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Hip
Hop Confronts War
BY
WALIDAH IMARISHA
___________________
Since Sept. 11 corporate media have regurgitated the government’s
mindless pro-war propaganda. It’s not just CNN and NBC, though:
big money rappers have fallen in line to rally ’round the flag,
from Mystikal to R. Kelly to Wu-Tang Clan to MC Hammer.
“Whether you have Dan Rather or Wyclef or Ja Rule wrapped up in
red, white and blue, it’s the same, because then they become the
Dan Rather of the hip hop community,” says Mario Africa of the  Central
Committee for Conscientious Objectors, publisher of AWOL, a political
hip hop magazine.
Rapper Canibus’ song “Draft Me” is just part of a media
blitz feeding the racist attacks that have claimed dozens of Middle Eastern
/Arab/South and Central Asian people since Sept. 11: “Lurkin’,
to leave y’all with bloody red turbans/Screamin ‘Jihad!’
while y’all pray to a false god/We ready for all out war, it’s
time to settle the score.” The song ends with a clip of George W.
Bush.
But luckily, underground hip hop is speaking out against the “war
on terrorism,” operating, as Africa says, as town criers. “It’s
these cats who are selling their CDs out of their backpacks and the trunk
of their cars who come with the analysis, because they can say this is
what it means to me, because we live under the gun.”
Folks have organized shows, like the May 12 LA Not in Our Name show, which
drew over 1,200 people. Africa and AWOL Magazine are now planning a Sept.
11 spoken word show in Berkeley, Calif. to address both political prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case and post-911 America.
And hip hop artists/organizers are still doing what they know best: creating
art. Seattle hip hoppers put out “911amerika” earlier this
year. (See www.nwexplosion.com.) Gabriel Teodros, one of the organizers,
says, “I was disturbed that for the first time in my life people
of color were waving U.S. flags and screaming retaliation...The CD just
felt like the best thing we could do to help combat the self-destruction.”
Erik Wissa works with the Boston American Friends Service Committee’s
hip hop program Critical Breakdown. He says hip hop, as the voice of young
people today, is a vital tool for the progressive movement. “A lot
of organizations don’t see the power in music, but cultural workers
have always been at the forefront of every movement.”
Critical Breakdown is working with South Africa-based Bush Radio, Big
Noise Films and AWOL to put out a CD titled “Infinite War.”
(See http://awol.objector.org.)
It would be a global voice against the war on terrorism.
Many groups have joined forces, realizing that making a dent in the pro-war
propaganda machine is going to take a concerted effort. “There’s
so much division in hip hop already: east coast, west coast, underground,
mainstream,” says Kevin Ramirez of 3rdworldwide and AWOL. “It’s
really time we start working together, linking up now, before we’re
either all drafted or bombed.”
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Walidah Imarisha is a spoken word artist, journalist and organizer
with Good Sista/Bad Sista and AWOL Magazine.
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