Tuesday, December 30, 2014
*Update: Cuba hip hop and the corporation that almost ruined it
"Shortly before the US and Cuba reestablished
diplomatic relations on December 2014, Associated Press exposed a
cartoonish caper by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
(1). Apparently running out of ideas for undermining the Cuban
revolution, the agency turned to funding hip hop rappers. This bizarre
scheme, denounced by US Senator Patrick Leahy as “reckless” and
“stupid”, was contracted out to Creative Associates International Inc.
(CAII), a little known private company that happens to be one of USAID’s
largest contractors. This is the same company that earlier in 2014 had
been caught in another USAID scheme to ensnare Cuban youth, this one
involving Twitter.
CAII deserves a closer look. In the last three decades this company has popped up in the middle of major political, diplomatic, military and intelligence operations of the US government worldwide.
“Creative Associates International provides outstanding, on-the-ground development services and forges partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions to global challenges”, explains the company web site. “Its experts focus on building inclusive educational systems, transitioning communities from conflict to peace… engaging youth… and more. Creative is recognized for its ability to quickly adapt and excel in conflict and post-conflict environments.”
read rest here
CAII deserves a closer look. In the last three decades this company has popped up in the middle of major political, diplomatic, military and intelligence operations of the US government worldwide.
“Creative Associates International provides outstanding, on-the-ground development services and forges partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions to global challenges”, explains the company web site. “Its experts focus on building inclusive educational systems, transitioning communities from conflict to peace… engaging youth… and more. Creative is recognized for its ability to quickly adapt and excel in conflict and post-conflict environments.”
read rest here
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Political Power of Hip Hop: Ferguson
"The Fix reached out to hip-hop scholar James Peterson of Lehigh
University to get a sense of what this moment means for this
now-middle-aged genre of music that has long since become something much
more than just a genre. We caught up with him while he is in Japan, on
tour for his book, "The Hip-Hop Underground and African American
Culture: Beneath the Surface."
FIX: What do you make of this moment and what it means and says about hip hop?
PETERSON: Hip-hop is my specialty, and for such a long time I’ve had to bear the brunt of criticism from people who say that it was apolitical and the hip-hop generation was apathetic and disengaged. I have known this not to be true. Hip-hop artists have been talking about police brutality since 1982. This hip-hop generation has been talking about government surveillance since the 1990s. And the hip-hop generation activism is at the forefront of this generation of activists. So people who have criticized hip-hip for being apathetic and staying on sidelines have to keep quiet now."
read the rest here
FIX: What do you make of this moment and what it means and says about hip hop?
PETERSON: Hip-hop is my specialty, and for such a long time I’ve had to bear the brunt of criticism from people who say that it was apolitical and the hip-hop generation was apathetic and disengaged. I have known this not to be true. Hip-hop artists have been talking about police brutality since 1982. This hip-hop generation has been talking about government surveillance since the 1990s. And the hip-hop generation activism is at the forefront of this generation of activists. So people who have criticized hip-hip for being apathetic and staying on sidelines have to keep quiet now."
read the rest here
Small Town Hip Hop
"When Jared Soares decided to document the hip-hop scene in Roanoke,
Virginia, he wasn’t entirely sure it existed. But he was passionate
about hip-hop music, and wanted to see if it could thrive even in a
small town mostly known for bluegrass. He also wanted to try doing a
long-term photography project for the first time.
Soares, then a photojournalist at the Roanoke Times, didn’t
have to look too far. After stepping into a corner store, he saw CDs for
sale at the counter. Most were bootleg copies of mainstream hip-hop
artists like Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, but among them he found three
local albums, with contact information listed on the back. He started
calling: The first line was disconnected, the second played waiting
music, and the third connected him to Terrance Palmer, who designed
cover art for a lot of area artists.
“I kind of explained what I wanted to do. He said, ‘I hate talking on
the phone. Can you meet me in person?’ I said, ‘When?’ He said, ‘How
about now?’ ” Soares said."
here
here
Friday, December 26, 2014
Street Art where NYPD officers were killed
This is the street art located on the same block where two NYPD officers were killed yesterday pic.twitter.com/An7VSIASCF
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) December 21, 2014
Thursday, December 25, 2014
RZA speaks out on Eric Garner Case: non-value of black life
"Although Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA doesn’t have issue with all police, he
does think that some are responsible for the unfair treatment and
perception of the black community.
The rapper and music producer asserted that the Eric Garner case wasn’t solely related to racial inequality, but that it was also “about empowering a man who didn’t have power before and who overexerted his power”.
read rest here
The rapper and music producer asserted that the Eric Garner case wasn’t solely related to racial inequality, but that it was also “about empowering a man who didn’t have power before and who overexerted his power”.
read rest here
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Hip Hop: "Black" v. "Culture"
Hip Hop is "black" when crime happens. When it wins an award it's everyone's culture.
— Andreas Hale (@AndreasHale) December 22, 2014
Monday, December 22, 2014
Q-Tip to Iggy: Hip Hop is an artistic socio-political movement...
@IGGYAZALEA HipHop is a artistic and socio-political movement/culture that sprang from the disparate ghettos of NY in the early 70's
— QTip (@QtipTheAbstract) December 20, 2014
"it was about what it really means, on a socio-political level, that America's favorite rappers keep getting whiter (as exemplified by Azalea's Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, mimicking Macklemore's success last year). Banks gave a brave, emotionally-charged Hot 97 interview earlier this week, during which she cried describing how she feared things like Azalea's Grammy nomination were contributing to the erasure of hip-hop's blackness, and blackness in general: "When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is 'You're amazing, you're great, you can do anything you put your mind to,' she said. "And all it says to Black kids is 'You don't have shit, you don't own shit, not even the shit you created for yourself.' And it makes me upset." Azalea took to Twitter to respond (you can read her response here); it was flippant, wholly unempathetic, and re-defined missing the point.
Today, Q-Tip hit Azalea with a long, informed response—not as an a "chastisement" or "admonishment," he said, but simply for some context. It's worth reading for all of us. Azalea has yet to respond."
Read Q-Tip's tweets/history lesson here
Sunday, December 21, 2014
ancient vandalism
"When Pompeii was rediscovered in the eighteenth century, no one was
particularly interested in the rash of graffiti scratched on its walls.
Excavators at the time were too busy carting away bulky and aesthetically
pleasing works of art as trophies for the Bourbon kings. It was not until
the mid-nineteenth century, and the advent of “romantic” archaeology, that
one open-minded director, Francesco Maria Avellino, had the foresight to
start conserving these fragile, less prestigious relics, thousands of which
still survive, either in situ or detached with their original plaster. Other
early enthusiasts included Chateaubriand and Bishop Wordsworth, both of whom
recognized the “primitive” appeal of the insignificant-looking scrawls and
their power to safeguard the noisy, if sometimes indecorous, opinions of
Pompeii’s dramatically silenced inhabitants: the trials of school (“If
Cicero pains you, you’ll get a flogging”), the pangs of love (“Rufus loves
Cornelia”), threats (“Beware of shitting here”), electioneering (“Cuspius
for aedile”) and insults (“Narcissus is a giant cocksucker”)."
read more here
read more here
Black pop culture fuels empire?
“They tryna lock niggas up
They tryna make new slaves
See that’s that privately owned prison
Get your piece today”
– Lyric from Kanye West’s 2013 single “New Slaves.”
Popular culture in American society serves multiple functions. Viewed by many as simple artistic expression seeking to provide entertainment for its audiences, throughout American history popular culture has been deployed by the ruling elite as a means to solidify the imperatives of American capitalism and empire in the minds of the nation’s citizenry as well as the world abroad.
“President Dwight D. Eisenhower helped lead the foundations of global jazz diplomacy in the aftermath ofBrown v. Board of Education--a decision that provided impetus for a world wide United States Information Agency (UNIA) propoganda campaign.” – ”Jazz Diplomacy: Promoting America During the Cold War Era,” by Lisa E. Davenport
Black Jazz Musicians were recruited by Eisenhower and subsequent administrations to be the ambassadors to American Capitalism in third world countries that were recently gaining independence and flirting with Communism as a political and economic model at the height of global Soviet prominence. These Black musicians were being recruited at a time when America was only making slight overtures to crack the walls of Jim Crow Segregation. Yet, the recent Supreme Court Decision of Brown vs Education led some in the Black community to naively believe that a transformative victory had been won as opposed to a judicial policy choice to improve America’s image abroad in the face of Communist expansion.
“Starting in the 1950's, the U.S. State Department solicited jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, and Louis Armstrong as ‘cultural ambassadors’ to third world countries and the African continent to try to ‘rehabilitate’ America's racist image and offer the American way of life as an alternative to the increasing post-colonial popularity of Communism. Armstrong was performing in the Katanga Province in the Congo the same time as Patrice Lumumba's capture and torture with American complicity. He was on the continent when Lumumba was killed.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was the brainchild behind this movement of recruiting Jazz artists for this purpose”– "In Search of the Black Fantastic," Richard Iton.
In today’s political age with the browning of America, the ruling elite understand the importance of having the pop culture/media arm of the Black mis-leadership class endorse empire in Black face. Politicians like Barack Obama and Cory Booker are crucial to ensuring that people of color embrace the empire’s agenda as their own. Celebrities ranging from Oprah Winfrey, Samuel L. Jackson, to Jay Z swear their loyalty to the Booker/Obama types in fulfillment of a ridiculous Black redemptive fantasy. Racial kinship politicsbecomes a tool of empire.
read rest here
Banksy mocks BP
"If you think this dolphin looks furious — it is — and with good reason! This colorful kiddie ride comes courtesy of gleeful art prankster Banksy, an artist well known for his graffiti and politically charged installations. In his most recent creation, the artist transformed a coin-operated ride into a searing statement against the BP oil spill. Wrapped in a real tuna net and fully oiled, this dolphin is fully operable, and ready to take you on a ride that’ll get you forgetting about all the eco-damage BP has done – and like BP, all you’ve got to do is throw some money at it."
http://inhabitat.com/banksys-coin-operated-politically-charged-plaything-mocks-bp/
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
US co-opted Cuba's hip hop scene
"A covert U.S. operation to spark a democracy-spreading youth movement in Cuba by infiltrating the country’s underground hip-hop scene ended up a Looney tune.
An Associated Press investigation blew the lid off the clandestine mission by the U.S. Agency for International Development, revealing it flopped because it was ill-conceived, reckless and executed by amateurs.
Instead of spreading democracy, the mission put innocent Cubans at risk and left unwitting recruits detained and interrogated by Cuban officials."
Read the rest here
India: Guess Who
"Pictures of Guesswho's graffiti on walls and buildings in Kochi (Cochin), in Kerala state on India's southwest coast, are catching attention on the photo-sharing sites, Facebook and Reddit.
Kochi is in the midst of a huge art biennale, and Guesswho's graffiti seems to be a poke at the organised festival. The stencils are a clever mash-up of Western pop culture with Indian icons, and the artist's (or artists') style is certainly influenced by that anonymous yet famous British street artist, Banksy.
Guesswho spoke to BBC Tamil and BBC Trending: he or she wouldn't reveal their identity to us, but they did agree to answer some questions via email."
Read the rest here
Cornell to digitize Hip Hop Archive
"Aaliyah, Ace Hood, the Afros, Ali D, Arrested Development: In Bill
Adler's extensive collection of hip-hop history, some of the genre's
biggest names are arranged next to lesser mainstream artists.
Adler was the founding publicity director of Def Jam Records. One of his first assignments was getting pop music critics at daily newspapers to cover one of the label's new artists, LL Cool J. He worked at Def Jam for six years, before going independent and later running a gallery devoted to hip-hop photography. From these ventures, he accrued a massive archive, which lived in a storage space in the basement of his building until he sold the collection to Cornell University last year. Soon it will also live online
Adler sent Cornell University 500 vinyl recordings, an impressive collection of books in several languages and roughly 100,000 newspaper and magazine articles about rap and hip-hop. One of the books — in Polish — is a 600-page encyclopedia of rap. Another is a collection by French photographer Sophie Bramly."
Read the rest here
Adler was the founding publicity director of Def Jam Records. One of his first assignments was getting pop music critics at daily newspapers to cover one of the label's new artists, LL Cool J. He worked at Def Jam for six years, before going independent and later running a gallery devoted to hip-hop photography. From these ventures, he accrued a massive archive, which lived in a storage space in the basement of his building until he sold the collection to Cornell University last year. Soon it will also live online
Adler sent Cornell University 500 vinyl recordings, an impressive collection of books in several languages and roughly 100,000 newspaper and magazine articles about rap and hip-hop. One of the books — in Polish — is a 600-page encyclopedia of rap. Another is a collection by French photographer Sophie Bramly."
Read the rest here
Casablanca through Graffiti
" Casablanca is a legendary city. But Abul-Hasanat Siddique has just discovered something that's not usually part of the legend: explosive street art."
Read and see the rest here
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Context for 'Fuck tha Police' by NWA
"With a few notable exceptions, rappers have been conspicuously absent in the response to the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island. The Internets want to know why.
Back in 1970, CSNY’s protest anthem “Ohio”
was on the radio within a few weeks of the massacre at Kent State—and
that was in 1970. Those records had to be pressed up on vinyl and
delivered to radio stations by actual human beings.
Theoretically,
a rapper could have issued a response to #Ferguson, say, the same
afternoon Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown dead in the street, or the same
evening a grand jury decided he shouldn’t be charged with a crime. We
have the technology.
Chuck
D, who once called hip-hop the black CNN, in what’s since become one of
the most shopworn cliches in the history of hip-hop journalism, often
touted the Internets’ potential in this regard."
read the rest here (goes through various hip hop artists involved in this issue)
Immortal Technique comments on this as well, which I've posted here
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Graffiti artist in critical condition after being run over by Police car
"Florida graffiti artist was taken off life support over the weekend after he sustained a brain injury when he was hit by an undercover Miami Police officer’s car while he was tagging a building."
read here
Criolo Doido (Brazil)
"Criolo delivers a stinging social critique in song and
rhyme, taking in Brazil’s crippling inequality, its drug problem, its
violence and the growing obsession with consumerism that came with the
country’s economic development. But the message is delivered as
entertainment, not lecture, because this is a show, not a political
discourse."
read the rest here
read the rest here
Doel (Belgium): The ghost town graffiti artists tried to save
"But as it emptied, Doel became something of a paradise for some of Europe's best-known graffiti artists. Some residents even encouraged street artists to turn up, in an attempt to create an open-air gallery."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30348086
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Questlove on Iggy
"Here's the thing: the song is effective and catchy as hell, and it works. Just the over-enunciation of "hold you down"? [Laughs]It makes me chuckle because all I can see is my assistant holding a brush in the mirror and singing it.
I'm caught in between. And I defend it. I see false Instagram posts like, "She said the N-word! She said the N-word!" I'll call people out — "Yo, don't troll." I know you're ready to give your 42-page dissertation on theGrio about why this is culture vulture-ism. You know, we as black people have to come to grips that hip-hop is a contagious culture. If you love something, you gotta set it free. I will say that "Fancy," above any song that I've ever heard or dealt with, is a game-changer in that fact that we're truly going to have to come to grips with the fact that hip-hop has spread its wings.
And to tell the truth, I was saying this last year, I don't think it's any mistake that four or five of my favorite singers are from Australia. Like between Hiatus Kaiyote, there's a bunch I can name for you right now, but I don't think it's a mistake that a lot of of my favorite artists are coming from Down Under. A lot of them more soulful than what we're dealing with now. When you think soul music and Aretha Franklin and the Baptist-born singer, that's sort of an idea in the past. As black people, we're really not in the church as we used to be, and that's reflected in the songs now.
I'm not going to lie to you, I'm torn between the opinions on the Internet, but I'mma let Iggy be Iggy. It's not even politically correct dribble. The song is effective. I'm in the middle of the approximation of the enunciation, I'll say. Part of me hopes she grows out of that and says it with her regular dialect — I think that would be cooler. But, yeah, "Fancy" is the song of the summer."
http://gawker.com/questlove-gives-definitive-take-on-iggy-azaleas-hip-hop-1609733808/+kellyconaboy
Friday, December 5, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
On Bathroom Walls
"An oft-cited 1983 study defines three categories of graffiti: Tourist graffiti (“John wuz here”), inner-city graffiti (like tagging and street art), and toilet graffiti (or “latrinalia” as it’s sometimes called in academic literature).
What makes toilet graffiti special, and worthy of its own entire category, is the uniqueness of the space in which people are writing. Public bathrooms are weird places. There’s a tension to doing private activities in a public space, with only the flimsiest of boundaries hiding some of our culture’s biggest taboos—genitals and bodily functions. Hence all the scatological and sexual prose that latrinalia often consists of: People are just deriving inspiration from their surroundings.
Public bathrooms are also (usually) gender-segregated, creating institutionalized single-gender spaces that you almost never see anywhere else. Perhaps because of this, most research on toilet graffiti has studied the differences between what men and women write in their respective stalls. Alfred Kinsey (yes, that Alfred Kinsey) was the first to do this, in the 1950s. He and his team found that men wrote more, and dirtier, things than women, who were more likely to write about romantic love.
“Kinsey and his colleagues suggested that women’s lesser tendency to produce erotic graffiti was due to their greater regard for moral codes and social conventions,” writes Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology at Melbourne University, in his book Psychology in the Bathroom.
These fairly stereotypical analyses persist in toilet graffiti studies over the years. Though some studies say women write just as much as men, men’s is typically seen as being more aggressive and more sexual, while women’s is more conversational and more likely to be about love. Though most bathroom graffiti research was done in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, a couple studies done in the past few years have found similar things.
Nicholas Matthews, a PhD candidate at Indiana University, was the lead author on a 2012 study that analyzed toilet graffiti in nine bars in a Midwestern town. He and his fellow researchers found that the most common type of graffiti was “presence-identifying” (just scrawling your name, for example), but men were identifying their presence more than women. Women, on the other hand, wrote more insults. Matthews explains this using evolutionary psychology, saying that boosting oneself up is a typical male mating strategy, whereas putting other women down is a classic female gambit."
Read the rest here
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