album. And that's the point--it's free. There's something to be said for that in this day and time. Even as it's become easier for artists of all genres and levels in the industry to put out their material online, it's still very much frowned upon by the suits. Lupe, of course, has already made clear how little he cares for what record executives have to say. After all, these are the same people who denied him the right to release his album for two years, and then twisted the material of Lasers around to a point that was tremendously unsatisfying to him as an artist. For him to release an album for free was definitely a conscious middle-finger to the one percent.

In other words, this isn't just protest music, it's rebel music. Music that willfully attempts to explore new territory and push boundaries, coming from an artist who has always sought to move and thus has always noticed his own chains. It's entirely possible that Miley Cyrus is only just starting to move, only just starting to notice, and that's to be welcomed. It should not, however, pull our attention away from the much better, much more daring forms of music that are gestating out of this incredible moment in history.

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Rebel Frequencies will publish a review of Lupe's new mixtape, as well as that coming from local Chicago punk/rap/reggae group Agents of Change, which has been similarly inspired by Occupy. So, as always, keep checking in!

The Revolution Will Be Amplified: Is the Occupy Movement Liberating Music?

2011-11-23T12:49:00.004-05:00

The October 22nd edition of The Economist carried the headline “Rage Against the Machine”. Pictured on the cover was a young man with a $20 bill taped over his mouth. Written across the bill was the hashtag “#Occupy.” The Economist is hardly a radical magazine; the article read, unsurprisingly, more as a primer for the economic elite on how to deal with the protests now sweeping the globe. It seems notable, however, and oddly fitting in some ways, that in an attempt at journalistic snark its editors ended up name-dropping a phrase most associated with that most well-known of anti-capitalist bands.

This is hardly the only place where music and politics have collided in the short weeks since a few hundred protesters set up camp on Wall Street. The month of October saw Occupy go from a media curiosity to an unavoidable cultural and political force, a worldwide movement gripping urban centers from Los Angeles to Johannesburg to Hong Kong. For music in particular, it’s become a rallying point.

Keeping count of the artists who have visited or performed at these occupations or sent messages of solidarity is simply impossible. This writer, attempting to keep count for a few hours, stopped after reaching around 400. Old and young, underground and mainstream, rap, rock, punk, electro, soul, the amount of artists inspired to lend their support is mind-boggling. In some cases, the simple addition of music has transformed these encampments of protest into full-on festivals of the oppressed.

Veteran activist and author Mike Davis, writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, asserts that the “genius” of the Occupy Movement “is that it has temporarily liberated some of the most expensive real estate in the world,” and turned countless areas heretofore under control of the world’s rulers “into a magnetic public space and catalyst for protest.” It begs the question: if our public spaces are possibly on the verge of being “liberated,” placed back into our own hands, then might our music be, too?

Free Culture?

But who says that music is in chains in the first place? Not our most visible outlets. Not MTV or VH1, not terrestrial radio (or satellite for that matter), not the pages of Rolling Stone. And certainly not the “Big Four” record labels who account for over 70 percent of the world’s music sales. After all, these are the same institutions that blacklisted 160 “questionable” songs after 9/11, have deemed avant-garde music “unmarketable” and broadcast videos from M.I.A. and System of a Down only during the most off-peak hours. And, of course, nobody needs to be reminded what the RIAA have attempted to do to those ordinary citizens whose love for music has outstripped their purse-strings.

It seems then that there are common speaking points between those who claim our culture to be “free” and those who proclaim a publicly funded park can only be inhabited during certain hours (as Mayors Quan, Emanuel and Nutter all appear to believe). Free culture? Public domain? Only for those who can afford it.

This reaches back to the center-point of the Occupy Movement: that our right to a fulfilling life shouldn’t be reserved for the better off. Jobs, education, housing, health care; these are just the beginnings. Several occupations (including in my own sweet home Chicago) are discussing demands to keep libraries open, more community centers, parks and expanded funding for school arts programs. If “another world is possible” has become one of this movement’s slogans, then the young activists pushing it forward clearly mean the whole world.

It makes sense, then, that Occupy has garnered the support of those legendary artists who already radically shaped our culture. Pete Seeger, possibly the last remaining link to the communist-led folk movement of the ‘30s, proudly marched with Occupy Wall Street and performed a free concert in Washington Square Park on 23 October.

Likewise, it’s unsurprising that Peter Yarrow, instrumental in the folk revival of the ‘60s has come down to perform at OWS. His contemporary Joan Baez has lent public support. So have Carlos Santana and the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, and it’s not hard to imagine dearly departed legends like Gil Scott-Heron or John Lennon doing the same (alas, we’ll have to be content with Lennon’s son Sean).

These are only some of the luminaries who, during that turbulent decade, made music what it is today. To be fair, they had help. This was a context aptly described by British New Left veteran Tariq Ali as one where “the entire culture had become radicalized.” He would know better than many others; he cultivated a friendship with Lennon during the artist’s most radical years. Legend has it that it was Ali who inspired Mick Jagger to write the lyrics to “Street Fighting Man”.

This broad radicalization of the culture included a lot more than the day’s most famous artists penning themes of revolution into their music. The Civil Rights and anti-war movements, with their radical notions of equality and a fundamentally different world, cracked the stultifying edifice of McCarthyism and brought with them the force of new ideas about music and culture; what had previously been fringe was pushed center-stage.

The grip of Broadway and Hollywood was decisively broken and replaced by the insurgent sounds rock, soul and folk music. Even jazz, written off as stodgy for some time, reclaimed a place in the avant-garde with artists like Charlie Haden, Archie Shepp, Abbey Lincoln, Carla Bley. Kids sick of the conformist establishment switched their radio dials from corporate-conservative AM to local, more experimental FM stations.

Mat Callahan, another veteran of the ‘60s and accomplished musician in his own right, sums up that connection between musical innovation and revolutionary fervor:

“Not only did Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles have to be ‘taken seriously’, nobody cared much about what ‘serious’ art critics had to say. The irrelevance of bourgeois art and its claims to superiority in aesthetic and social terms had become an established fact.”

So it looks today. It took the mainstream (bourgeois) press two weeks to start reporting the Occupy Movement with any kind of regularity. By that time the rumors that Radiohead were about to play a free gig at Wall Street had come and gone. Other artists known outside the avenues of big-time fame for their experimental sounds had been attracted, however. Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel had already made an appearance to perform a couple of songs. So had another indie experimenter, Kyp Malone of TV On the Radio. Though he didn’t perform any songs, Malone did have a chance to speak with the Village Voice about his take on why so many demands have been raised by the Occupy Movement: “It’s not that the message is diffuse; it’s that there isn’t one of these aspects that doesn’t have to do with the central problem: an unsustainable economic order that we’re constantly told is the highest stage of our evolution.”

TV On the Radio is hardly considered a “political” band; their radicalism is normally confined to the abject juxtaposition accomplished in their sound. And yet there was Kyp Malone, articulating an analysis that could have come from that most veterate of anti-capitalists! To be sure, Malone also grew up in San Francisco and ran in an activist milieu during his youth; his own political beliefs however have, at least in most interviews despite the notable profile and consistent critical acclaim for his music, never come up.

In some sense, however, Malone’s own radicalism (or at least progressivism) fits his music. TV On the Radio have always skated that razor-thin line between a sizable profile and acclaim from even mainstream outlets on one hand while aggressively testing the limits of musical aesthetics on the other. Even something as simple as deciding which bin their CDs are placed in the record stores has proven something of a challenge—not quite soul, not quite electronic, not quite post-punk, something altogether different.

Looking at them within the broadest context, it’s not hard to find a parallel between what TVOTR have aspired to and other ‘60s era artists like Henry Cow and Captain Beefheart, artists whose conscious attempts to integrate their radicalism into the actual sound of their music led to deliberately sticky relations with the record labels. Are Malone and the rest of TV On the Radio’s members closet militants whose own political confidence is only beginning to match that in the studio? Are there perhaps more daring, iconoclastic artists like them waiting in the wings of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Chicago or Occupy L.A.?

The answer, at least to the latter of the two, is an emphatic yes. Committees dedicated to building connections between artists and the Occupy Movement have been popping up in city after city. Facebook groups named “Occupy Art NYC” and “Occupy Daytona Beach Musicians Alliance” have sprung up and gained significant numbers of followers. Mini festivals like “OccuStock” in Providence have been slapped together from nothing but passion and donated labor. Many of the people spearheading these groups are young art students or community artists, individuals who have imbibed the subversive aesthetics of Dada and constructivism, No Wave and Jean-Michel Basquiat, psychedelia and graffiti art; they’ve dreamed of meaningful ways to push the boundaries of art itself and are now finally presented with an opportunity to do so in a collective atmosphere.

One such young person is Brian, a Chicago socialist and experimental noise artist who, since Occupy took off, has had a lot of his, shall we say, more unorthodox ideas on music confirmed. “I am impressed with the creativity of occupiers but not any more than I see in the creativity of any human being engaged in attempting to recreate its social forms. Of course cool, inventive slogans, posters, art always springs from the combination of people engaged in work together that is productive and not exploitative.”

Brian was one of the 175 some odd occupiers arrested by Chicago police in the early morning hours of 23 October for attempting to “illegally” camp in Grant Park. His own experience—that of finding something to create with, even in the stultifying atmosphere of Chicago’s unsanitary, overcrowded jails—isn’t just telling, not even just merely entertaining, but downright admirable:

“So when I was moved to a solitary cell at about four something in the morning… the thing that first made me want to start a percussion number was the fact that upon entering the cell I thought, ‘fuck, there is nothing at all in this cell; it is a cement box.’ Knowing that I was going to be there a long time I began tapping the rhythm of ‘Show me what democracy looks like’ on the walls so that the people around me could hear it...

“Then I found that the steel sink had amazing resonances and tones, deep basses and high pinging notes resembling a doumbek [an Arab goblet drum]. So I started hammering away just fucking crazy rhythms and decided it was appropriate not just for passing the time and entertaining my other comrades who were sitting in their own cells, but because drums at Occupy Chicago have played such a central role, perpetually knocking out the heartbeat of the struggle. It was fitting now that we were ‘occupying’ a jail that our struggle there be marked by a similar cadence.”

This is a commonly forgotten trope when we are taught about the music of the ‘60s and protest music in general: that, rather than artists leading the people, it is a widespread, deeply rooted social movement that buoys erstwhile “fringe” artists out of isolation and into a position of greater confidence and collaboration. When that kind of confidence and momentum gains enough steam, sometimes even the calcified structures of the music industry have to take notice.

I Believe in the People

Maybe then we shouldn’t be surprised that even the most embedded, mainstream music figures are visiting the Occupy protests. Cynics might sneer at the notion of Russell Simmons, Kanye West or Katy Perry show up to rub elbows with the tent-dwellers in Zuccotti Park, or turn their nose up to how “cool” it’s become to protest.

But that, actually, is the point. These are arguably the artists and personalities most beholden to the powers that be of the music industry (an industry that, once again, is controlled by the one percent). Perry and Simmons may have nothing to lose by strolling for a few photo ops among the masses, but there’s an air of it that also smacks of biting the hand that feeds you. If these artists are gaining the confidence to be out there in the first place, it means that the tectonic plates of our cultural are opening wide enough for real musical rebels to show their true colors.

It’s times like these where the ever-shifting lines between “mainstream” and “underground” become even more blurred. For the past several years that line has probably been the boldest in the world of hip-hop, where enough new labels are spun off every few years to give the true head an ulcer. The division between “conscious”, “bling”, “gangsta”, “backpacker” and all the rest have always said more about the needs of business than the needs of music anyway, but the unity displayed by rappers around the Occupy movement may signal that these distinctions are finally headed for the dustbin.

Two particular heavy-hitters in the underground (“conscious” is too tame a label; “militant” might be better), have already been moved to release mix-tapes primarily inspired by Occupy. #OccupyTheAirwaves, released in mid-October by Bronx duo Rebel Diaz, is what one familiar with their work would expect: thick, eclectic beats overlaid with deftly overlaid with lyrics channeled through their own Chilean revolutionary upbringing into supporting the burgeoning movement. Meanwhile, Immortal Technique, who has been a regular fixture at Occupy Wall Street since its inception, has released The Martyr, a mix-tape dripping with his signature sneering rage directed against “The Rich Man’s World (1%).”

Both mix-tapes have received almost overnight popularity—not just from the wide circuit of hip-hop sites, but from outlets who before turned a blind eye to these artists’ impressive work. On October 17th, David Mongomery of The Washington Post (whose music coverage can hardly be called “cutting edge”) featured Rebel Diaz in his piece on songs inspired by Occupy and quoted lyrics from their track “We the 99%.” The very next day, as if to highlight just how out of touch and confused the mainstream media have become, The New York Times published an article where author James C. McKinley chortled on about how Occupy Wall Street “[has] yet to find an anthem.”

For his own part, the buzz drummed up by The Martyr on the hip-hop and indie music blogs landed Immortal Technique an all-too-rare interview with MTV News where he shared a take on today’s hip-hop—and indeed the world in general—that may have made a few of the network’s execs squirm:

“As a revolutionary, there are certain aspects of the ego that have to die. We have to lose this sense of ‘self, self, self’ all the time, which is very hard because hip-hop in itself as a genre is really centered around one’s self. Like ‘I’m the best person in the world, I’m the best rapper, I’ve got more money than you.’ You know? It’s interesting to see the public’s reaction to that; they’re singing along with the lyrics like they’re the richest person, like they have money too, and then they go home to, like, a hovel!”

If Occupy has provided a platform that’s lifted hip-hop’s underground soldiers into the limelight, then so has it given mainstream artists dissatisfied with their own chains a forum with which to speak out. The best glimpse of this came not from Perry, Simmons or Kanye, but still, more than a month later, from the example of Lupe Fiasco.

A year ago, Lupe didn’t have much of a voice at all. Sure, he had Grammys under his belt and The Cool had gone gold. But he had also been battling with Atlantic Records to even get a release date for his next album. Label executives had always been clumsy at handling Lu; a straight-edge Muslim whose rhymes have always reflected his parents’ anti-establishment Black Panther politics doesn’t exactly fit with their conception of what sells, and they had repeatedly rejected the material he put in front of them. It was only after fans threatened to protest outside Atlantic’s headquarters that a March release was announced. Even then, Lupe was open about how unhappy he was with some of the material on what became Lasers.

What was seen on 11 October at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, however, was a fundamentally different Lupe Fiasco. Like The Economist, like MTV and The New York Times, BET is obviously no bastion of radicalism. In fact, there are those who argue that if any force in popular culture as come close to completely sterilizing hip-hop’s rebel spirit, it’s been Robert L. Johnson’s multimillion dollar TV empire.

And yet, somehow, in the midst of this enemy territory, Lupe managed to perform “Words I Never Said” (a song that already stirred some controversy for its unblinking criticism of Obama’s silence during the ‘09 bombardment of Gaza). Not only was he wearing a t-shirt with “#Occupy” emblazoned across the front, but with a Palestinian flag-scarf hanging from his mic stand. In the background hung a jumbo-tron bluntly flashing words like “War on terror… Bull****,” “Ghetto” and “Take Your Home Away.” And just for good measure, instead of Skylar Grey, the song’s hook was sung by Erykah Badu wearing that most villified and misunderstood symbols of post-9/11 America: a burqa.

No doubt that pulling off a performance like this takes some guts. It’s entirely possible that Lupe was planning on performing “Words I Never Said” anyway, but closer look at the song’s lyrics, however, reveal timeliness:

“I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
How much money does it take to really make a full clip
9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
Uhh, And a bunch of other cover ups
Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts
If you think that hurts then, wait here comes the uppercut
The school was garbage in the first place, that’s on the up and up
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the upper-crust
You get it then they move it so you never keeping up enough”

More than just a few quibbles here and there, this song attempts a worldview that blames the whole system from top to bottom (even seemingly drifting toward conspiracy theory with the “building 7” line, which Lupe has clarified he included to provide a context of mistrust, not because he actually buys what the 9/11 Truthers have to say).

Here, in the midst of so much corporate banality and spectacle, were the artistic and political margins being thrust back into the center. What a mere year ago might have been a place where artists like Lupe Fiasco sought to tone it down became a place to say “screw it” and let his flag fly... literally. After donating fifty tents to Occupy Wall Street, visiting several other occupations and defending them repeatedly in the media, there’s no doubt that the movement has his back, and the inspiration swings both ways.

Speaking with AllHipHop.com’s Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur, Lupe said: “[w]e always have these kinds of eras or these philosophies or these events that we kind of hold dear to and always go back to as we start to try and plan our future, what we use as kind of a precedent to make our decisions upon. I think the Occupy movement is going to be that… This is a new flag, representing the new kind of era or a new generation. The youth of the generation to come is going to use this as a precedent to deal with the way they live their lives.”

Self-aware as he is, Lupe certainly knows that this current generation stands on the broad shoulders of yesterday’s cultural revolutionaries. Forty years ago, while serving a sentence for possession in Jackson Prison, John Sinclair, manager of the MC5, UP!, Rationals and other radical rock bands of the ‘60s, wrote about the groundbreaking potential of soul and rock music: “I mean the music says it all, it’s a precise metaphor for the situation and just to hear Richard Penniman scream ‘Womp-bob-a-loo-momp-a-wompan-bam-boom!’ into the face of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles and the New York Yankees is enough to get the whole rest of the picture.”

Even in Sinclair’s far-out, hippie-fied language, it’s not hard to get exactly what he means. Art, after all, can’t make a revolution by itself, but it’s also impossible to have a revolution without art. Only time will tell where exactly the Occupy movement is headed, but even at this early hour it’s already become an indisputable part of our culture. No matter what one thinks about Occupy Wall Street or its nationwide counterparts, there can be little doubt that its very existence represents a “before” and “after” kind of moment.

There’s a reason we remember these moments in such a holistic way, why it’s impossible to think of Civil Rights without Odetta or Vietnam without Santana. It’s because during these great upheavals, when people cross that line from being spectators to actors, culture in general takes on a more vital, immediate and dynamic existence. It’s because in moments like these, everything means so much more than it once did, and the people who might have once shrugged their shoulders now believe they have an ability to re-shape the world in their own interests. In the broadest sense, that’s what Occupy is.

Forty years from now, people will be writing books on the art and music, literature and culture that came out of this moment in time. They’ll be able to do so because a movement of ordinary people made it possible.

First appeared at PopMatters.com.

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Today also marked the official launch of Punks Against Apartheid. Its been majorly delayed but is finally here, and folks should by all means join us in our upcoming campaigns. And don't forget to tune in to CKUT's Roots Rock Rebel tonight to hear me interviewed by fellow PAA signatory Aaron Lakoff about the network's aim and future.

Due to the holiday, the next post on Rebel Frequencies will be on Monday, November 28th. Those subscribed to the RF e-bulletin can expect it to arrive that day. In the meantime, check out my review of Lowkey's new album from Electronic Intifada, re-published today at SocialistWorker.org.

Beats and Bombs?

2011-11-22T20:17:00.005-05:00

According to Hillary Clinton, “hip-hop is America.” This might be surprising to anyone who remembers her playing the race card during her 2008 bid for the Democratic nomination. Those of us old enough to remember her husband Bill’s attacks on Sista Souljah during his own run for the White House back in ‘92 are surely scratching our heads even harder at this quizzical embrace.

As always, though, Secretary of State Clinton has her agenda. When asked by CBS News what she meant by that, she said that hip-hop can help “rebuild the image” of United States’ foreign policy. "You know it may be a little bit hopeful, because I can't point to a change in Syrian policy because Chen Lo and the Liberation Family showed up. But I think we have to use every tool at our disposal."

For those who don’t know, Chen Lo and the Liberation Family are a Brooklyn based jazz-rap group who are now the crown jewel in Clinton and company’s attempt to “rebuild” America’s sullied image. The program she’s referring to is called “The Rhythm Road,” an initiative launched by the US State Department in collaboration with Lincoln Center in 2005 to “share America’s unique contribution to the world of music and to promote cross-cultural understanding and exchange among nations worldwide.” Though primarily a jazz-based project, it didn’t take long for it to spread its vulturous wings into the world of hip-hop. Since ‘05, the tour has made its way into West and North Africa, the Middle East and reached well into Asia, specifically targeting heavily Muslim nations.

The irony here might seem obvious: a musical style and genre that (much like jazz in its hey-day) gestated as a response to America’s vicious history of racism, poverty and outright brutality, now being used to paint a pretty picture of this nation as a dynamic, equal-opportunity nation even as its own inequalities stubbornly persist. And yet, not long after the CBS piece broke, there were elements in hip-hop’s grassroots stumbling over themselves to praise the development.

Biz Jones, writer for SOHH.com, titled his own piece “US Drops Hip-Hop Envoys, Not Bombs, to Kill Overseas Tension.” And though Jones’ article touched on the criticisms of the Rhythm Road project, even the title is more than a bit disingenuous.

Just to review, even as the media has remained fixated on the “victory” in Iraq, Barack Obama’s administration has sent more troops to Afghanistan (even presiding over the country’s deadliest month since the beginning of the occupation). He has overseen covert drone-bombing missions into Pakistan, Yemen and who knows where else. And, he sat on his hands while deals were made for the Saudi crushing of the Bahraini revolution in exchange for a NATO bombardment of Libya. A more accurate title for Jones’ article would be “US Drops Hip-Hop Envoys and Bombs...”

That SOHH.com has soft-pedaled this contradiction isn’t necessarily a surprise. During the ‘08 campaign its writers were among the chorus proclaiming Obama “the first hip-hop president,” fixated on his youth and apparent affinity for the culture. The term itself became the subject of endless debate, especially after the inauguration. After all, if rap and hip-hop provided the soundtrack for struggle in Black America, and if a country built on slavery could finally elect an African American to the highest office of political power, then maybe the struggle of hip-hop had finally succeeded. Maybe the fact that Jay-Z was being name-dropped from the corridors of power and Common invited to the White House signified a final end to the poverty, the brutality, the colonization and abject bigotry long leveled against people of color in the US.

As we all know, liberal utopias aside, this hasn’t been the case. The Great Recession (you know, that one we’re being told is supposedly over?) has taken its greatest toll on African Americans. And just as Obama has provided a continuity for America’s imperial ambitions abroad, so has he done nothing as the axe of austerity has fallen on social services, public sector unions and our most deprived schools, all of which have had a disproportionate fallout for communities of color.

At best, all of this makes state-sponsored programs such as the Rhythm Road into a smokescreen--and a rather shoddy one to boot. At worst, it’s simply a confirmation of the very thing the program is suppose to be covering up-America’s continued denial of basic rights and dignity at home and abroad. Hip-hop acts may want to seriously ask themselves whether they’re doing this rich, bottom-up resistance culture any favors by being associated with the Rhythm Road.

This isn’t the US government’s first arrogant attempt at harnessing rebel music for its own aims. During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, the State Department organized tours of jazz luminaries like Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington to Asia, Africa and the Middle East on similar diplomatic tours. The overarching aim of these tours was to promote, in the words of jazz biographer Penny Von Eschen, "a sense of shared suffering, as well as the conviction that equality could be gained under the American political system.”

Whether these artists were aware of the propaganda role they were playing is debatable (especially in the case of Ellington and Gillespie, both of whom played fundraisers for the Communist Party in the ‘30s and remained sympathetic to socialist ideas for their entire lives). Much more obvious was the hypocrisy at play. As the US trotted integrated jazz groups to audiences around the world, back home that same American political system was turning dogs and fire-hoses on Southern Blacks attempting to gain that same integration.

What seems most pompous--then and now--is the notion that America has some kind of ownership over this music, and that it’s vitality can be brought from above rather than gestate from below. Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim were learning trumpet and piano under the conditions of apartheid South Africa well before Goodman and Armstrong showed up on their shores. The jazz influenced highlife genre had been thriving for decades in Ghana and Liberia without the aid of the US State Department.

Today, the most vibrant songs in hip-hop aren’t being taught by Americans to Arabs, but Arabs to Americans. The past year has seen songs like “Raid Lebled” by Tunisian rapper El General, “Not Your Prisoner” and “Rebel” by Cairo’s Arabian Knightz, rocket round the world on a wave of revolution. Often these songs have been enough to earn their composers stints in jail or death threats for the crime of criticizing their countries’ regimes--regimes that, more often than not, are backed to the hilt by the US.

Sphinx, a member of Arabian Knightz who for years has endured police harassment and censorship, recently told me in an interview:

“Whether the US is using hip hop as a tool for ‘diplomacy’ or not doesn’t change the fact that hip-hop was already growing in the region. They might have just realized that and tried to infiltrate it for their own gains as they always do, but hip-hop in Arabia is still pure and for the people by the people.”

Viewed from the bottom up, these artists reveal that while the American music industry has been doing its best to file down all of rap’s rough and rebellious roots, young people in the world’s most oppressed corners have brought it back with a vengeance. And with it, they’re reminding the rest of the planet that the people of these nations have the right to determine their own culture, their own destinies.

And that, in essence, is what the US is attempting to halt, not promote, with the Rhythm Road. It’s why, even as Chen Lo and the Liberation Family grace stages in Syria and other nations, the United States remains mum on Morocco’s imprisonment of Casablanca-based rapper Haked. Likewise for Israel’s censorship of Palestinian rappers.

Legendary jazz drummer Art Blakey, when asked in the ‘50s why his music’s anti-racism was so often couched in hidden messages, responded “those that don’t know and those that don’t need to know, don’t need to know.”

In other words, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. Hillary Clinton, who views hip-hop as little more than a chess piece (her own words) doesn’t get it. Neither, really, does Barack Obama. Hip-hop isn’t a culture of manipulation, smoke and mirrors spoken in the language of the pith-helmeted emissaries of “Western civilization.” It’s a voice of the voiceless, a cry against invisibility coming from those who have tasted repression’s boot the most. And while it might be a kind of America, it’s certainly not the oppressor’s America (or Egypt or Morocco

Lately, it’s rebel spirit is manifesting in a lot more than just our music. Sooner or later, Obama, Clinton, and the rest of the empire’s benefactors are going to find themselves mic checked.

First appeared at SOCIARTS.

Occupy Reggie's!

2011-11-21T15:48:00.003-05:00

Anyone and everyone who can be at this show absolutely should. Good music, decent beer, and a great cause. Yes, that is the Chicago Afrobeat Project attached. And yes, that is absolutely Novemeber 25th on the flyer--Black Friday--but can you think of a better way to spend the day where we have consumerism crammed down our throats?

So ditch the malls, shopping centers, long lines and crap parking. Come listen to some exhilarating music, kick back a few drinks and talk about the next steps for Occupy Chicago and the movement in general over the winter.

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Occupy Chicago Presents:

Rally at Reggies with Chicago Afrobeat Project &
James Brown tribute Get Up With The Get Downs

Bus Pick-Ups: Begin at 7:45 p.m.
Showtime: 9 p.m.

Occupy Chicago will be hosting the Rally at Reggies with Chicago Afrobeat Project and James Brown tribute Get Up With The Get Downs on Friday, November 25 beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets to the event include transportation to/from four locations in Chicago as well as free beer provided by Half Acre Brewery while on the bus.

Ages: 17+
Address: 2105 S. State St.
Cost: $10 advance, $12 day of show
Advance Ticket Sales from Reggie’s Website: http://tinyurl.com/occupychiday63
8:00 p.m. Doors open
9:00 – 10:30 p.m. Get Up With The Get Downs
10:45 – 11 p.m. Occupy Chicago Guest Speaker
11 p.m. – 1 a.m. Chicago Afrobeat Project with live artist Chadwick; dancers likely

BDS Update: We Have Real Strength

2011-11-18T11:34:00.004-05:00

Next week will see the official launch (after much delay) of the Punks Against Apartheid network and website. November 23rd to be exact. I'll be appearing on CKUT Montreal's Roots Rock Rebel radio show that night to discuss with host Aaron Lakoff (also a PAA supporter) why PAA is important. It will air 10pm to midnight. But you'll also be able to listen online, and I'll be sure to post it here at RF after the archive goes up.

There's been a lot that's happened since PAA won our "no room for Jello" campaign back in June. Not just Jello's trip to Israel and Palestine either. There's been the spread of protests into Tel Aviv, and the contradiction presented by its neglect and simultaneous need to take up apartheid and the occupations. There's been the debacle over Palestinian statehood and the apparent toothlessness of both the UN and the Palestinian Authority. There's been the release of Palestinian political prisoners, the dawn of the Palestinian Freedom Rides, and the woefully under-reported repression of the most recent flotilla into Gaza.

All of these point to a sharpening of the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. Viewed in the atomized way that the mainstream media presents them, these events simply seem a collection of separate incidents with little bearing on each other. Viewed holistically, however, we start to see the self-movement of Palestinians being reinvigorated by the Arab revolutions. We start to see the fighting spirit of those revolutions making its way (however narrowly) into Israeli young people and the potential to begin questioning the tenets of rabid, right-wing Zionism. And, of course, all of this takes place as the Occupy movement storms onto the world stage and begins to come to grips with what it means to actually transform the planet, from economics to culture and even music.

Is there still a need for a group like Punks Against Apartheid in the midst of all this? More than ever. And Zdob si Zdub should take note.

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On top of my appearance on CKUT, I'll be penning an article on "Why Apartheid Isn't Punk" in the very near future that will attempt to be a post-mortem on the Jello campaign and assessing the future of PAA. So, as always, stay tuned, subscribe, keep reading and keep fighting!

A Soundtrack to the Human Struggle

2011-11-17T09:46:00.002-05:00

“I identify myself as human.” These are the first words that Lowkey says to me. And really, that’s the best way to describe his new album Soundtrack to the Struggle. It’s been two years since the Iraqi-British rapper released his debut album — lots has happened, both to him personally and to the world at large.

The Arab revolutions have reframed any and all genuine rebel music. Lowkey saw his radical rhymes gain unprecedented attention when “Long Live Palestine” unexpectedly became the most popular hip-hop download on Amazon UK in January last year. On the other side of the pond, right-wing media figure Glenn Beck went out of his way to mock Lowkey, which arguably has had the effect of making him even more well-known stateside.

Lowkey (whose real name is Kareem Dennis) retains a refreshing amount of humility throughout all of this, as is evidenced by the 26 tracks of this boldly original new album. Yes, you read that right: 26 tracks. That kind of length normally makes for an unwieldy listening experience — especially in the world of “political” artists, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a hackneyed slogan.

Because Lowkey keeps it close to the heart, however, the album’s ninety-plus minutes remain an engaging listen. One can plausibly argue that the “struggle” this album provides a soundtrack for is just as much his own personal struggle as that of the world at large. The opening title track features the profound and memorable line “I am the product of the system I was born to destroy.” It’s a lyric that may as well apply to any of us. And there’s the rub.

From here, Lowkey takes us through his most general beefs with that system — the excess (“Too Much”), the violence and brutality (the humorously disjointed “Keep Your Hand On Your Gun”), the scapegoating (“Terrorist,” target of Glenn Beck’s derision). It would be easy — and enjoyable — enough to keep it on this straightforward material level, and the next track, “Something Wonderful,” is on the surface a solid anti-sexist track.

But as we’ve been led in this direction, Lowkey has snuck us into his own fears, pains and deep sense of empathy. “Something Wonderful” isn’t just a blase denunciation, it’s a profoundly vulnerable glimpse, along with the next track “Dreamers,” into the hurt of watching others suffer:

“I’ve seen my brother die and seen my mother cry
Seen the winds change with the flutter of a butterfly
Seen people get sectioned for life, I think and wonder
A small twist of fate that could’ve been my brother
Twenty-five years of life can say thus far
I always have wondered who the sane ones are
Though I live by the words ‘fear not,’ [but] I’m afraid
When I wrote this so many tears dropped on the page.”

Labels are insufficient

In a music industry eager to slap the titles “conscious,” “gangsta,” or “underground” on anything hip-hop, songs like these are what makes this album different. Lowkey’s not afraid to be more complex than any of this, while also being fearless in standing up for himself and his beliefs. Lots of artists would love for their work to deserve the simple designation of “human.”

When I ask why such a broad label is the one that applies best to his music, Lowkey answers that “labels are rather insufficient, I would go as far as to say they are limitations, especially within the genre of hip-hop. It is almost a way of ghettoizing a person’s work and keeping them on a leash. My music is about being human, that is the essence of what I attempt to appeal to in my music, the experience of being a flawed human being.”

This context, and the journey from political to personal and back to the political again made with so little lyrical effort, gives Soundtrack its poignancy. Go ahead; throw a rock. You won’t hit anything hackneyed.

For Lowkey, these aren’t just political beliefs; they are expressions of deeply-felt outrage rooted in the real, human experience of injustice, and the essence of solidarity.

“Ultimately, I want my music to be about empowerment of the listener rather than self-glorification,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “I believe all good music is soul music, music which moves the soul and interacts with that part of us which cannot be physically defined. I feel hip-hop allows you a large amount of scope for expression, there is a lot you can say with one song.”

It’s a good thing that Lowkey has so firmly rooted this album in his own humanity, and that he’s dared to plumb the depths of his own soul, because the lion’s share of the album’s last two thirds is relentless in his attack on what he terms “capitalism on steroids.”

Yes, that’s Tariq Ali sampled on “Skit 2,” delivering an eloquent critique of Barack Obama (“if you wear Caesar’s clothes, you have to behave like Caesar”) before Lowkey launches into “Obamanation.” And he’s just as devastating in his assault on the American empire’s destruction of Iraq in “Cradle of Civilization”:

“Is there enough words that can say
How deeply Baghdad is burning today?
And it’s not about pity, hands out or sympathy
It’s about pride, respect, honor and dignity
Babies being born with deformities from uranium
Those babies aren’t just Iraqi, they’re Mesopotamian
What I view on the news is making me shiver
Cause I look at the victims and see the same face in the mirror
This system of division makes it harder for you and me
Peace is a question, the only answer is unity!”

Even here, though, Lowkey couches it in terms of his own sense of disjointed identity — not quite Arab, not quite English — and his mother’s pain at being forced to flee Iraq in the 1970s. He never quite loses sight of what it is that makes these ideas matter in the first place.

A healthy perspective on “the biz”

Likewise for “Long Live Palestine.” It might be trite to say that an album’s most famous single is also its best song, but that (hopefully) won’t stop readers from believing that we’re only talking about degrees of brilliance here. Still, the balance between the personal and political are quite possibly in the most perfect balance here, even within two individual lines (“How many more resolutions have to be violated? / How many more children have to be annihilated?”), and the incorporation of heart-tugging strings and Shadia Mansour’s beautiful voice on the hook merely drives it all home. That a version of this, of all songs, was briefly a number one download on Amazon UK is truly a thing to behold.

This doesn’t mean that Lowkey now has his sights set on becoming the “next big thing” and racking up the Grammys. On the contrary, he exudes a large amount of distrust for the industry on tracks like “My Soul.” In our interview he revealed a great amount of healthy perspective on “the biz.”

“I think a song like mine which denounces Zionism as an anti-Semitic ideology being placed next to [US pop star] Rihanna in the charts, for example, sends a very powerful message to those in positions of power and influence,” Lowkey told The Electronic Intifada.

“It ultimately says, people agree with this sentiment, it exists, we exist and you can’t suppress it … I do, however, feel that getting too close to that world can be like playing with fire, and also can very negatively affect the art you are trying to create,” he added.

And so, Lowkey remains thankfully and joyously independent in his ability to speak truth to power through his rhymes. Soundtrack includes not just one but two songs titled “Obamanation,” as if to make doubly clear how little faith he has in the man who during his campaign was dubbed the “first hip-hop president.”

“I believe people should be held accountable for their actions,” Lowkey explained, “so really the question is how could I not make two ‘Obamanation’ songs? Should I leave fashionable war and murder to go unchallenged because the Commander-in-Chief has apologists that include rappers I grew up listening to?”

The quick answer is no, and Lowkey is more than happy to elaborate on the track along with M1 from dead prez, Black the Ripper and a sample of Lupe Fiasco’s declaration: “Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit!” Of course, these lines have only recently experienced a rebirth in relevance; Lupe himself performed them to a live, nationwide audience at the BET Hip-Hop Awards wearing an “#Occupy” t-shirt and with a Palestine scarf draped over his mic.

This performance, however, along the increase in hip-hop acts allying themselves with the Occupy Wall Street movement, begs yet another question. Is there an increasing amount of room for hip-hop artists in the mainstream willing to spit the truth?

The answer: only if the kinds of fiercely independent, principled artists like Lowkey keep doing what they do and get the support they need. If this songs like these are indeed the Soundtrack to the Struggle, and if the struggle is growing, then maybe a fundamentally different world is on the table after all. Maybe, just maybe, we might be on the verge of a society, a culture and music that is more, well, human.

First published at the Electronic Intifada.

If You Can't Crush it, Commodify it

2011-11-16T13:05:00.005-05:00

Looks like the rumors that Jay-Z and Rocawear were pulling their "Occupy All Streets" t-shirts are untrue. Turns out they were just sold out. What a coincidence; so did Jay-Z. The difference is he did it so long ago he's probably forgotten how it feels.

The best summation of Jay-Z's position in all of this was said by a Wall Street occupier a few days ago: "Jay-Z, as talented as he is, has the political sensibility of a hood rat... To attempt to profit off the first important social moment of 50 years with an overpriced piece of cotton is an insult to the fight for economic civil rights known as #occupywallstreet."

Russell Simmons has said that the insistence that none of the shirts' proceeds would go to OWS was "media spin," but there hasn't been much evidence to back up that defense. It's telling of the times we're in that the cache of Occupy has gotten so big that these shirts sell out, but it's even more telling that Jay-Z knows this and is unwilling to give any of it back to the grassroots.

It's somewhat appropriate that all this has taken place in the midst of a possibly coordinated assault on Occupy around the country. Not just the raid on Zuccotti Park in New York City, but in Denver, Portland, Philly and other places. Across the board, though these evictions may have been successful, their attempts at crushing Occupy itself have been failures.

Then there's Jay-Z's approach: market the revolution. Rebellion is always cool, and the response of the upper one percent is to find a way to profit off of it and attempt to sterilize it. He most definitely knows that this is his role.

Occupy With Aloha

2011-11-15T19:32:00.001-05:00

Attention rebel music fans! You have a new hero! During Obama's Pacific Rim summit this past week, 400 anti-globalization protesters were kept far away by the harsh security. Even then, Obama wasn't able to get away from Occupy.

According to Agence France-Presse, the Hawaiian folk-singer Makana, who was booked as entertainment for the summit, revealed a t-shirt upon taking the stage that read "Occupy With Aloha." He then played this song below.

Not only did he play it, he played it for forty minutes, varying the tempo and arrangement so as not to trigger suspicion. We are truly everywhere!

"We Do it For the Cause..."

2011-11-14T07:44:00.006-05:00

On Saturday, we went forward with the concert scheduled in Grant Park for Occupy Chicago. The weather was unseasonably warm, so the factors that canceled it last time weren't even close to being on our minds. The Chicago Police Department, however, had different plans.

No big surprise here. The CPD, under orders from Rahm Emanuel and Police Chief McCarthy, have had it in for Occupy Chicago since day one. As soon as the small squad of bike cops camped out at the head of the park saw the sound-system, they told us that we didn't have a permit (which is kind of specious given that this was a public park) and that any attempt to go forward with the concert would result in arrests.

We went forward anyway, albeit without amplified sound. That somewhere near 200 kids popped up to hear some of these radical rhymes, and stuck around even after finding out that it would be a capella, speaks toward the hunger for this kind of music to take real root. Of course all the acts were excellent; Kevin Coval was, as always, a consummate MC for the evening, and the Louder Than A Bomb All-Stars definitely lived up to their name. FM Supreme and Kris De La Rash likewise did Chicago hip-hop proud. And as for BBU, well, see for yourself:

Jay-Z: The One Percent

2011-11-11T13:58:00.003-05:00

If your movement is ever big enough that the owners of labels and sports teams are looking to cash in on your "brand," you know the folks in power are paying attention. It also means, unfortunately, that you have to deal with this crap.

Jay-Z is definitely trying to cash in too. Unlike his fellow Throne man Kanye, he hasn't bothered showing up at Occupy Wall Street. He has, however, hatched a plan for Rocawear to sell t-shirts reading "Occupy All Streets." And, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he's not planning to give any of the proceeds, at all, to the movement.

Surely there are those out there who see hypocrisy in this disdain. After all, I've made no bones that I have quite a bit of loathing for copyright laws and traditional notions of ownership. This is different, if for no other reason than Hova can afford it. He is, as Rosa Clemente has called him, a "hip-hop capitalist." He's not just a rich rapper, he's a rapper who owns the means of production (and in more way than one).

That he is looking to make money off the success of a grassroots movement reliant entirely on donations while refusing to give back merely reflects that he is ultimately not on the side of the protesters. He was, of course, among the many profile rappers to endorse Obama. In this day and age, when folks are really hurting and Obama has done little to alleviate the pain, it's criminal to stand on the sidelines. Jay-Z's done one worse--he's enriching himself on our backs. There's no better proof of whose side he stands on.

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The role of capitalism in music is going to be one of many topics discussed this Monday at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, where I'll be speaking on "New Noise: Rebel Music In the Age of Crisis and Revolt." If you're in the area, don't hesitate to swing by!

The Death of Hipsterism, pt. 2 (or "How Pitchfork Got Even Snottier")

2011-11-10T10:06:00.007-05:00

It’s not hard to see this happening. Their festival has become such a big to-do that it’s expanded to international horizons. Following on the discontent expressed at their booking of Odd Future at their Chicago fest, they went ahead and booked that other controversy-magnet of the indie world for their Paris dates: Iceage. And like the Odd Future fiasco, the planners and managers of Pitchfork Paris seemed indifferent to the Danish post-core group’s ambivalent use of fascist imagery.

Though Iceage pulled out due to injury, it does highlight the site and organizers’ increasing lack of concern with all but their straight, white, male readers. All of this sounds disappointingly familiar to those of us who, five years ago, were excited about the advent of P-Fork for its refreshing independence from the “we’re paid enough to not give a shit” attitude of the big-time music biz.

Easy though it might be in the midst of all this to simply turn Pitchfork into a whipping boy, their own state is merely representative of the broader schism taking place in indie culture nowadays. Those we’ve derisively labeled hipsters for the past several years, those snotty scions of the upper-middle class who have fetishized the usual trappings (the skinny jeans and porn-staches, the PBR and parody of working class stereotype) have differentiated themselves from the kids who’ve long come around because they want an alternative. For the most part, the former have become that much more obvious simply because they’ve been able to afford the irony (looking like you don’t care costs money!) while the rest of us have in Great Recession America been forced to resort to more creative, grassroots ways to forge a cultural identity.

I dipped into this development in an article I wrote back in the springtime. What makes it even more obvious now is that the world is increasingly defined by the slogan “we are the 99 percent.” It would be straight-up untrue to say that the folks at Pitchfork or other icons of hipsterdom are somehow part of the 1 percent, but neither are they exactly on the bottom fifty. They’re part of that class contingent who, in times of desperation end up going with revolution or reaction.

To be fair, as bad as things are, they haven’t gotten that desperate yet. Nonetheless, the gap that exists between the enthusiasm and creativity exhibited at Occupy and Pitchfork’s shrug of the shoulders is rather telling. Over the past six weeks, through hundreds of posts in their news section, Pitchfork have reported on artist support for Occupy a grand total of six times, and had zero analytical articles on how the phenomenon is shaping music. No mention of the new artists that have started to gain a profile from connecting with the movement, not even any mention of the new mix-tapes from Immortal Technique or Rebel Diaz despite sizable profiles in the underground hip-hop scene. Rather head-scratching isn’t it?

Looking at economically explains much of this. As the chasm between middle class hipsters and the working class and poor kids who make up the majority of the indie scene has widened, so have true colors of the former become more apparent in their political and social makeup. Kreayshawn, the latest hipster flavor of the month, has been open about the deprived background she came from. Her casual bandying about of the word “nigger,” however, and her indifference to the effect it has on people coming from a white rapper, smacks much more of the kind of elitism, nose-upturned attitude that has given kids who live in the un-sheltered world such a burning resentment of hipsters in the first place.

Pitchfork are clearly heading down a road parallel to that of the once upstart MTV. That’s not to say they’re going to start doing music videos. It’s merely to say that they’re becoming big business. Big business by its very nature is out of touch. As its own ivory tower grows taller, its own concept of what folks relate to grows fuzzier and fuzzier. What was once a cool withdrawal begins to take on the trappings of simple disdain for the groundlings, and suddenly it makes sense for a festival once known for its "social responsibility" to book groups that use racist and sexist imagery. Those who take offense be damned.

So is it with the rest of hipsterism. In their strife to maintain relevance, they have no choice but to go back to their own outdated notions (notions that were at best contradictory and at worst insulting) and fall behind the curve. Those who feed on the notion of self-relevance eventually become like the oroboros, eating themselves until there’s nothing left but an empty shell.

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Once again, there will be an article appearing very soon here at RF (published through PopMatters.com) on how Occupy has already started transforming our music. Don't forget to keep checking in. And if you're in the Corpus Christi area on Monday, feel free to stop by Texas A&M, where I'll be speaking on today's "New Noise."

BDS Update: First a Delay, Then a Cancellation

2011-11-09T13:01:00.005-05:00

Searching "Zdob si Zdub" and "Israel" will yield, before anything else, a page that reads "Zdub si Zdub: Don't Play Apartheid Israel" on the website for the US Campaign for the Cultural Boycott of Israel. Zdub si Zdub are Moldova's best-known punk group and arguably one of the most world-renowned groups to come out of the small Eastern European state. Their mixture of prog rock Eastern European folk with a more familiar blend of ska and punk rock is vaguely reminiscent of Gogol Bordello, but original enough to be plenty memorable. When they participated in this year's Eurovision song contest and placed 12th.

They were also scheduled to play a show on November 5th at Tel Aviv's Barby Club (same venue that was to host Jello Biafra until he canceled this past summer). Going on their website now, however, reveals that the show has been postponed until March.

It's not quite clear whether the campaign to get Zdob si Zdub to cancel was the reason for this delay; that was clearly the case in getting the Yardbirds to delay their own show in Israel. Though, as the USACBI campaign page notes, there are still plenty of artists around the world unaware of the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions:

"The chances are high that when they contracted to play in Israel, they were not informed of the boycott. Usually, the only way bands can often be contacted are through their booking agents or management. Punk bands are noted for making stands against government oppression. Punk bands are not known for breeching boycotts or crossing picket lines that exist for causes like human rights and justice. It can only be assumed that these punkers from Moldavia [sic] are not aware of the boycott because they have not been contacted. The BDS movement has not taken hold in Modavia [sic] or Russia, and apparently it needs much wider exposure in the Netherlands and the USA."

Knowledge of Israel's crimes against the Palestinians, however, doesn't have to be dug deep to find. The realities of Cast Lead and the Flotilla are known world over, and for the most part sympathy rightfully lies with Palestine. It's not a stretch to imagine, upon hearing that such a thing as the global movement for BDS exists, bands are delaying shows to bide their time and figure out what their next move is.

It's certainly true that the Yardbirds have much less excuse, being from the UK where the campaign is among the most successful in Europe. Either way, however, BDS activists need to see delays like this as a chance to really win the debate. Never was there a better time to get involved with Punks Against Apartheid--who are planning a relaunch of their site in a mere two weeks. Campaigns like this can work. Need proof? Read Jello Biafra's lone, thoughtful (if still frustratingly flawed in some ways) statement about is recent trip to Israel and Palestine.

Louder Than A Bomb at Occupy Chicago

2011-11-08T09:15:00.006-05:00

This event was originally scheduled for October 25th but was delayed because of rain. Hopefully the weather will smile on us on this Saturday, the 12th, because not only is this going to be the first large-scale music event being pulled off by the Arts & Recreation committee of Occupy Chicago, but it's going to be at the infamous "Horse," the park that we have twice attempted to take and gotten ourselves thrown in jail for. Just to be clear, this concert is totally legal and during curfew hours, so you don't really have an excuse to not show up do you?

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"Louder Than A Bomb at Occupy Chicago"
Featuring BBU and many more!

Saturday, November 12
4:00pm - 7:00pm
In the park @ S. Michigan Ave and Congress

Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival
in solidarity with Occupy Chicago will host a 99%-er open mic
featuring the hip-hop trio:

BBU

Also appearing:

Chance the rapper
LTAB All-stars
FM Supreme
Kris De La Rash
Steinmenautz
Shannon Matesky
Jamila Woods
Malcolm London
and many more

Hosted by Kevin Coval

Slide thru... soundtrack the movement!

Simmering Sounds: Oakland's Insurgent Culture and the Roots of Rebellion

2011-11-07T16:21:00.003-05:00

Nobody who knows what they’re talking about can seriously say they were surprised that Oakland was host to the first American general strike on over sixty years. This is a city that helped birth the Panthers and has remained a stronghold for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (arguably the one union whose militancy has remained unbroken over the past thirty year). It also, not so coincidentally, is where the last general strike in American history took place in 1946.

James Curtis, an executive board member of the ILWU, proclaimed from the front of Oakland’s docks on November 2nd that “this event is long overdue... now they have awoken a sleeping tiger.” That it took sixty-five years and Scott Olsen taking a teargas canister to the forehead speaks to just how deep the tiger’s slumber has been.

Not that it hasn’t been a longtime coming. Oakland has always been much more than San Francisco’s angry cousin; it’s a town whose working class culture has shined through even when the American nightmare sought to bury it. It’s a town whose rowdiness has always been matched by a very real confidence that emanates from its residents. A short piece in Mother Jones published the day before the November 2nd action quoted this scene from the ‘46 strike:

“‘Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay That Pistol Down’, the number one hit [by country musician Al Dexter], echoed off all the buildings. That first 24-hour period of the 54-hour strike had a carnival spirit. A mass of couples danced in the streets. The participants were making history, knew it, and were having fun.”

Obviously, lots has changed since those days. There was no Taft-Harley Act preventing certain unions from coming out in sympathy (which there was this time around). One would be similarly hard-pressed to hear anyone suggest a country song be blasted over the speakers at a general strike in 2011. Neither of these cold hard facts, however, cover up the fact a culture of down-and-out rebellion has long permeated this city. In fact, it’s difficult to find a single aspect of American culture--in particular music--that hasn’t been transformed for the better by Oakland and the Bay Area.

Isadora Duncan, the radical activist and dance innovator, cut her teeth as a pianist and music teacher in Oakland’s nascent bohemianism in the late 1800s. In 1936, Carla Bley, a major figure in the ‘60s free jazz movement and collaborator in Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, was born in Oakland.

Both left at a relatively young age; Duncan for Paris, Bley for New York. Both, however, have spoken fondly of the city. A far deeper influence of Oakland’s rough and independent culture can be felt in what are arguably the most significant styles of rebel music of the past thirty years: punk and hip-hop.

Growing up, like most young punks, I idolized the punk collective at 924 Gilman Street, officially located in West Berkeley but nonetheless organically connected with the Oakland scene. Here is the venue which had hosted the last show of Operation Ivy, the first shows from Green Day and countless other gigs from grassroots punk mainstays like Bikini Kill, Chumbawamba, MDC and Propagandhi.

Collectively run since 1986, this is a venue that wasn’t only a safe-haven for misfit kids but flat-out refused to book racist, sexist or homophobic bands. I first heard the words “Food Not Bombs” connected to Gilman Street, and also learned that it hosted some of the initial Rock Against Racism shows in the Bay Area (featuring, of course, Op Ivy). Even growing up in DC, the home of Fugazi and Bad Brains, it was impossible to ignore the lessons that this scene had to teach me.

The seamless interplay between punk and the Bay’s radical culture isn’t hard to find. Rancid, arguably the best-known band other than Green Day to emerge from the Gilman scene, have repeatedly written songs chronicling the struggles of working people, in particular to unionize. Let’s Go, the band’s 1994 album notably included the track “Harry Bridges,” an homage to the Australian immigrant leader of the San Francisco dockworkers, who in 1934 spearheaded a general strike that signalled the beginning of the Depression-era strike wave.

Likewise, one doesn’t have to go far to see how the culture of the Bay Area and Oakland has driven hip-hop forward. It was in Oakland that Tupac Shakur first attended the poetry classes of Leila Steinberg in 1988. Steinberg would end up Tupac’s first manager, and assembled the show that got him signed the very next year. One might easily call Shakur’s good fortune in Oakland a kind of kizmet; his own mother Afeni had made it a point to raise him with the revolutionary values of the Black Panthers--founded, of course, in Oakland.

During the early ‘90s, when hip-hop ceased being an “East Coast thing,” Oakland and the Bay Area became second only to Los Angeles in its output, albeit with a great deal less fanfare. One of the many rappers Tupac had occasion to work with while in Oakland was Boots Riley, he too the son of ‘60s radicals, an out-and-out communist and founder of the Coup (in fact, both ‘Pac and Boots appear in E-40’s 1993 video for “Practice Lookin’ Hard”). The city, in particular its East side has produced MCs as diverse at Too Short, Yukmouth and yes, even MC Hammer.

This potent combination of Oakland’s uniquely radical past with modern day rebel culture continues today. After Oscar Grant was killed, local MCs like Mistah FAB were some of the first to pen verses protesting the flagrant police brutality. In the wake of the cops’ near-murder of Scott Olsen, 924 Gilman Street was one of the first venues to assemble a fundraiser to help out with the former Marine’s medical bills.

From Pharoah Sanders to Zion I, from Raphael Saadiq to Filth and Crimpshrine, the East Bay and Oakland have helped produce an artistic voice that’s impossible to ignore. Of course, these pockets have their counterparts elsewhere--in Chicago, New York, Austin and Portland. Calling the rebel culture that’s gestated in the area a predictor of November 2nd’s general strike would be flat-out silly. To say they have nothing to do with one another, or that the unstoppable momentum of the nation’s Occupy hasn’t opened up the greatest opportunity in decades to forge new and exciting forms of insurgent art, would be equally silly.

That our heads are once again turned toward Oakland in that pursuit is simply fitting. It also bears pondering: if this kind of eclectic, diverse and vibrant culture can sink such deep roots without bursting forth until now, how many more explosions of this type do we have in front of us?

First appeared at SOCIARTS.

Occupy the Mainstream?

2011-11-04T16:32:00.005-05:00

AlterNet has published a piece doing yet another rundown of artists relating to their nearest Occupy movement. It's written by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, who is always sharp, so that this particular article is too isn't really surprising. What's especially prescient is the way she frames the argument. In particular she points out that since 9/11 there have been countless pieces bemoaning the state of "political music."

Shepherd's response to this is right on point:

"[T]he idea that there is no political music today is, if I may say so, propagandist BS. There are political musicians, and there is political music—it’s just that the best kind doesn’t necessarily mimic the modes of 50 years ago (goodbye, folk) and the people spewing forth such nonsense aren’t necessarily looking in the right places (hello, hip-hop). Granted, they aren’t exactly populating the top 10 (although here’s a good attempt at chronicling some of the more mainstream), but if you’re not wearing blinders, you can find it—and it totally doesn’t have to suck! Indeed, the Occupy movement is pulling musicians out of the woodwork, with many artists big and small dropping by to show support and perform."

Indeed. If Katy "I-kissed-a-girl-and-brought-softcore-porn-into-pop-music" Perry is turning up at Occupy Wall Street along with husband Russell Brand and Russell Simmons, then that tells you a major shift is taking place. Cynics might say that it's "easy" for Perry to show up, that protest has become cool and we shouldn't get too excited. But that's precisely why we need to get excited. If protest has in fact become cool then it means more young people will be doing it, thinking about the world in different ways, and looking to make change.

Doesn't mean we have to like Katy Perry. Just means we have to acknowledge that the door is opening for new, exciting, socially relevant forms of music and art. Lenin once said "There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." We are right in the middle of these kinds of weeks, and that goes for our culture too.

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Don't forget, there is a piece incoming taking on this issue on a deeper matter, as well as an article on Oakland's radical cultural legacy. So keep checking in!

Occu-Stock: Resistance Rock

2011-11-03T17:49:00.006-05:00

Over Halloween weekend, Occupy Providence, even while fighting to maintain their position in Burnside Park, pulled off a mini-festival of sorts. "Occu-Stock" was put together quickly, relying on donated spaces, donated performances, and often donated food and liquor. It still happened, and with some significant local names too, confirming how deep and wide support fr the Occupy Movement is across the US and the world right now.

The Brown Daily Herald called the crowds that turned out "small." Whether the organ of one of the most elitist universities in the country can be trusted is up for debate, but it does seem that, as the alternative weekly Phoenix put it, the fest was also an opportunity for occupiers to "seek direction." Like most other occupations, Providence has come up against its initial obstacles and gained some hard-earned lessons, in particular with the cops.

So Occu-Stock evidently wasn't just a chance to retreat into the solace of art. Even in between rock, hip-hop and folk acts, there were speakers and discussions in the city's participating venues. What's come of these discussions hasn't exactly been made public yet, but it speaks volumes about the kind of new and vibrant culture we're entering if such "mirth" (as they call it) can be accompanied by such serious takes on the movement's next steps. Is there any more potent indicator of genuine rebel music?

A Different Kind of Sound Strike

2011-11-02T19:09:00.006-05:00

As the sun sets on November 2nd, the first general strike in sixty-five years is winding down in the exact place the last one happened: Oakland. The violence experienced by Occupy Oakland protesters in general and Scott Olsen in particular has shaken even those who might otherwise sympathize from the sidelines into jumping in with both feet. Davey D, of the Hip-Hop Corner, postulates "Hopefully it’s a day that we’ll look back on years from now and see as a watershed moment in history. Hopefully it’ll be a day that we look back upon and see as a crucial turning point in our quest for social and economic justice."

Indeed. Davey is also coming at this from a point of view of having been a central figure in Oakland's relatively militant hip-hop scene. The Coup, Paris, Unity Lewis (a.k.a. Young Precise), Mistah FAB. On top of these artists, all of whom vocally supported the shutting down of the docks today, we have a whole slew of Oakland rappers normally not considered "political" supporting what's happening today. As if to prove this point, even Oakland native MC Hammer is speaking in support of it.

Says D:

"It’s not even about the space that Occupy Oakland reclaimed. Its symbolic, like putting flag in the sand. It’s a space where we can start to discuss what needs to be done and how. It’s a place where we might debate but at the end of the day we can’t forget that this is about the nation’s most powerful banks, financial institutions and corporations and their greed, viciousness and dehumanizing behavior.

"There’d be no tents on Wall Street or in the plaza had it not been for banks getting bailed out after tanking the economy and causing undue hardship for millions of people all over the world...

"Many of us through no fault of our own saw our work hours shrink, 401ks disappear, our jobs shipped overseas and our pay checks cut-some by as much as 20%. At the same time we saw prices rise dramatically from food to rent to bridge tolls.. and while all this was going down and people struggled, we were assaulted by arrogant media pundits and politicos in the pockets of big banks, telling us we ‘should blame ourselves’ for whatever economic hardships we were experiencing. It was this type of callousness that eventually enraged people enough to finally take it to the streets to demand change."

Truth. Some have ruminated on the "coincidence" that Oakland has now hosted both of America's most recent general strikes, albeit more than six decades apart. I say, however, that if you look at the city's culture, if you listen closely to what the artists have been saying, you can hear a little bit of why this all went down the way it did. If you ask me, we could all learn a little something from our friends of the East Bay.

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There will be an article, published at SOCIARTS next week, examining Oakland's long history of rebel music. Like everything else at RF, it's not to be missed. So if you haven't subscribed, don't hesitate to do so!

Occupy Music, the Sound of Sunshine

2011-11-01T21:06:00.004-05:00

This week's posts will be dedicated to music that's been influenced by the now worldwide Occupy movement or musicians that have been supportive of it. True, there have been posts on this topic already here at RF, and there's also inbound a fuller article on how the movement is potentially transforming our music, but really there's so much of this music now--so widespread has this movement become--that doing it justice is near-impossible. Not that this will stop me from trying. Also, in the interests of full disclosure, having these posts go up this week will allow me time to work on several other projects.

And so, today's video comes from halfway around the world. Michael Franti, perhaps unsurprisingly, has quite a following in Amsterdam, and played for demonstrators there. His ideas have always been more hippie-fied than "new new left." That doesn't change having his presence at an event like this is an excellent development.

BDS Update: Dear Yardbirds... (pt. 2, FTW)

2011-10-31T04:25:00.004-05:00

Another victory, at least for the time-being, for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The Yardbirds, who provoked a letter-writing campaign back in September from in particular the British Committee for Universities in Palestine, have announced on their website that their concert in Israel has been "postponed until next year."

Maybe they'll play it, maybe they won't. The first thought that comes to mind is that the Yardbirds didn't play in South Africa either, but were never vocal or public in their support for the boycott back in the '60s. Just like then, however, there is a "wave" (as the signatories of the BRICUP letter put it) of sentiment opposing Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. This wave, this phenomenon, will no doubt convince plenty of folks to pull out from commitments to play in Israel without being vocal about their own reasons--that doesn't mean the pressure hasn't worked.

Of course it is always better when artists go public in being won to the global picket line of BDS. That doesn't mean that moves like that of the Yardbirds aren't still victories. Then again, there's also the possibility that the "old geezers" are simply biding their time, hoping for the wave to recede. If that's the case, then the movement for cultural boycott should see this as an opening.

Fight For the Future Of Our Civilizations

2011-10-28T14:41:00.004-05:00

Immortal Technique has a new mixtape out. This is the single being pumped the most from it. Yes, that is Chuck D guesting on it, along with Killer Mike and Brother Ali. It's hard to imagine four rappers with more divergent styles collaborating on the same song--Tech's consciously near-psychotic snarl, Ali's sing-songy delivery, as if trying to achieve some kind of uplift but not quite getting there, and Chuck's stone-faced immovability in the midst of it all.

What draws them together is, of course, the message, connecting the dots between the still undone struggle against anti-Black racism and Islamophobia; Ali's verse, sketching out burned Korans and forbidden mosques, is especially powerful. The fact that there has been an uptick nationwide in police violence lately (even before Occupy Oakland) seals the timeliness of it all. Ultimately, however, this song is getting posted here because it is just... that... good!

Let Ramy Sing!

2011-10-27T14:01:00.004-05:00

Ramy Essam has been featured here at Rebel Frequencies before. The young folk-singer may best be described at "the troubadour of the Egyptian revolution." He performed at the initial rallies demanding Mubarak step down, and was kidnapped and tortured as a result. And yet he still writes and performs. Furthermore, his own personal struggle to sing publicly demonstrates how much more work the revolution still has ahead of it.

On October 26th, last night in fact, Essam performed at an art exhibition at the Cairo University Medical School entitled "Transition stage, police and thieves." Even after his first song he had to deal with a small handful of pro-Mubarak hecklers, who were easily shouted down by the overwhelmingly young crowd. Then the dean entered, who took umbrage at Essam's criticism of Egypt's ruling military council. According to a release on the Freemuse site:

"The Dean explained to the organisers that they had no permission to make such an exhibition or a concert. The students replied that this wasn’t correct because they had obtained all of the necessary permissions, and actually a number of other singers had already been performing there as part of the event."

Essam was forced to pack up and leave. As said above, the whole incident proves that there is still a lot more work in front of the revolution. Struggling for a truly free culture is necessarily part of any such fight. It's obviously not that the bureaucrats at the college disliked Essam's music, it's that they represent the forces seeking to put the brakes on the revolution while they still can. Essam's music, on the other hand, seeks to push it forward.

Good thing that other doctors and students are dead-set on him performing. According to Essam's manager, Mariam Emad, "We have had a call from one of the organisers at the university — he wants us to come and perform there again tomorrow. And several students have been expressing their support, saying that, Ramy will sing whether you like it or not!"

It's often shocking how myopic the backers of reaction can be. They should know better than to think an artist who survived torture to sing another day will somehow be intimidated by a stern dressing down from the headmaster.

Anti-Hip-Hop Racism Comes to Chicago

2011-10-26T10:51:00.007-05:00

While the media's eyes have been glued to Occupy Chicago (not complaining) it would appear that a community group in the West Side neighborhood of North Lawndale has tried to bring the infamous "baggy pants" ordinance to the Windy City. The group, laughably called Empowered Citizens of North Lawndale is hoping to get the city's council to amend the indecent exposure law to impose a fine on anyone wearing pants more than four inches under the hips. The fine isn't light: $200.

North Lawndale is one of the most heavily "of color" neighborhoods in Chicago; less than 4 percent of its population is white. Given that laws such as these have a history of inviting very real racial profiling, it is somewhat perplexing that a proposal of this nature would originate in a community like North Lawndale.

Says the group itself: "Parents must be held accountable for the way their children dress. In his address to the 'saggy pants' and uneducated boys on the corner Bill Cosby said, 'We, as black folks, have to do a better job,' he stated. 'We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.'"

It speaks volumes that ECNL quote Bill Cosby here. This kind of logic--that the Civil Rights movement is over, that the only thing left African Americans simply to suck it up--is a main talking point for the Herman Cains of the world, and even Barack Obamas. In this logic, it's "thug culture" holding back Blacks in North Lawndale.

None of these people seem to have read Jonathan Kozol. His 1991 book Savage Inequalities: Children In America's Schools dedicated a whole chapter to North Lawndale. It bears keeping in mind that little has changed in the past two decades; Kozol called the neighborhood "an industrial slum without an industry," a place with little opportunity and crumbling schools. According to the 2000 Census, nearly 60 percent of 20-24 year olds are unemployed and almost half of all families live under the poverty line (keeping in mind that the post-recession number is probably much higher).

Perhaps instead of asking young people to yank harder on their pants (and bootstraps), ECNL should be holding the city's shoddy economic development up to "higher standards." This hood needs jobs, schools and community centers. They certainly don't need the fashion police. In communities like these, any kind of police do a lot more harm than good.

BDS Update: Boycotting Is Not a Crime!

2011-10-25T21:33:00.003-05:00

In 2010, Samah Idriss, a BDS campaigner and publisher in Lebanon, launched a campaign urging boycott of British rock group Placebo during their show in Beirut. Placebo had just played a show in Israel, having blatantly defied the call for cultural boycott; in the midst of other groups like Gorillaz and the Pixies pulling out, Placebo dug in. Idriss and his campaign succeeded--the turnout was significantly lower than that of their 2004 Lebanon show.

Now, Jihad El-Murr, a conservative businessman whose company promoted the 2010 concert, is suing Idriss for the equivalent of $180,000 to cover the financial loss. According to a call from the Lebanese Campaign for the Boycott of Zionism, "The lawsuit may have been inspired by the recent anti-boycott law passed by Knesset--which can hold individuals/organizations that call for boycott to be financially responsible for any losses endured by a company/other even without that company proving that the statements have resulted in the loss."

Given the growing anger against Israel during the summer of 2010 in the wake of the Flotilla raid, it seems likely that pro-BDS sentiment did indeed have something to do with the lower turnout. El-Murr can't prove that, however--at least not legally. Unable to admit that there should be consequences to turning a blind eye to the brutal treatment of the Palestinians, he now insists that there should be consequences from calling it out. Like any arrogant executive, his grasp to delusion is only surpassed by his hubris.

The Lebanese Campaign for the Boycott of Zionism has released a statement they are urging supporters to sign, demanding the lawsuit be dropped by Lebanese courts. I've signed, and I suggest my readers do the same.

More Sounds of Revolt

2011-10-24T11:38:00.005-05:00

I've recently joined the Arts & Recreation Committee of Occupy Chicago--much solidarity with the 150 who were arrested on Saturday. Word is that conditions inside were atrocious, up to and including the systematic denial of food, medicine and blankets for interned protesters.

The protest on Saturday night, however, also featured an acapella performance from Rebel Diaz (and yes, that's RodStarz from RD breaking down in front of the Chicago cossacks on Michigan Avenue). That's just the beginning; in fact, it can be guaranteed that we'll see a lot more great radical art coming to and out of OccChi. For starters this event, presented the Education Committee, but being supported by members of Arts & Rec. In any event, it bears saying yet again that the Occupy Movement is only just beginning to be felt in all walks of our culture. Stay tuned of course, and for those able to come see Kevin Coval and BBU tomorrow, make it a point!

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"Louder Than A Bomb at OccupyChi w/BBU & Idris Goodwin & The LTAB All-Stars"

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30pm - 6:30pm
#OccupyChicago, Lasalle & Jackson
Chicago, IL

Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, the world's largest on the planet, & Occupy Chicago will host a reading and celebration featuring the hip-hop crew BBU, Idris Goodwin, Chance Instrumentality, Malcolm London, Lamar Jorden and many more... Come thru and help build the movement. This is what democracy sounds like!

"The World Will Be Bright Again"

2011-10-21T16:02:00.004-05:00

Tough as nails, and yet, at the same time vulnerable. These are words that can rarely be applied to indie rock lately. For the Shondes, though, it’s just the start. Past vague genres like “rock” or oblique, somewhat condescending descriptions like “feisty,” it’s hard to figure out exactly where this group fits into the massive pantheon of real rebel music. Searchlights, their recently released third album, confirms that kind of delicious confusion.

I ask Elijah Oberman, the group’s violinist, how they would describe themselves. This is the response I get:

"Um... well we're a rock band, and we have very punk energy even though we don't really sound like a punk band, and there's a female lead singer, and violin, and lots of harmony, and we rock out really hard when we play live, and there's some Jewish music influence in there somewhere and we're also queer and political and... yeah"

I laugh. It’s not really the answer that’s problematic, but the way the whole question is formulated in the first place. The long-ongoing trend in music journalism is to find a way to “define” every artist, stuff them into an easy-to-identify box. The best art, however, doesn’t easily categorize itself. It’s like a Harold Pinter play: by all conventions it shouldn’t work, but it does.

“Close the Door,” the opening track of Searchlights, wastes absolutely no time slicing Fureigh's lo-fi guitars and Temim Fruchter's steadfast drums into the listener’s ears. It would be pleasant enough as an admittedly unremarkable indie song until one notices the lilting Klezmer violins and Louisa Rachel Solomon’s dramatic, almost Old World singing voice. It’s this mixture of extremes that makes the music work so uniquely well. All efforts to label--along with their apparent futility--fade into the background.

Ever since coming together, the Shondes have done their best to have their music speak for itself and dodge their seemingly novel makeup. As one might guess from the group’s Klezmer and Yiddish influences, all members are Jewish. All are also either queer or gender variant in one way or another. The group has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been consistently featured in the culture sections of countless Jewish and LGBT newspapers and sites.

The best of these profiles, however, admit how woefully insufficient and even insulting it would be to simply describe the Shondes as “Jewish rockers” or “a queer band.” Listening to the album myself--a straight, male, lapsed Catholic turned agnostic--I can’t help but be moved, even in moments like this from “Give Me What You’ve Got”:

“Go on, go on and talk
Say whatever you want
Call me a home-wrecker, call me a monster
Give me what you’ve got
I know that I’m the villain in your eyes
But the night is on my side, I’ve got nothing to hide”

Swirling fiddle and clipped guitar work make this easily the catchiest song on Searchlights, especially as it crescendos into textural harmonies with reckless abandon toward the song’s end. All this, combined with Solomon’s heart-on-sleeve delivery force you inexorably into the band’s point of view regardless of “identity.”

Something else doesn’t square with my own narrow expectations while hearing the songs; the Shondes are frequently referred to as a “political band,” and that’s admittedly how I’ve always viewed them. There’s plenty on Searchlights easily described as righteous and heart-strong, but no obvious indicator of the group’s left-wing, anti-establishment stances. Elijah mollifies me again, and his response is worth reading (and re-reading) in full:

“On the one hand I think it's important to regard the personal as political, like the songs on Searchlights, and on the other I think it's still important and inspiring to have music that speaks directly to things I'm passionate about politically, so they're both important.

“I don't think Searchlights is an overtly political album. It's about friendship, growing up and feeling all the horrible and wonderful parts of life. I also think that how you process and experience your life, how you treat your loved ones, and how you get through hard times and joyful ones are political decisions, decisions about what kind of person you want to be in the world. And I think that we're a political band as a whole package even if we're not always writing ‘issue’ songs, which is what most people think of when they think of political music.

“The way we are in our personal lives, or the things we say from stage, or the kinds of shows we play are all part of the picture as much as the lyrics of our songs, so it doesn't feel like a contradiction to me; it feels like an integration of all parts of who we are as people and as musicians.”

Apparently I’m still not satisfied, so I ask about “The Fortress,” the seventh song on Searchlights. Is that a reference to Palestine I hear there when Louisa sings that “nothing will survive its walls”? Once again, Elijah gives me the answer I wasn’t expecting, yet is still somehow right-on:

“While we do proudly talk about being Jews who support Palestinian liberation, I'm sorry to say you might be reading into it. ‘The Fortress’ is about isolation and building walls around yourself because you feel like you can't trust people and have to protect yourself, and then being left with the feeling of being alone in the fortress you've built.”

I love this job--especially when I’m proven wrong in a manner such as this. That barrier--or wall if you will--between the personal and political is easily one of the most pernicious obstacles keeping folks on both sides of the aisle from enjoying good music and putting it in context. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past four weeks of Occupy Wall Street, it’s that politics isn’t just something to be done every two to four years, but something that holds sway over just about every aspect of our lives. How many of us have allowed the weight of a profoundly unjust world to cut us off from our love? How many of us have found ourselves crying tears of relief when the subtlest or most obvious of events finally breaks down that alienation? How can one deny that feeling human in that most inhuman of times isn’t a political act?

And certainly, the Shondes’ ironclad concern with every individual’s right to feel human is undeniable. This past summer saw some in the band’s hometown of New York City attempt to bargain one people’s humanity in exchange for another’s after Queers Against Israeli Apartheid marched in the Pride Parade. Racist, insensitive cries about Arab homophobia choked the debate.

The Shondes didn’t cave. During our interview, Elijah is glad I mention this whole debacle. “It's upsetting to me that this Islamaphobia and anti-Arab racism comes out in queer communities in that way,” he says. “Of course there is homophobia in Muslim communities just like there is everywhere, but I think it's clear that's not an excuse for apartheid. You think Palestinian queer people support Israel just because they may experience homophobia in their communities? That's absurd. We can fight for justice in Palestine and also support Palestinian queers who are doing incredibly important work in their communities just like we continue to do it in ours.”

Haters will no doubt scoff at such a notion, but it seems apparent that this kind of integrity, this kind of unbending principle, makes Searchlights’ content pop so much more brightly. These ten tracks remind you that there’s always something at the other end of a struggle, and, as Louisa reminds us in the closing track, we all have the to believe that “the world will be bright again.” For what it’s worth, this writer believes there’ll be more artists like the Shondes in this brighter world.

First appeared at SOCIARTS.

BDS Update: Sounds of Solidarity, From Wall Street to Gaza City

2011-10-20T20:05:00.005-05:00

"Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine." So read the sign of a female Palestinian protester last week. The picture has become well-known by now among left activists. She's not the only one with such sentiments. The BDS National Committee (BNC), the body of organizations in Palestine coordinating the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, released a statement on October 14th declaring themselves in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the countless sister movements that have sprung up in city after city over the past month.

There's natural affinity between the two movements--and more than simply mere sympathy. Nobody is surprised to learn that on top of the commonly shared belief that Wall Street needs to be held more accountable, most folks at the various occupations also are for slashing military spending and returning those billions back to our communities. Among those billions is a sizable chunk doled out to Israel every year--most of it used to carry out daily repression on the people of Palestine.

It's also been said several times already that the Occupy movement has completely shifted the context in which American politics is viewed--that goes for all issues. With that jolt of confidence added into just about the entire left, it's no surprise that, just for starters, Lupe Fiasco hung a Palestinian flag from his mic at the BET Awards. Or that Rebel Diaz, whose recent #Occupy the Airwaves mixtape has already garnered wide attention, are also big proponents of Palestinian self-determination.

Plainly put, this is how solidarity works. It remains to be seen whether the occupations with translate into more artists publicly observing the call for cultural boycott of Israel, but in times of mass movements, rising tides lift all boats.

Jay Smooth On Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-19T10:37:00.003-05:00

Jay is spot-on here. Which isn't a surprise. For those who somehow missed the boat, Jay Smooth runs the Ill Doctrine hip-hop video blog, and his analyses are consistently sharp. He only gets at one aspect of what makes OWS a game-changer, but it's a crucial and key aspect.

We Need New Noise...

2011-10-18T13:35:00.005-05:00

I've been booked to speak at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi on November 14th. Details are below, and there's also a Facebook event. And for sure, the issues I'm going to be talking about are relevant everywhere--in every city, on every campus, and yes, at every Occupation! All I need is a plane ticket and I'll fly out there to give this talk or a similar one in your town. So don't hesitate to get in touch with me at rebelfrequencies@gmail.com.

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"New Noise: Rebel Music In the Age of Crisis and Revolt"

Monday, November 14, 7pm
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
University Center Oso Room 221

Music is everywhere. So, it seems, is rebellion. What is it that had led so many musicians and artists--from Lupe Fiasco to TV On the Radio--to lend their support to Occupy Wall Street? How is it that hip-hop, a music and style that originated in the Bronx, could gain such popularity during the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia? What role does music have to play in society, and can the two influence each other in the fight for a better world? Come hear music journalist Alexander Billet discuss sound, struggle, and the future of rebel music.

Sponsored by the International Socialist Organization - Corpus Christi

We Are All L-Vis

2011-10-17T10:08:00.004-05:00

It's as old as American popular culture itself: the white boy playing Black music. Even today, in the post-Obama, "post-racial" world, it still manages to raise hackles. It's a story that's included such legendary performers as Al Jolson, Dave Brubeck, Buddy Holly and the Beastie Boys.

Kevin Coval may well be the latest incarnation of this complicated tale. He knows it, too. In his excellent new collection L-Vis Lives! Racemusic Poems, the Chicago poet takes the whole concept a few steps further--beyond the inequities in album sales and the cries of "poseur," and into the head of one cultural transgressor. In it, he finds a wellspring of poignancy, humor, pathos and truth.

Coval's L-Vis is an amalgamation of Elvis (of course), Vanilla Ice and Eminem, along with tidbits from other similar artists. All three were or are white boys performing Black art. All three have publicly grappled with some very real demons. And in one way or another, those demons spring from the knowledge that, in Coval's own words, "something is terribly wrong."

In other words, it's those same basic burning questions whose answers seem stunningly simple and yet never, well, black and white:

"there was apartheid at the schools. apartheid in the lessons we sat thru. nelson mandela was in america. his name was chuck d. his name was krs-one. what is a Black Panther? there is apartheid on the bus home. there is apartheid in the lunchroom. the sides of the city we don't visit. were told not to. there is apartheid on the television. bill cosby aside."

But, as Coval reminds us, "there was no apartheid in the music." Through a hundred pages, we're reminded of some brilliant and subversive moments in "racemusic" history. We're reintroduced to those days when "Joe Strummer points to the Future," those fateful shows in New York when the Clash told their predominantly white American fans to "shut the fuck up and listen" to the words of Grandmaster Flash.

We're taken through Rick Rubin's evolution from a young white art kid in NYC to one of hip-hop's most bad-ass producers. We're reminded (believe it or not) that Chuck D at one point attempted to sign Vanilla Ice. And we're reminded that the fascinating output of these stabs-in-the-dark at cultural transcendence can quite often finally provoke discussion over the one enduring divide in America that still dares not speak its own name.

All of this, though, is factual backdrop to L-Vis' own (semi-) fictional story. That it's somewhat archetypal doesn't take away from some intensely specific storytelling. From hilarious attempts at getting a fade haircut to ruminations on what to answer when the urban heads ask "where you from," getting to the soul of L-Vis' story is one down the deep fault line of race and culture in America.

Of course, this is all instinctual; there is no real "ideology" backing up the young rebel. It's more the gut feeling that the segregated suburban whiteness covers something that is very wrong with America. It may be an instinct, but it's right; even if L-Vis doesn't exactly know what he's right about.

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That's Coval's strength as a poet. There's no doubt that he's thought and read endlessly about the contours of race and racism in America. His head is no doubt filled with the ideas he's imbibed via everyone from James Baldwin to Tupac Shakur. What makes these pieces work and flow as poetry and as a narrative, however, is his ability to root their inherent intellect into a place of passion, sensitivity and righteous fury that is never anything less than completely organic.

If the reader didn't already know that Coval indeed shared L-Vis' overriding background--a white suburban kid whose basic alienation made him enamored of hip-hop--they'll certainly know it at the end. That all sounds a bit "meta," but in an age when Black presidents let innocent African Americans get legally lynched, maybe meta is the only way to do it.

Case in point: "holla for Troy Davis," a piece marking something of a halfway point in L-Vis Lives! Though the poem's subtitle is "after L-Vis reads the 3rd section of 'Howl'" (Allen Ginsberg's legendary work), this is clearly Coval speaking through L-Vis, giving voice to that moment when this whole "racemusic" issue becomes a lot bigger than baggy pants or being nice on the mic:

"we're waiting for you
to come home and kick it and teach it
and be about it, cuz we are trying to
be about it and rally around you
as symbol, but you are person and flesh
and locked twenty-three hours a day in isolation
and we are here via train or car and some rode a bicycle
and what kind of leisure does that sound like
from the inside
but we're with you in county
despite the distance and hours of sunlight"

As the world now knows, Troy Davis was executed on September 21. It was one week after L-Vis Lives! was officially launched. Clearly, the contradictions persist.

Coval also knows that both he and L-Vis have few answers to these contradictions. The book, urgent as it is, also is a humble attempt at "broadening the conversation." So even as it seemingly ends with that most stereotypical of images, L-Vis bloated on the toilet singing his "ode to painkillers," Coval takes a U-turn.

The book's final section is a suite for that most infamous of "race traitors" in post-9/11 America: John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban." As Coval points out, Lindh was born in the suburbs, loved hip-hop, read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He was, like so many others, a kid who saw intrinsic emptiness in the world of middle-class privilege and sought out a life somehow truer. His ultimate reaction was undoubtedly rash, but not, as some have insisted, inhuman:

"i am hip to your double speak. i have been lied to. i am aware of this now. i am well / red in Marx. i have allied myself with the proletariat who drive your cabs, press your clothes, slice your kebabs, who silence beneath the weigh missiles close on their throats. there are many like me."

In putting a human face this most villainized of Americans in the "war on terror," Coval slices to the heart, showing that the question of race and identity runs much deeper than the condescension of Norman Mailer's "White Negro." That the story arc running from the Middle Passage through 30 years of hip-hop rebellion has by no means had its final chapter written.

Modest though its author might consider his own contribution, Coval's L-Vis Lives! deserves a place in that saga. We need a few more race traitors like him: the kind who understand that their very existence--complex and twisted though it might seem--also symbolizes the potential for the divisions to be finally closed.

First appeared at SocialistWorker.org.

Rocking the Occupation

2011-10-14T16:38:00.003-05:00

Early this morning, over a thousand workers, students and unemployed folks successfully fought off the NYPD from trying to evict the Occupy Wall Street movement from Zuccotti Park. In Denver, Seattle, Boston and Chicago, the cops have been severely stepping up their level of repression. But just like in New York, it hasn't worked.

We need to be clear: the Occupy movement had transformed our culture entirely. Though it's surely not going to continue indefinitely, the experiences had and lessons learned by those involved will certainly shake out in other struggles to come over the next several months and years. There will, as promised before, be an article soon on the musicians who have been pushed into supporting this upsurge, but in the meantime, soak in a few of the samples:

BDS Update: Voices Screaming to Be Heard

2011-10-13T20:41:00.006-05:00

This week, Electronic Intifada brought together three stories that paint a vivid picture of the need for a cultural boycott of Israel. This certainly is no surprise, given that EI is without a doubt the best source out there on the Palestinian struggle. Still, it seems worth connecting the dots.

First is Hillary Clinton's threat to withhold aid from global aid programs crucial to Palestine's infrastructure and culture. Michelle Gyeney's article brings some much-needed attention to the Secretary of State's promise to withdraw funding United Nations’ Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), for example, if the member bodies voted to recognize Palestine in the UN. That's no small amount; Gyeney quotes an article in Haaretz claiming that the US provides up to 22 percent of UNESCO's funding.

Embargoes and aid freezes are nothing new to Palestinians--in particular those in Gaza. The area continues to be under a near-constant state of deprivation and seige, even with Egypt's recent quasi-opening of the border. This is of course compounded by the bombardment of Operation Cast Lead back in '09. Many areas still stand knee-deep in rubble, and the restrictions on imports has affected even basic rights to food. The average daily caloric intake in Gaza is only about 60 percent of what's needed to sustain decent nutrition. The threats of the US, no doubt smiled upon by Netanyahu, will obviously only serve to exacerbate everything.

Naturally, this brutal reality plays out in all walks of life within Gaza. Rami Almeghari's article on the state of traditional musicians in Gaza portrays the way in which Palestine's rich musical legacy is being almost literally silenced from the rest of the world.

Akram Hassam, once such musician--an adherent of Palestinian "debkes" line dances--points out to Almeghari that "Prior to the Israeli siege of Gaza four years ago, I managed to participate in a series of music festivals in the Arab world including in Morocco and Cairo. But since 2006 I have been stuck in Gaza due to the Israeli closure." Just as everyday basics are restricted from reaching the people of Gaza, so are ordinary Gazans deprived of their basic everyday right to travel and share their culture with others.

This story is certainly small and simple, but that doesn't stop it from being purely outrageous. It also puts to lie one of the biggest excuses trotted out by those seeking to discredit the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, in particular its cultural wing. It's commonly complained that demanding Israeli culture be boycotted abroad somehow silences debate and prevents the free-flow of ideas. That's already a reality for those living under Israel's occupation and its racist apartheid policies. Allowing cultural events that tout the country's cultural "superiority" merely gives it more of a platform, increases its already unfair ideological advantage.

Enter DAM, without a doubt Palestine's best-known hip-hop group. Adri Nieuwhof, writing of course on EI's blog, reports about DAM's brand new song released only a couple days ago. "A Letter From a Prison Cell" is dedicated to the countless Palestinians unjustly kept in Israel's jails and prisons. Once again, given the daily reality that Israel has shaped for most Palestinians in Israel or the Occupied Territories, it's no surprise that unjust imprisonment is also part of the deal.

Says DAM: "We are adding our voices to their call for justice and demands for their legal rights. ‘A Letter From a Prison Cell’ tells the stories of three prisoners who refuse to be ignored and become another statistic. They have written letters to the outside world and the song voices those words."

This is precisely why BDS must continue--because the scaled need to be tipped back in the right direction. There can be little question that Israel, with its massive military and economic backing and behemoth public relations machine, still holds a great deal of the cards. Still, there continue to be artists seeking to give a real voice to the struggle for basic Palestinian self-determination. DAM is only one example; amplifying them depends on us.

"If You Dont' Become an Actor You'll Never Be a Factor!"

2011-10-12T10:28:00.006-05:00

Anyone who believes that the Occupy Together movement hasn't shifted our culture yet needs to watch this. This is the BET Hip-Hop Awards, hardly a bastion of radical activism. But much like the way that the upsurge against the war on Iraq seeped into all aspects of pop culture eight years ago, the occupations have forced so much of the entertainment industry to at least give it lip service, and those in the mainstream savvy enough have understood what an opportunity that gives them.

Such is Lupe Fiasco, who has always been incredibly skilled at seeing the lay of the land for what it is without ever tamping down his ability to speak his mind. It's little surprise that he was one of the first high-profile artists to publicly support Occupy Wall Street. This performance is a continuation of that.

It's not merely the t-shirt reading "#Occupy Wall Street." "Words I Never Said" was the first song that pundits song from Lasers that pundits seized on for Lupe's harsh criticism of Obama:

"Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit"

Of course the song takes on a lot more than just the political-media establishment. Ultimately it takes on the whole rotten system. Lupe very well may have performed this song anyway even if the nationwide occupations hadn't taken off. But it's doubtful he would have performed it with a Palestinian scarf tied around his mic and Erykah Badu wearing the much-maligned burqa.

I could go on with speculation and analysis, but it's probably best if readers simply soak in a glimpse of what culture--yes, even mainstream culture--can look like when there's actual and tangible class struggle gripping the country.

There will be an article coming up here at Rebel Frequencies assessing how the Occupy movement has affected the music world. So, stay tuned to RF!

Out Of Friends, Out Of Touch

2011-10-11T12:46:00.009-05:00

I rarely am the kind of journalist who tells musicians they need to "shut up." Because of how little real speech is actually afforded to most artists, because of the "shut up and sing" mentality and the way that most musicians' voices are so often twisted around, I am normally loath to say any one artist should simply keep their mouth closed.

That, however, is exactly what Hank Williams Jr. would be advised to do. He may think that his new song, which takes ESPN to task before decrying an imminent "United Socialist States of America," is helping his cause. In the midst of what the rest of the world is dealing with, however, it merely reveals his true colors: self-important, insecure, and utterly reactionary. And despite the media flurry that has swirled around him for the past week, it also shows him to be fading in relevance.

There are few shows on TV that use the same song for twenty years. That Williams can be offended by his removal after such a long run definitely doesn't ingratiate him. In some ways, though, one can understand his reaction--his signature wail of "are you ready for some football?" was one of the few things keeping him in the public eye. As country had evolved over the past two decades, Williams had stayed more or less the same, and not in a good way. When ESPN broke ties with him, it was basically one of his last links to relevance waving bye-bye. That he also "calls out" Fox News in the song merely highlights his own desperation.

That's not the only change, however, that seems to be leaving Williams behind. His belief he'll be swaying much opinion with his rambling, pieced-together song outside of his most loyal fans and Tea Party hardcore is truly an illusion. As the "Occupy Together" movement spreads from city to city and even into some smaller towns, the derision of "socialist" certainly doesn't pack the punch it has in previous eras.

To be clear, the title hasn't had as much wallop as McCain, Palin and Beck have assumed it to have for a while--much like Williams' music itself. So, maybe this is all appropriate somehow. None of this is to say that these new insurgent, almost instinctually left-wing movements are simply up-up-and-away. I also have no illusions of Williams any time soon seeing the light and deciding to keep his mouth shut. Given the media platform that this whole debacle has afforded him however, it needs to pointed out that his ramblings are going to be getting a lot more opposition than what he got from ESPN.

Poet, Not Porn Star

2011-10-10T10:39:00.006-05:00

So this is how the media remembers Tupac Shakur fifteen years after his death? A sex tape? Tupac has been getting more mentions than he has probably had in years due to this. It's sick and depraved. It also unfortunately fits in quite well with the way today's media operates.

The tape, apparently filmed in 1991--well before 'Pac had become a household name--is five minutes long and shows Tupac receiving oral sex from an unidentified woman. It's blurry and old (from what I've heard; the tape has thankfully not been released, and I have no plans of watching it anyway). Not exactly the sensation of Paris Hilton of Kim Kardashian, but it's clearly enough to send TMZ and others like it into a tizzy.

Thankfully, Tupac's estate, headed up by his mother Afeni, have pledged legal action against anyone attempting to release the tape. Whatever 'Pac decided to do behind closed doors--filmed or not--is clearly his business and his alone. It should stay that way.

When I wrote my article commemorating Tupac's death a few weeks ago, I mentioned the the conscious dumbing down of his legacy hasn't taken hold the way that it has for many other dead artists who held subversive ideas. His Panther roots are well-known, as are his hard stances against poverty, racism and police brutality. Perhaps then, this is one of the ways that such a sanitizing can take place--painting him as just another thuggish womanizer. It would certainly be in line with the way hip-hop is presented to us by MTV nowadays.

We need to be clear on this, however: such a notion would not only be exploitative of 'Pac's memory, but profoundly racist and sexist to boot. In society's present moment--one where the racist trope of Black people being somehow more sexist and homophobic than the population at large just refuses to die--having Tupac's legacy represented by a sex tape would only serve to dilute it. It would give those who would exploit hip-hop for their own gain even more ammo, another brush with which to better paint the narrative of rap as being mostly about "bitches and hos."

True, 'Pac's legacy was always contradictory. He had plenty of songs that rehashed that same tired theme, but they were always lined up next to songs that also pledged "never call you bitch again." It was an odd mix, but one a lot more complex than today's lazy music journalist establishment has ever been willing to cop to.

This is to say nothing of the unidentified young woman that Tupac was with. Though details on how this tape emerged or who brought it forth have been scant, it stands to reason that she would be mortified and risk losing a lot in her own life if this were released.

It's a good thing that 'Pac's legacy has been so closely guarded by his mother. It's also a good thing that his prolific recording career leaves us with a much fuller version of Tupac Shakur the man, poet and artist.