Dialectical Materialism, My Mello

I abhor consumerism, misogyny, and Black fratricide. Yet as the music on this page thus far clearly illustrates, I still garner much respect for and satisfaction from culture that coincides with these conditions.

For the saddening yet consistently reified fact is that contrary to privileged liberal revisionism, corporate boogeymen did not swoop down from the hills one day and poison the loving peaceful streams of consciousness flowing joyfully from the mouths and minds of rap's founders. Milk D threatened to smack women down on "Top Billin". The lower case g himself Rakim Allah stayed adorned in gaudy gold rope chains. Schoolly D waxed poetic about popping his gun the same year I was born. All these unsettling phenomena have existed in varying forms and been articulated repeatedly both within broad dimensions of modern life and the art that reflects/directs it. It's not as if rappers stopped advocating sexism, capitalism, and Afrikan genocide that these forces would cease or even lighten their spiritual, mental, and material burden. If that was the case my father's generation would be the shining pinnacle of revolutionary respectability, and they're certainly not. For better or worse, hip-hop has democratized the means of musical production, distribution, and subjectivity so that young Black and Latino men can develop and articulate our expressive potential as never before. Yet this does not mean that it's needed or beneficial for anyone, even ourselves, to listen. The true testament of its value is to be reflected in our actions towards and beyond oneanother, and our ability to ultimately maneuver the vehicle of rap to whatever lanes need to be explored towards more just lives.

So in the meanwhile, I will continue to promote that which I feel reflects the best that this form has to offer, even when its content may not coincide with the change I may want to see. Because as Huey Newton so wisely taught, it is within the crevices of such contradictions that truly innovative ideas trickle into action.

Plus most of that so-called conscious shit don't bang like it should. And I'll be damned if progress has to sound like pots and pans. Best believe most of those mediocre coffee shop dudes (*cough* Little Brother) really don't be sayin much of anything, they just don't say those things which trigger the hip-hop content cops (of either conservative or so-called revolutionary stripes).

The Coup - Not Yet Free: