The Women
Does anyone remember Saturday morning Roller Derby when it was played by women and before men saw it as a chance to have a hard-on at 10am? Do you remember the helmets, the knee and elbow pads and the way they played? Those were some serious women. Those women were ready to take you down and out. They were fierce. I had never before seen women play or behave like that. They were women that I was a little nervous imaging myself getting in the way of. Hell, those women wore mouth guards. They were prepared to have teeth knocked out and were equally prepared to knock out their opponents and they did it working as a team. That's my kind of woman. That is how I feel about the women of Rap.
The women of Rap are fierce and they demand our attention. Like their male counterparts the symbolism (hoodies, hand gestures) remains intact. These women know where they are standing. My impression with the early pioneers of Rap is that the women were surprised to be unable to get a seat at the table with the men. I think the expectation was that: we're Both black, why can't I get a seat? That question, I think, began a dialogue about the relationship between Black women and Black men. The format of Rapping allowed the audience to settle the debate. It was not men deciding if you could sit, it was the audience deciding if there was truth in what you said. Women had a lot to say and female audience member began to hear what they had no voice of their own to say. Some took up Rapping to speak their own mind and others listened while taking mad, copious notes.
Having sung in front of audiences I know the courage necessary to be vulnerable. The interpretation of a song must come from a place rendering the lyrics of others believably your own. Without that connection your voice falls flat, you simply lip sync. Writing requires me to go to a much deeper place. A place I myself do not want to go. A place sad, alone and often burdened with finding clarity where none can be seen. When you look at the various subject matters that Rap addresses one can see that they are not subjects that are easy to discuss. In a way they are not the topics spoken of in polite company. Sexism, violence, sex, governing malpractice, homophobia race relations… these are all subjects people would rather disappear. But in order for any one of those subjects to reach clarity and mutual understanding they must be discussed.
Rap isn't singing. And the point is? Carpets aren't shoes but we buy them anyway. In a traditional sense this may be true, but we also know it doesn't mean that rappers can't sing. Dana Owens aka Queen Latifah has a gorgeous voice and has made best selling albums under both names. She is more than meets the eye. Poetry isn't singing but it is placed on paper in much the same way as a song and loads of people listen to that.
I don't understand what is being said. Either download the lyrics, put your listening ears on or admit you are not interested in hearing about 'the other'.
Rap is degrading to women. Prove it to me. Show me. I like evidence. and I like evidence that supports theories, not one video out of 6 thousand… Tell me what you listen to and I will point to its inherent sexism and potential racism. There is no genre free of this including classical music.
From top to bottom we have: Queen Latifah (I Can't Understand. USA), Salt-N-Pepa (Ain't Nuthin But a She Thing. USA), Keny Arkana (La Rage. France), Silvana Imam (Tänd Alla Ljus. Sweden), Lumaraa (Feinschliff, Germany), Unknown Artist (Unknown Title. Russia), Yugen Blakrok (House of Ravens, Johannesburg), La Sky Sapiens (Represent, Peru), Unknown Artist (Unknown Title, China), Ana Tijoux (1977, France/Chile)
All Hail the Queen… Queen Latifah comes to the table acknowledging the men and the neighbourhood with her clothing and hand gestures. The camera follows all of that. But she also demands to be seen as feminine changing her clothes and donning makeup. She questions race relations, infidelity, and she directly states that race is not an issue for her. Queen Latifah's classic album All Hail the Queen surprised everyone by selling as many records as it did in a mans world of Rap. She outdid the men because she spoke to women and women were starved for what she had to say. In some ways she beat them at their own game. The problem with White feminism is that it is often only concerned with itself - other White women. Embedded in White feminism is privilege and that places it as an oxymoron to much of Coloured feminism.
Rap music speaks to the specific needs, emotions, circumstances and predicaments of women of colour and it does so without the permission of White women. If you asked me who I thought had a bigger thumb over the lives of women of colour, not in the sense of government, rape or police but more on the day to day, (in the workplace, in the community, at the store), I would say, white women. I wouldn't say it was men. It may be so when women become involved with men out of necessity, but left to their own devices, men in general are not into policing women of colour like white women sometimes do. In my own experiences, when I think of how one can 'get out of line', I have found White women to be much quicker with the desire to want me returned to the 'other side' than any man, White or Black has ever felt compelled to do. It's done through public embarrassment, public humiliation, backstabbing, taking back what they have given, sabotage or becoming enraged when their sexual partners find any level of interest in you. It's the failure to promote at work and the compulsive need to find that one thing you don't do well. Feminism is not about adopting a series of principles, it is about finding a truth for yourself a noble righteous truth and then walking the walk. As you're walking you cling to that truth until it becomes something that can not be budged. People will notice, people will ask about it, then you talk the talk. Most people aren't interested, but it doesn't mean you stop walking. Feminism is not about me having anything to say to you, it is about me talking myself into a place of strength and speaking this truth for myself. Feminism does not need permission from elsewhere.
Rap rises from the Black souls of America. The disenfranchised and the elegant. It grows from a place of frustration while eyes rolled to the back of the head. Look around you. Look now, think of all those that are disenfranchised and all the eyes which are rolling to the backs of heads. I see women of every hue and colour. I see men, I see children with no future, I see the hungry. I see people traveling long distances for something better only to arrive and discover it's just different. I see water being privatized. Once Rap hit the air, everyone else got a whiff and it spread like opium outside Emerald City. Rap hasn't been a Black thing for years. But it is still the pulse of the people. Rap hasn't been homophobic for years, but people still cling to this notion. Rap hasn't been denigrating to women for years, but people still get a kick saying so.
If it is the music of the revolution wouldn't there be a vested interest that you believe all that shit? The more people that stay at home during the revolution, the more likely the same old bullshit will keep rolling along. Rap helped elect Barack Obama.
In Salt-N-Pepas', It's A She Thing, the video opens with a declaration that it is not a man's world anymore despite what James Brown or others might have to say, the listener can be anything she wants to be (fireman, astronaut, etc). On display are women with muscles but the hidden viewer is female not men. Women need to see ourselves strong. Those images are for women, not men. The video addresses the history of White men sexually harassing Black women, as well as Black men. It shows us fighting back and winning. There are powerful images in this video: women being present at the delivery of our children rather than the fathers. It asks Black men to get it together and make foundations to built upon. We see Black women in a type of military boot camp presumably learning to be all one can be under the direction of other Black women. This video is very powerful to me. These are women that love men. They are working hard to be the best they can be, to hold up their end of the bargain, but they are also women who will keep on moving if the wait is too long and will make no apologies for showing you the shade of their back. These are women that have birthed babies alone, they don't need need you, but if you get there you will be welcomed in. There is power in this. A woman that choses to be with a man, rather than from neccessity, is worth her weight in gold.
Keny Arkana. I will sign whatever she asks me to sign. I want this woman at my side when the fight breaks out. She says in four minutes what I have attempted to say in three parts. Rap is the music of the revolution. And like all revolutions throughout history (Mexican, French, Algerian War, American) women have been on the front lines. To conjure up this voice, so strong, takes courage. A conviction that what you have to say needs to be heard. When you burn so deeply from the inside you know you are not alone. You may not know where the ears come from that listen but they are out there. I am listening to you Keny, over here in Mexico.
Silvana Imam is interesting to me as a writer. Her rap visuals are [rap] culturally unexpected to me; I don't recognize her symbolism but I know she is participating in the canon. Tänd Alla Ljus (Turn on the Light) opens where she is not expected to be, a place of privilege. At first glance we might think she belongs there. Behind her on the stage is a hanging of four women which do not appear to be from Swedish culture. I am not sure of their significance though (nothing in film is arbitrary). Suddenly this nice, pretty White women begins spewing profanities, she may be an alcoholic, she misses her ex lover because she misses the sex. We think we know where she is going but suddenly she reveals her penchant for sex involves Black women (Rihanna and Beyoncé) non of which are even closely to be had in her all White environment. An overlay of an unseen male voice engages her in a duet, the male voice talks about violence, pussy and drugs (all the perceived topics of Rap music), yet the only words she actually collaborates on is "mother fuck it all". She begins to hallucinate and the mysterious entity begins to take on the shape of Satan. Alone in her room she begins to morph into a beast of some kind. She calls for a car (the instrument of departure) and the last we see of her she is being dragged into a car by someone with an unknown gender.
Part Two, Zon, can be viewed here. I have only included it here because anything ending in Part One demands Part Two. In Zon (Zone), she is dressed as a bard presumably extolling important information to her listeners. This video is much more confusing to me and aside from it being in the queer genre I would also question if it might fit into the goth arena as well. Towards the end of the video we see a blue florescent outline of a symbol of Rap, that of a baseball cap worn sideways. The mouth has been emoticon skewed, to me, suggesting drunk and the eyes have been ex'd out to mean either unconscious, asleep or drunk. She is imply that something is out of touch and that she (Silvana), is the new something. What that it is, I can't say.
Silvana is known as a queer feminist rapper. Through the course of the research needed for this blog series I have learned about Goth Rap. That was new to me. But LGBT rap does not surprise me because RAP IS THE MUSIC OF THE REVOLUTION. Right now in the United States equal marriage is about a done deal. On paper equality is almost done and dusted but it will be a long time before the mind catches up. Rap by its definition requires that everyone get their turn at the mic. Even queer white chicks from Sweden. She is not the only one. Silvana is a loud vocal opponent against the Neo-Nazi growth in Europe. Perhaps the all White topography of her video is the layer she adds to the language of Rap. That what we don't see (people of colour) and what we don't expect to hear from pretty White women (fuck, pussy, drugs and lesbianism) should be the very things we need to notice most. Sometimes what is in relief is more important than what you think you see.
Like the word nigger got taken away from the hands of White folk so has the word Bitch been taken from the hands of men (and sometimes women).
As I close I think of myself getting older and losing touch with the outside of what makes me Moira. Moira adores the energy of the young and while my body may no longer be able to keep up and stay up like it used to, it certainly wants to be a part of the pulse of life. The Huffington Post lies to me and The New York Times lies with a larger vocabulary. But Rap music keeps me abreast with what is happening now which is something no newspaper does. Rappers are in their prime, using technology with a proficiency to disseminate information faster than the AP news service. I'm down with that!
Rap began in the United States with African Americans expressing, (and finally being listened to), their frustrations towards White America and making the conscious decision to revolt without fear of repercussion. It was created on the soil that created its inception. It spoke in a language that followed in the footsteps of African American oral tradition (and it continues to do so). On the shores of America, it is meant to be exclusionary. It rose in retaliation and in response to where it stood. It created a revolution, and it blew across lands like the prayers on a Tibetan prayer flag. Where ever it went it intuitively knew the needs of the people just where they stood, specific to their lands. It continues in its momentum and it accepts all those that feel a need to join the revolution regardless of gender, mother tongue, economic status or perceived race. Its only demand being truth. I am most proud, that this voice and platform, which has spread throughout the world, began with the tribe of subalterns whom I hail from.
Does anyone remember Saturday morning Roller Derby when it was played by women and before men saw it as a chance to have a hard-on at 10am? Do you remember the helmets, the knee and elbow pads and the way they played? Those were some serious women. Those women were ready to take you down and out. They were fierce. I had never before seen women play or behave like that. They were women that I was a little nervous imaging myself getting in the way of. Hell, those women wore mouth guards. They were prepared to have teeth knocked out and were equally prepared to knock out their opponents and they did it working as a team. That's my kind of woman. That is how I feel about the women of Rap.
The women of Rap are fierce and they demand our attention. Like their male counterparts the symbolism (hoodies, hand gestures) remains intact. These women know where they are standing. My impression with the early pioneers of Rap is that the women were surprised to be unable to get a seat at the table with the men. I think the expectation was that: we're Both black, why can't I get a seat? That question, I think, began a dialogue about the relationship between Black women and Black men. The format of Rapping allowed the audience to settle the debate. It was not men deciding if you could sit, it was the audience deciding if there was truth in what you said. Women had a lot to say and female audience member began to hear what they had no voice of their own to say. Some took up Rapping to speak their own mind and others listened while taking mad, copious notes.
Having sung in front of audiences I know the courage necessary to be vulnerable. The interpretation of a song must come from a place rendering the lyrics of others believably your own. Without that connection your voice falls flat, you simply lip sync. Writing requires me to go to a much deeper place. A place I myself do not want to go. A place sad, alone and often burdened with finding clarity where none can be seen. When you look at the various subject matters that Rap addresses one can see that they are not subjects that are easy to discuss. In a way they are not the topics spoken of in polite company. Sexism, violence, sex, governing malpractice, homophobia race relations… these are all subjects people would rather disappear. But in order for any one of those subjects to reach clarity and mutual understanding they must be discussed.
Rap isn't singing. And the point is? Carpets aren't shoes but we buy them anyway. In a traditional sense this may be true, but we also know it doesn't mean that rappers can't sing. Dana Owens aka Queen Latifah has a gorgeous voice and has made best selling albums under both names. She is more than meets the eye. Poetry isn't singing but it is placed on paper in much the same way as a song and loads of people listen to that.
I don't understand what is being said. Either download the lyrics, put your listening ears on or admit you are not interested in hearing about 'the other'.
Rap is degrading to women. Prove it to me. Show me. I like evidence. and I like evidence that supports theories, not one video out of 6 thousand… Tell me what you listen to and I will point to its inherent sexism and potential racism. There is no genre free of this including classical music.
Men came first to the table with rap and I know where many got their start. I remember X,Y and Z hauling garbage bags filled with 5 & 10 dollar notes to pay managers with. The roots of Rap were paid for by selling dope, the currency of the poor. Everyone knows that. The contributions of women in Rap have had the biggest and most profound impact on women who have needed it most: women of all colours. I know Janis Joplin and Billie Holliday launched a thousand careers, but they were also junkies, Billie living under Jim Crow and Janis during that one second in American history when everyone got on the same page and let their hair down, Neither living long enough to get it together.
Rap music has a much wider audience than say, Cassandra Wilson. Ms. Wilson is singing from a place of strength and healing and I don't think her audience is gender based nor do I think her audience is young. I also don't think she sings to get a particular point across. Female Rap singers are singing to those that live by their wits and I would argue that no other genre of music has given a more powerful voice to other women, not to sing and rap necessarily, but to lift inner voices to audible levels. Voices squelched by domestic violence, by misogyny, by homophobia, by poor wages and exhaustion, by men incarcerated for trying to do the right thing in the wrong way.They have more to lose and less time to waste. Does that make sense? The pioneering women of Rap became the sisters we never had. They gave voice to issues we had no voice for and they were straight and honest and said what needed to be said. They were speaking to us and they were speaking to our men and men began to listen.
These women fought for their right to be taken seriously. When we realize the roots of rap it's incredible there was a fight to be had at all. African American women and men have shared the weight historically but African American men, I think, needed to shine bright which they do, but then it will always be time to move over a bit and let your sisters share the light. Some of the biggest female names in rap have evolved and gone on to fly in other hemispheres.
I challenge anyone to view the Rap videos enclosed and defend the position that these are women in the throes of denigration. These are women in tight control of the messages they wish heard.
From top to bottom we have: Queen Latifah (I Can't Understand. USA), Salt-N-Pepa (Ain't Nuthin But a She Thing. USA), Keny Arkana (La Rage. France), Silvana Imam (Tänd Alla Ljus. Sweden), Lumaraa (Feinschliff, Germany), Unknown Artist (Unknown Title. Russia), Yugen Blakrok (House of Ravens, Johannesburg), La Sky Sapiens (Represent, Peru), Unknown Artist (Unknown Title, China), Ana Tijoux (1977, France/Chile)
Rap music speaks to the specific needs, emotions, circumstances and predicaments of women of colour and it does so without the permission of White women. If you asked me who I thought had a bigger thumb over the lives of women of colour, not in the sense of government, rape or police but more on the day to day, (in the workplace, in the community, at the store), I would say, white women. I wouldn't say it was men. It may be so when women become involved with men out of necessity, but left to their own devices, men in general are not into policing women of colour like white women sometimes do. In my own experiences, when I think of how one can 'get out of line', I have found White women to be much quicker with the desire to want me returned to the 'other side' than any man, White or Black has ever felt compelled to do. It's done through public embarrassment, public humiliation, backstabbing, taking back what they have given, sabotage or becoming enraged when their sexual partners find any level of interest in you. It's the failure to promote at work and the compulsive need to find that one thing you don't do well. Feminism is not about adopting a series of principles, it is about finding a truth for yourself a noble righteous truth and then walking the walk. As you're walking you cling to that truth until it becomes something that can not be budged. People will notice, people will ask about it, then you talk the talk. Most people aren't interested, but it doesn't mean you stop walking. Feminism is not about me having anything to say to you, it is about me talking myself into a place of strength and speaking this truth for myself. Feminism does not need permission from elsewhere.
If it is the music of the revolution wouldn't there be a vested interest that you believe all that shit? The more people that stay at home during the revolution, the more likely the same old bullshit will keep rolling along. Rap helped elect Barack Obama.
In Salt-N-Pepas', It's A She Thing, the video opens with a declaration that it is not a man's world anymore despite what James Brown or others might have to say, the listener can be anything she wants to be (fireman, astronaut, etc). On display are women with muscles but the hidden viewer is female not men. Women need to see ourselves strong. Those images are for women, not men. The video addresses the history of White men sexually harassing Black women, as well as Black men. It shows us fighting back and winning. There are powerful images in this video: women being present at the delivery of our children rather than the fathers. It asks Black men to get it together and make foundations to built upon. We see Black women in a type of military boot camp presumably learning to be all one can be under the direction of other Black women. This video is very powerful to me. These are women that love men. They are working hard to be the best they can be, to hold up their end of the bargain, but they are also women who will keep on moving if the wait is too long and will make no apologies for showing you the shade of their back. These are women that have birthed babies alone, they don't need need you, but if you get there you will be welcomed in. There is power in this. A woman that choses to be with a man, rather than from neccessity, is worth her weight in gold.
Keny Arkana. I will sign whatever she asks me to sign. I want this woman at my side when the fight breaks out. She says in four minutes what I have attempted to say in three parts. Rap is the music of the revolution. And like all revolutions throughout history (Mexican, French, Algerian War, American) women have been on the front lines. To conjure up this voice, so strong, takes courage. A conviction that what you have to say needs to be heard. When you burn so deeply from the inside you know you are not alone. You may not know where the ears come from that listen but they are out there. I am listening to you Keny, over here in Mexico.
Part Two, Zon, can be viewed here. I have only included it here because anything ending in Part One demands Part Two. In Zon (Zone), she is dressed as a bard presumably extolling important information to her listeners. This video is much more confusing to me and aside from it being in the queer genre I would also question if it might fit into the goth arena as well. Towards the end of the video we see a blue florescent outline of a symbol of Rap, that of a baseball cap worn sideways. The mouth has been emoticon skewed, to me, suggesting drunk and the eyes have been ex'd out to mean either unconscious, asleep or drunk. She is imply that something is out of touch and that she (Silvana), is the new something. What that it is, I can't say.
Silvana is known as a queer feminist rapper. Through the course of the research needed for this blog series I have learned about Goth Rap. That was new to me. But LGBT rap does not surprise me because RAP IS THE MUSIC OF THE REVOLUTION. Right now in the United States equal marriage is about a done deal. On paper equality is almost done and dusted but it will be a long time before the mind catches up. Rap by its definition requires that everyone get their turn at the mic. Even queer white chicks from Sweden. She is not the only one. Silvana is a loud vocal opponent against the Neo-Nazi growth in Europe. Perhaps the all White topography of her video is the layer she adds to the language of Rap. That what we don't see (people of colour) and what we don't expect to hear from pretty White women (fuck, pussy, drugs and lesbianism) should be the very things we need to notice most. Sometimes what is in relief is more important than what you think you see.
I was not able to gather translated information about this this song except to translate the title of the video Feinschiff to mean Fine Tuning. Given the amount of times she pokes her own head and looks into the camera with exasperation I would bet she wants someone else fine tuned and not herself. Interestingly, her first studio album was titled Girl Thing. The German language sounds angry to begin with to my ears put it would make perfect sense to me that Rap landed in Germany. I imagine German young people have a lot to say about shouldering the burdens of their parents and grandparents trespasses.
I know nothing about this Russian video but I can tell you all that is right and interesting about it. Interesting to me is how many White people, off the shores of America have picked up and run off with Rap. I think there are whole countries of White disenfranchised people that are disenfranchised in a much different way than we have ever experienced in America. Places where bread lines are long, and organized crime runs rampant. Where governments are leaving their people hungry, and ethnic wars come and go like the weather. Where young people see bleakness all around. This video is as bleak as it gets. The sun doesn't shine. The clothes are old and worn. The landscape seems devoid of life other than the nomads in the video. Further poverty is suggested by the entire film being done in black and white.
There is perhaps no more powerful an image than a man grabbing his cock, giving it a little shake, and looking you in the eye. The message is clear: Suck my dick. It's a threat. This gesture in the hands of a woman, these two Russian women, has a much different meaning. It translates to: I will fight back despite my absolute exhaustion. It says: I have lost the right to be a woman to be feminine; I have to fight like a man. It conveys: I know how to exceed crazy, if this shit (the sexual harassment, the hunger, the bleak future, the endless shit) doesn't stop. I am warning you. You have been placed on notice.
I love the repeating lick of a woman's lyrical voice which overlays the entire song. There are approximately 6 other people in the video, (not providing vocals, or snappy dance routines), and they are all men. Their purpose is unclear: groupies, comrades in poverty?It may be a nod to Snoop Dogg - as well as their use of smoke in the video- but it may be a statement about how these two women feel about living in a male dominated world. I can't say but either way these two women have come to the table as equals.
Yugen Blakrok, out of Johannasburg, is new to me. She is part of the Goth Rap genre. I will admit that I am not very familiar with the goth movement other that a rudimentary understanding. It derives from the Punk Scene, it's loosely connected to gothic literature, likes to wear black, and its sexual preferences can be construed as alternative. All of that is fine and good but what I am not able to grasp is what it wants the world to wake up to? I am not dismissing it, I just don't understand it at the moment. Yugens' lyrics follow rap closely so perhaps she is using Goth as the platform from which to speak to other Gothers. The whole point of this three part series is to shed
light on, for myself as well as my reader, a topic that has too many facets to be considered knowable. Goth appears to have more participants in Europe than elsewhere; that it has touched a woman in post apartheid South Africa just makes me happy.
Evolution and the canons encapsulated in each growing changing entity should be important to us all. Where do things get taken and how do they expand? Who picks up scraps and turns scraps into masterpieces, carrying them further? When does the subaltern suddenly lead? How do revolutions, once local, become global movements? How do symbols become symbols? How do certain symbols become endowed with strength and others are dismissed? Why are we, as self appointed smart humans, so quick to dismiss 'the other?'
Just today I had a conversation with a Mexican man who asked me what I was doing. I told him about writing this blog entry and his face remained disinterested. I was about to write him off as another 'I don't like Rap music' person when suddenly his face went animated and he said: Have you heard Mexican female rappers? And then the rest of the conversation became same-wave, head-bobbing, as we smiled back and forth.
Why would women be so brilliantly involved in Rap? Why would it evolve that women now lead the way in Rap? Why would the voice of a woman be crucial to the revolution? Because while men are off beating their chests, women are making plans that involve the future where their children will live. And those children are necessary for the survival of this planet.
B - I - T - C - H =
A Babe In Total Control of Herself. Repeat that like a mantra.
Some women haven't gotten with the program yet and still call each other this but it is the word men use most when they are having temper tantrums with women. When people don't get their way sexually, emotionally, literally, figuratively, or any
other way with a woman, a woman becomes a bitch.
I first learned of Ana Tijoux in 2010 when iTunes still had had free music weekly and they presented interesting artists they thought listeners should hear. At the time I thought she was Mexican, and while she can be heard on Mexican radio stations, she actually was born in France of Chilean heritage. It is difficult sometimes for my American mind to remember that where I stand does not mean it is where I am from. Americans scratch themselves raw trying to place things in boxes so they can make sense of the world and luckily for the rest of the world they don't have to always occupy themselves with the same preoccupations. This may explain why Rap on foreign shores became more than what it could be in its birthplace. It didn't have the same limitations. Music helps me remember that all of us have something to say, that it has the possibility to lift me higher than I think I can go. When I am low it carries me until I can walk again. When I am angry, it gives me permission to feel my rage and when I need a background for my tears it can provide me with comfort.
As I close I think of myself getting older and losing touch with the outside of what makes me Moira. Moira adores the energy of the young and while my body may no longer be able to keep up and stay up like it used to, it certainly wants to be a part of the pulse of life. The Huffington Post lies to me and The New York Times lies with a larger vocabulary. But Rap music keeps me abreast with what is happening now which is something no newspaper does. Rappers are in their prime, using technology with a proficiency to disseminate information faster than the AP news service. I'm down with that!
Rap began in the United States with African Americans expressing, (and finally being listened to), their frustrations towards White America and making the conscious decision to revolt without fear of repercussion. It was created on the soil that created its inception. It spoke in a language that followed in the footsteps of African American oral tradition (and it continues to do so). On the shores of America, it is meant to be exclusionary. It rose in retaliation and in response to where it stood. It created a revolution, and it blew across lands like the prayers on a Tibetan prayer flag. Where ever it went it intuitively knew the needs of the people just where they stood, specific to their lands. It continues in its momentum and it accepts all those that feel a need to join the revolution regardless of gender, mother tongue, economic status or perceived race. Its only demand being truth. I am most proud, that this voice and platform, which has spread throughout the world, began with the tribe of subalterns whom I hail from.
Cris Rock on Rap.
All videos taken from YouTube.
Sorry for the format having gone wonky. Not sure what happened
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