It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation (32 page)

Over thirty-five years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and that “oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever” because “the urge for freedom will eventually come.” Without a doubt, African-Americans have made significant economic and political strides since the sixties, but not overwhelming ones—at least not overwhelming enough to discuss the civil rights era in the past tense.

The challenges we, all of us, face today are immense and demand a coordinated, grassroots approach—city by city and block by block—to address all the social, economic, and mental health issues that many Black women and men are experiencing in the nation’s urban centers. All of these things make one thing painfully clear: We ain’t free, yet. The civil rights struggle was one of guaranteeing the basic civil rights of Black Americans (and other non-whites).

We live in an era today when, as Cornel West describes, “All people with black skin and African phenotype are subject to potential white supremacist abuse. Hence, all Black Americans have some interest in resisting racism.”

Let us embrace the traditional African idea of ubuntu, which means “humanity toward others;” I am because we are; I am what I am because of what we all are. A person becomes human through other persons; a person is a person because of other persons. Ubuntu insists that we all be open and available to others; that we affirm and encourage others to reach their potential. In its splendid, substantial simplicity, ubuntu reassures us that we, as humans, are all a part of a greater whole and, because of that, we feel the oppression of others because we ourselves are others. This does not mean that we should deny personal enrichment; however, we must at the same time advance and promote community enrichment.

The post-hip-hop generation will stand up to the structures that maintain poverty in our society. It is an absolute tragedy that hundreds of thousands of children, 562,000, go to bed hungry in the richest nation in the world. King said that:

That day has come. It is up to the post-hip-hop generation to create a new world. Historical circumstances have birthed us into an unjust world, but isn’t it our personal responsibility to make sure we don’t grow old in it? We must not become accustomed to the cruel and harmful; inhumane and unjust; criminal and vile.

This means beginning to carve, out of the hard stones of our history, a place for ourselves—one that, as poet/activist Amina Baraka says, is not “about the business of destroying ourselves, but uplifting ourselves.” We need not be intimidated by our parents’ stories of struggle, but instead take their stories out of the closets of invisibility, and wear them as inspiration. When we realize that all things grow with love and that the seed is hope and the flower is joy. When we realize as Rosa Parks said in an interview shortly before her death that “We still have a long way to go.” It is time to move together as one.

That includes civil rights leaders working with us, rather than publicly criticizing us, to develop and hone leaders. Revolutionary leader Che Guevara told his comrades, “One of your duties is to create the people to replace us.” The civil rights generation must adhere to this and know that the strides they made become diminished if we cannot build upon them. Great leadership is not about great individual talent or great oratory, but about intergenerational mantle-passing. Great leadership must be nurtured, matured, and spring from a community that values collectivity, love, and compassion. When this doesn’t happen, the individual talent and great speeches that are present in every generation will become tools employed exclusively for self-advancement—even at the expense of a community. In this leadership-less abyss, a rapper, for example, who rhymes about destroying his community via drugs, murder, and sexism is
celebrated by that same community for the personal accomplishment of becoming a professional recording artist. This is why leadership must be fostered in strong communities by incorruptible leaders with a strong sense of sociopolitical struggle. With once vibrant communities decimated, no unified political agenda, and a safe, corporate “leadership” base, one quickly realizes why the fog is so thick.

We are the light that promises to burn the fog away. Garvey asked, “Can we do it?” Of course we can. Although things have been rough, we are still the seeds of our planters. And it was Henry David Thoreau who said, “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

Back in
Cayuga Park, among the trees and gardens, there lies a path that weaves through the organized chaos. It’s called the Path of Hope. The path of hope for us is real when we recognize that we all need each other equally. When we come to see as the African proverb tells us: It is new broom that sweeps clean, but it is the old broom that knows the corners.

The path of hope leads us to recognize the tremendous efforts of people, young and old, committed to bridging the gap. Young people like Pierce Freelon, the twenty-two-year-old founder of Blackademics, a Web site that has blossomed into the premiere online roundtable for young Black thinkers. The site has effectively created a national and international dialogue between the generations. Through thought-provoking blog posts and insightful interviews with older luminaries like bell hooks, Jesse Jackson, John Hope Franklin, Maya Angelou, and Angela Davis, the site has created a dialogue that is helping conquer the divide. All bridges between young and old must begin at the scratch line of communication. Perhaps the best example of this is Nikki Giovanni, a poet who is truly watering the thorn for the sake
of the rose. Born in 1943, Giovanni got “Thug Life” tatted on her arm to show her “solidarity with the younger generation” after Tupac’s death. Giovanni explains that it was “a way of saying to the younger generation that the older generation mourns with you.” As all of us, younger and older, march into the unknowns of our collective future, let us remember the compassion, sensitivity, tenderness, and love that Freelon and Giovanni share with each other. Let us embrace the earth, seeds, and planters all at once, understanding that we must work in tandem with each other—echoing the life cycle of nature—if we wish to survive.

[ringing]

Yo.

Hip hop?

What’s up.

Thanks for your time.

No doubt.

Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, but I’m on a cordless phone so if I stray too far from the base I might lose you.

Huh, I figured you would have a strong signal.

I do, just so long as I stay close to the base.

All right, so, stay close.

I will.

Ready?

Shoot.

So, can you tell me where you’re from?

Originally, of course, I’m from Africa. The Motherland. I mean, it ain’t hard to tell—just peep my first name.

Hip? I didn’t know that was African.

Well, now ya know.

The word “hip” comes out of the Wolof language, spoken by the Wolof people in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania. In Wolof, there’s a verb,
“hipi,”
which means “to open one’s eyes and see.” So,
hipi
is a term of enlightenment. My first name means “to see or to be enlightened,” ya dig.

Definitely, definitely, I can dig it.

That’s Wolof, too.

What—dig?

Un-hunh, it comes from the Wolof word
“dega,”
which means “to understand.” So, you know, there’s nothin’ new under the sun. It all goes back. Whether we know it or not, it’s all rooted in Africa.

I guess it’s like that proverb that says: “Even in a foreign habitat, a snail never loses its shell.”

That’s exactly what it’s like.

Or as Malcolm X said: “If a cat has kittens in an oven, that doesn’t make them biscuits.” [laughter]

That’s why my godfather named himself Afrika Bambaataa and called his crew the Zulu Nation. That’s
hipi, dega?

Yes, yes I do. Any more Wolof?

Actually, yeah—honky.

Honky? As in —

Yeah, as in honky. It comes from the Wolof word
“honq,”
which means “pink man.”

Damn. That’s interesting. All right, well, since you brought it up, what’s your take on the large group of whites that enjoy you and your music?

To be honest, that word you just used—“enjoy”—I take issue with that word, man. White people have always “enjoyed” Black performers—that ain’t nothin’ new. During the most violent, virulent, and vehemently racist times in America, whites shelled out mad loot to watch Black performers do their thing—smile, shuck, dance—as if everything was cool when in reality Blacks were “swinging from southern trees like strange fruit.” The only way entertainers could make it back then, from a financial standpoint, was to show them pearly whites and avoid addressing the brutality that was really going down. When white folks went out or listened to music, they didn’t wanna be reminded of the conditions that they created. They just wanted to… “enjoy” themselves.

A ‘ight
, so now fast-forward.

My music is ghetto music—period.

It arises from a people, a beautiful people, who have been oppressed to the full extent of that word; a people who are forced to live under conditions that are inhumane and unjust. Yet, the part of me that the
honqs dega
is the shit that, just like back in the day, never calls their oppression out.

Peep game: They’ll not only listen, but they’ll spend money to hear Black men lie about killin’ other Black men; lie about sellin’ crack to Black people; lie about pimpin’ Black women. On the other hand, though, not only will they NOT spend money, but they won’t even listen to rappers who tell the truth about the oppressive conditions that the community really faces; who tell the truth about the prison industrial complex; who tell the truth about the school system; who tell the truth about police brutality; who tell the truth about the U.S. government. And do you know why?

Why?

Do you know who David Banner is—the rapper?

Of course. He made “Like a Pimp.”

David Banner tells us the answer.

He breaks the whole thing down when he says: “They want black artists to shuck and jive, but they don’t want us to tell the real story because they’re connected to it!”

So because they’re connected to it, they fetishize Black disenfranchisement and transform the ghetto into a glossy magazine spread, uprooting it from the chain of injustices that created it, thus disconnecting themselves from it—like voyeurs.

Okay, but do you think that perhaps for whites listening to your music, it may bring them closer to the ghetto and compel them to help out there?

Help out?

Listen, the people in the ghetto have never been the problem. The people in the ghetto don’t make decisions to bulldoze their homes and build freeways through their neighborhoods. The people in the ghetto don’t redline their own neighborhoods. The people in the ghetto don’t deny themselves loans and mortgages. The people in the ghetto don’t cut funding for their children’s schools. The people in the ghetto don’t put more cops in their streets. The people in the ghetto don’t install cameras to monitor themselves 24–7.