Re: [Marxism] Stop Giving America a Bad Rap

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's some links to info on a few left wing rap groups

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coup
http://www.deadprez.com/
http://www.immortal-technique.com/
http://www.viperrecords.com/
CAPITAL D, aka David Kelly, is one of hip-hop's most prolific and coherent
voices. INSOMNIA finds capital D stepping out on a proverbial limb to handle
all of the album's production while simultaneously tackling a host of
societal issues ranging from religion to the Iraqi War. The result is
perhaps the most politically-charged hip-hop album of all-time. Given the
tumultuous era in which we live, as well as the importance of this year's
presidential election, INSOMNIA is as timely as it is articulate and
inspiring.
http://allnaturalhiphop.com/

and here's some more badmouthing of The Coup, this time from Christians.

http://www.schwarzreport.org/SchwarzReport/2003/january03.html

Communist Rap
By L. Brent Bozell III

During the last weeks of May, Dick Cheney, Robert Mueller, Donald Rumsfeld
and, for all I know, Willard Scott once again warned of modern-day threats
to America. Meanwhile, a piece by David Segal of the Washington Post
inadvertently reminded us of a time when our primary foe was communism ? and
that not a few journalists were oblivious to the wretched nature of this
movement.

Segal, who covers pop music and really oughtn?t wander far from that genre,
earned his ?Useful Idiot Award? with a May 22 article that dealt cluelessly
and flippantly with Oakland-based communist rapper Raymond ?Boots? Riley,
who leads an outfit called the Coup. Plenty of critics, Segal among them,
chose the Coup?s Party Music as one of last year?s best albums.

Riley is politically noxious. He refers to this country as the ?United
Snakes,? believes that ?the American flag ? stands for oppression, slavery
and murder,? and asserts that before the state-controlled economic system he
desires to be achieved, ?there?s going to be a fight from the people who
traditionally maintain profits, and it?s not only going to be a fight of
words. ? It?s going to be a fight where people are attacked.?

In 2001, Riley intended the cover for Party Music to depict him setting off
an explosion and fire at the World Trade Center as ?a metaphor for
destroying capitalism ? where the music is making capitalist towers blow
up.? The artwork was shelved in the wake of the Sept. 11 atrocities, a bow
in favor of sensitivity but an act of hypocrisy nonetheless. The terrorists
behind 9/11 shared Riley?s hatred for the American system, but their actions
showed the real-life consequences of this hatred.

Yet Segal repeatedly declares that he finds Riley?s work amusing. He calls
the World Trade Center cover art ?jokey? and a bit later describes a track
called ?5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO? as ?tongue in cheek.? In his most
elaborate encomium to Riley?s supposed wit, Segal states, ?Most radicals are
insufferably dull and humorless. Riley, on the other hand, sells communism
not just as a way to seize the means of production but also as a shortcut to
the all-night dance bash of your dreams. Riley thinks Bolshevism can be a
hoot, and even if you consider that cockamamie, his attempts at persuasion
are wry and winningly subversive.?

Suggested summer reading for Segal: The Gulag Archipelago. ?Genuine pariahs
are now a rarity in pop music,? Segal
 salivates, ?and the Coup is among the very last. If nothing else,
[Riley?s] agitprop rap expands the surprisingly narrow bandwidth of what is
deemed outrageous these days, which is what pop at its tweaking best often
does.?

In truth, Riley is anything but a pariah, what with critics such as Segal
lauding him. And only someone thoroughly ignorant on the subject could
suggest that communism ?tweaks.? It doesn?t. It brutalizes, with tens of
millions of murdered victims as its global monument.

?Party Music looks like it will be one of those peculiar triumph-fiascoes of
art in the tradition of Citizen Kane,? Segal prophesies, ?a work hailed by
critics that failed in the marketplace and then vanished from sight, at
least for a while.?

Thank God the public isn?t as jaw-droppingly naïve as Segal, who took part
in a chat on the Post?s Website on the day his story ran. I?m happy to
report that he faced some tough questioning about his enthusiasm for Riley
and the Coup. To someone who sensibly enough noted that both communism and
Nazism are ?disgusting,? Segal replied, ?I see a big difference between an
ideology, like Nazism, which was explicitly genocidal, and communism, which
is not.?

In another answer, Segal claimed that ?The politics of [Party Music] aren?t
all that interesting to me,? even though downplaying politics in a
discussion of Riley would be equivalent to downplaying food in a discussion
of Julia Child, which is why Segal didn?t.

Finally, after someone posted a rundown of death tolls under Josef Stalin,
Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, et al and added, ?Check out The Black Book of
Communism for the story of communism and its inherent link to genocide,?
Segal wrote, ?To be clear, I wouldn?t recommend communism for anyone,
anywhere, ever.?

Actually, I doubt that many readers thought the piece endorsed Riley?s
politics. But in a sense, that would have been preferable to Segal?s
elitist, arrogant, too-clever-by-at-least-half approach: It would have
acknowledged that communism matters. One simply cannot treat as trivial, as
?a hoot,? this blight on history that remains a malign and menacing, if
diminished, force.

Riley can hang out on the ash heap of history all he wants, but that doesn?t
mean Segal should visit him there and make it sound like a holiday in the
sun.

?Insight, July 1-8, 202, p. 46

_________________________________________________________________
Want to block unwanted pop-ups? Download the free MSN Toolbar now!
http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism