Brownskin, you know I love your brownskin.

First, here is an article by Dr. Jared Ball about Hip Hop as mass media in context to modern day society. http://www.greeninstitute.net/subpages/ball_hh_pt1.asp
Given the societal need and function of mass media and popular culture, all that is popular is fraudulent. Popularity is in almost every case an intentionally constructed fabrication of what it claims to represent. Too few who comment on the lamentable condition of today’s popular hip-hop seem to grasp this, the political nature of the nation’s media system, nor the political function that system serves. Hip-hop is often taken out of the existing context of political struggle, repression, or the primacy of a domestic/neo-colonialism in the service of which mass media play a (the?) leading role. Media, often incorrectly defined by their technologies, are the primary conduits of ideology or worldview and must be seen as such. Therefore, their highly consolidated ownership and content management structure (corporate interlocking boards of directors, advertisers, stockholders, etc.) cannot be understood absent their ability to disseminate a consciousness they themselves sanction and mass produce. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrable than in hip-hop.

Like mass media and popular culture, hip-hop too is often removed from its proper context as the cultural expression of a domestically-held internal colony otherwise known as Black America. The colonialism that prefigures its creation and subsequent popularity is too often absent from popular discussion of hip-hop and as such leads to confused analyses and a tremendous amount of inaction surrounding the issues involved. I use the term colonialism simply to draw attention to the systemic (i.e. intentional) maltreatment of a majority of those considered “citizens,” and to the particular form that this maltreatment takes regarding North America’s Black/African internal colony. By this I mean that the basic tenets of a colonial relationship remain intact for Black people in the United States. That is: 1) Black people remain held in spatially distinct communities, neighborhoods, projects, etc. where they, 2) form the basis of this country’s source of cheap labor and, 3) raw materials – which include cultural expression and, specifically, hip-hop. That is, held intentionally in poverty so as to create conditions of desperation, Black people must then sell their labor cheaply and/or be willing to conform themselves to the needs and will of an elite in order to “succeed.” Hip-hop, like every other cultural expression generated from this community, has over the last twenty years been grafted to this structural need to systematically produce what is conducive to this system’s survival. This is quite natural and understandable and would only be confusing were this not the case.

The pervasiveness of self/community-directed violence, misogyny, conspicuous consumption, product placement promotion, and general lack of ingenuity in popular hip-hop is the aforementioned specific systemic need produced systematically via its media representative, in this case, the music industry. Understood properly we would note that corporations are themselves legal entities that give sanction and anonymity to those involved in the process of protecting the ruling elite. Therefore, their ability to sign (via contract), promote, disseminate, etc. the cultural expression of the colonized allows them to determine the direction or content in most popular hip-hop.

The tremendous amount of hip-hop created that does not suit this political need, which again is primary, is simply omitted. And without this current analysis, even our brightest thinkers ignorantly suggest, as did Michael Eric Dyson recently on Paula Zahn’s CNN special on the subject, that to be successful (i.e. “popular”) politically conscious artists need “better beats.” This precludes the continuing power struggle which necessitates both the maintenance of the Black colony, but also a specific image of that colony to be imposed on the country and world. In other words, there can be no popular representation of the colonized that does not reflect a justification or omission of their colonized status. It is the status of a neo-colony that needs changing, not the beats used by those expressing a desire for something different.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, in defense of this system, explained this reality quite clearly when writing in The Grand Chessboard (1997) that what will separate the United States as an empire from those of the past is this nation’s control over “international communication and popular entertainment.” Media today are more pervasive, powerful, and capable of the maintenance of colonialism than at any other time in world history. This is the result of the intentional and concomitant rise of both mass media technology and their consolidated ownership in the hands of the world’s only true “minority” elite: white men. Fewer people, almost all exclusively within the same self-identified racial, class, and gendered interest group, have a greater ability today than at any other time to produce a global consciousness conducive to their interests. Hence my earlier statement about the inherent fraudulence of popular culture. In a society where culture is used as a primary component or mechanism of social control, that which becomes “pop culture” is fraudulent in that it is forced, as Fanon has explained, to “testify against” its creators and to serve those able to determine its reach or societal penetration. Rarely is what we know of as “popular” the initial intention of the culture or individual from which that expression comes. Most often what is the final product is what is decidedly different than what its creator initially set out to make and is more than likely no longer in their own best interest.

While much of what is made popular in hip-hop glorifies the impoverished conditions out of which the cultural expression emerges, little has changed regarding those fundamental colonial conditions. In the thirty years of hip-hop’s ascendance and its annual generation of billions of dollars, the fundamental relationship between that population and the greater society remains intact. Hip-hop’s popularity has done nothing to improve Black America’s overall wealth, education, health-care, or certainly rates of imprisonment. In fact, the popularity of hip-hop is used to deny these conditions or explain them as natural to the conditions of African America. It is not to the people that these conditions are natural but, instead, to the condition of being colonized. Popular media and, therefore, hip-hop cannot be changed prior to a societal shift (revolution) in who holds power and how that power is to be wielded.

In future columns I will detail the historical shift in hip-hop, the corporate/industrial mechanism, detailing how the final product is shaped to these political needs and offer detailed strategies and current movements/artists whose work is in assertive resistance to this neocolonial condition.





Dr. Jared A. Ball is an assistant professor of communication studies at Morgan State University. He is editor-at- large of the Journal of Hip-Hop and Global Culture from Words, Beats and Life and hosts Jazz & Justice Mondays 1-3p EST on DC's WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio. Ball is also the founder and creator of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show, a hip-hop mixtape committed to the practice of underground emancipatory journalism. He is currently working on his first book Hip-Hop as Mass Media: The Mixtape and Emancipatory Journalism and can be found online at voxunion.com.




I have had the pleasure and privilege to be a student of Dr. Ball before and I have decided to spread the knowledge.

Its Friday!

So I decided not to rap too much, instead I leave a few video clips to ponder on.

Aye Preme!

Why is Rattin At an All Time High?


"Like Cain and Abel, Caesar and Brutus, Jesus and Judas, back stabbers do this".
-Lauryn Hill

Life in prison because 50 Cent spelled out too much info on his mixtape. Its a damn shame. Why? Its yet another reason for black people to oppose each other. Crabs in a barrel huh man? And dont take this as no black bashing. Im just sayin I wish it was different. I got no time to hate on no other brother's grind. But sellin out your people is nit good regardless of race. Be a man.

Mental Slavery

Bob had it rite since back then. We gotta wake up and shake the shackles off of our minds. Only then will we rise up and become the nation we claim to be. The sheep must remove the wool from their eyes. If you dont know what I am talking about, chances are, you are one of the sheep.
Check out the Mind Deprogramming Videos below.



Spread it around and lets get everybody cleaning parts of their mind like a baby nine.

Negroid!

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth"
Henry D. Thoreau

"A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you."
Ramsey Clark - U. S. Attorney General: Source: New York Times, 2 October 1977


"There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans.
Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of
white skins. Even among these there are prejudices of which I as a Jew am
clearly conscious; but they are unimportant in comparison with the
attitude of the 'Whites' toward their fellow-citizens of darker
complexion, particularly toward Negroes. The more I feel an American, the
more this situation pains me. I can escape the feeling of complicity in it
only by speaking out.

"Many a sincere person will answer: 'Our attitude towards Negroes is the
result of unfavorable experiences which we have had by living side by side
with Negroes in this country. They are not our equals in intelligence,
sense of responsibility, reliability.'

"I am firmly convinced that whoever believes this suffers from a fatal
misconception. Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes
by force; and in the white man's quest for wealth and an easy life they
have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery. The
modern prejudice against Negroes is the result of the desire to maintain
this unworthy condition."
Albert Einstein
"The Negro Question"
1946


Tell the children the truth! Why lie to us sayin racism ended. Why lie to us saying that slavery ended? Why tell us that we have a chance to make it out the hood knowing those chances are slim to none for most of us. This is not a meritocracy or black people would be some of the richest people in the nation. This is not saying white people are lazy. But I can definitely show you more minorities who are busting their asses working two jobs just to survive.

And slavery ended? When? I guess all my people in these concentration camps can leave now right? Free these prisoners of this race war. Im not saying every prisoner is innocent or deserves to be free. But the Rockefeller Drug Laws are ridiculous. Why are most of our jails filled with those who have been convicted of non violent drug charges? Why not be out there catching rapists, murderers, and other types of people who perform such heinous acts.?



Alot of these questions will never be answered. Or at least not by the powers that be. Have them tell the story and everything is just how its supposed to be. Until the story of the hunt is told by the wolf, it will always glorify the hunter.


We behind enemy lines son. Squad Up and organize! Before its too late.
Where are our so called leaders?

Afrika Unite!

Cuz we're movin rite out of Babylon!

Amos 9:11: In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old

Greetings Idren & Isistren! Eternal blessings in the name of the most high!
This blog will be my spot for clearing my mind, and speaking on behalf of the citizens of the world. The poor people, the black people, the latinos, the women, etc all oppressed people of all races. I know that speaking your mind could get you killed. But like Peter Tosh said " Jah will protect I". Nuh true?

Yeah I know it aint black history month anymore. Sue me.

Anyway with this being my first post, Imma leave it short. I need to learn how to fix this thing up ya dig. Big ups to all the Rastas, hippies, anarchists, independants, and anyone else down for freedom.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourseleves can free our mind.