Hip-hop

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares169 Views

    The Guardian view on politicians and pop: don’t maim that tune | Editorial

    by

    The scene is Des Moines, Iowa, earlier this month. Up on stage is a man running to be the Republican party’s next pick for US president. A song starts over the tannoy. It is one of the hopeful’s declared favourites. Pumping the air, he lifts the mic and begins rapping along: “You better lose yourself in the music / The moment, you own it, you better never let it go.”So goes one of the best-known songs of the 21st century – and one of the most bizarre moments so far in the Republican primaries. Why is Vivek Ramaswamy – with an estimated net worth somewhere north of $950m – karaoke-ing about life in a mobile home? What does a product of Yale and Harvard know about having to wear a sweater coated with vomit (“mom’s spaghetti”)?Such questions clearly troubled Lose Yourself’s author, Eminem, who last week fired off a lawyer’s letter demanding that the politician stop using any of his work. Just as the song foretold, Mr Ramaswamy only got one shot – sadly for him.Politicians have tangled with pop for decades – just think of Harold Wilson’s canny award of MBEs to the Fab Four – yet in recent years, real political contenders have had to pretend that they actually listen to the stuff. Picking her Desert Island Discs in 1978, Margaret Thatcher thought she would subsist on a diet of Beethoven and Dvořák. Three decades later, Gordon Brown was asked whether he liked Arctic Monkeys and tried a cheery bluff about how they’d “certainly wake you up in the morning”.As the then chancellor later admitted, he’d never heard the band, let alone sluiced cider down his jumper to I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor. But he was right to observe that, from Strictly to the Lionesses, “Unless you can offer a view on each and every issue of the day, you are immediately accused of indecisiveness.” As mass-membership parties have withered away, so modern politicians must show that they are one of us through a feigned enthusiasm for popular culture – even though it has nothing to do with their job.In a few weeks, Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, turns 51. He ranks among the most talented performers in hip-hop, an art form that has marked its own 50th birthday this month. Both are a good sight older than 38-year-old Mr Ramaswamy, and are soaked into our daily lives to an extent that politicians can only dream of. Lose Yourself has soundtracked countless gym sessions, an advert for Chrysler and a campaign by Joe Biden. Its author may hate the politics of Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes, but artists can’t choose their fans.Yet it is odd to see a venture capitalist such as Mr Ramaswamy act the underdog; or to hear Old Etonian David Cameron proclaim his love for The Eton Rifles by the Jam. Part of how this era of supersized inequality persists is by the people at the top pretending they’re just like those at the bottom. Why, they even listen to the same music! The boss of Goldman Sachs is a DJ, and our very own prime minister enjoys rap. Although, being Rishi Sunak, he knows all the words to that 90s embarrassment Ice Ice Baby. Give us Eminem any day. More

    More stories

    • 238 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘I will never be against the second amendment’: Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike on rap, racism and gun control

      by

      Interview‘I will never be against the second amendment’: Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike on rap, racism and gun controlAmmar Kalia After almost a decade of working alongside El-P, the rapper is releasing a solo single. He talks about the chaos and loss that inspired it, his friendship with Bernie Sanders and the ‘racist’ twisting of lyrics‘I definitely lead a non-politician life; I smoke weed and I go to strip clubs with my wife,” the rapper Killer Mike says with a laugh. “But I care about people and I have a duty to my community. I am not an angry old man – I am a participator.” As if to demonstrate at least some of that, he lights a blunt.As a musician and an activist, Killer Mike has long balanced pleasure and responsibility. Now 47, he first came to the world’s attention in the early 2000s, when he featured on several tracks with the Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast before launching a solo career.Since 2013, he has been half of Run the Jewels alongside the New York rapper El-P. Their music meanders between hedonism and social exposition, while their live shows are as notorious for their ecstatic mosh pits as they are for their lyrical reflections on police brutality, racism and social injustice.Michael Render, as he is legally known, is now releasing his first solo material in a decade, with the track Run testing the waters for a possible larger solo project. Over a fanfare of horns and a clattering mid-tempo beat, he entreats his Black listeners to persist amid the chaos. “All I know is keep going / you gotta run,” he raps, playing with the meanings of running from danger, running for office or simply moving forwards.“I say that ‘the race for freedom ain’t won / you gotta run’,” he tells me, “because as Black people in America we have to be resilient. We have overcome and we shall continue to do so.”On a video call from his home in Atlanta, Georgia, Render is by turns eloquent and mischievous as he talks about his history of political activism. He has been close to the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders ever since they shared a meal at the Atlanta soul food restaurant Busy Bee Cafe in 2015, and he backed Sanders’ presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Their unlikely friendship has spawned hundreds of memes, with Sanders, for example, shaping his hands into the Run the Jewels symbol of a gun pointed at a closed fist, or asking Render if he should call him “Mike or Killer Mike?”. “It was just a conversation between two angry radical guys, one 74 and white, one 40 and Black, finding common ground,” Render has said of that first encounter.His emotive speeches at Sanders rallies are almost as famous as his music. Addressing the roaring crowd in North Carolina in 2019, he said: “When you go to that [voting] booth next year, I need you to carry the memory of this room. Black, white, straight, gay, male, female, we are together. We are united. We will not wait four more years.”His impassioned words in the wake of police killings in the US have also gone viral. In 2015, during a show in Ferguson, Missouri, a fan-filmed video showed Render raging at the grand jury who had acquitted the officer who had killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, then pleading for the safety of his four children, who range in age from 15 to 27. In the riots that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020, he told the public to fortify their homes and to “plot, plan, strategise, mobilise and organise” to dismantle the systemic structures of racism. “It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth,” he said. “It is time to hold mayoral offices accountable, and chiefs and deputy chiefs.”It must be exhausting having to publicly advocate for basic rights year after year, I tell him. “It’s a continuation of the work,” he says calmly. “My grandmother did the work of taking care of our neighbours without publicity, and my grandfather did, too – he would go fishing and always give half of his catch to other people, for instance. I don’t see it as making me better. I don’t see it as being driven by celebrity guilt either. I was told by my elders to make sure that the people who are suffering in my community are relieved by me. These are the principles that I operate with.”He believes that Sanders shares his desire for social justice. “I will always speak to him because I believe he gives a fuck beyond his own personal chequebook. I honestly believe he is a continuation of great thinkers like [former slave and abolitionist] Frederick Douglass and [trade unionist] Eugene V Debs – a continuation of people who fought their ass off for the betterment of the salt-of-the-earth, everyday American.“Part of my responsibility is to make sure that people who are doing the work on a weekly and daily basis have a platform to push an agenda that’s helpful. No matter if you’re a Black person working a blue-collar job, or if you’re one of the educated elite bourgeoisie, you have a responsibility to push the line.”Sometimes, however, he pushes the line in a direction that many will find objectionable. In 2018, during nationwide protests after the deadliest high school shooting in US history, he gave an interview to the National Rifle Association supporting the second amendment right to bear arms. “You’re a lackey of the progressive movement,” he told leftwingers in favour of gun control, “because you’ve never disagreed with the people who tell you what to do.” He later apologised for the interview’s timing, but his stance on gun ownership remains unchanged. “I will never be against the second amendment,” he says. “There’s no way that someone who represents a community that are only 60-odd years out of an apartheid should be willing to give a weapon back to the government, as the police choke you to death in the street and people just watch and film.”The son of a policeman and a florist, Render is not without sympathy for the police. He has said his father told him and his five sisters not to follow in his footsteps because the job was “too dangerous”. Still, Render believes police reform is necessary and possible. “I have not seen a will to get rid of police as much as I’ve seen a want for police to be from the communities they’re policing and to be fair, rather than abusers of power,” he says. “We should be supporting the Police Athletic Leagues that deal with our young boys in particular before any trouble happens, more than we should be giving the police more rifles and bulletproof vests. The connection with the community is key.”These leagues are local organisations founded by precincts to mentor young people and hopefully keep them off the streets. Render wasn’t a member as he grew up in the majority-Black Adamsville neighbourhood of Atlanta, but he managed to find his own community connections. “All my heroes and villains were based on character, not colour, as everyone looked like me in my home town,” he says. “I grew up with a real sense of confidence that I could do well, that even if there’s a few more speed bumps for me, I cannot and will not be denied what’s due to me.”Render studied at the prestigious, historically Black Morehouse college before he was spotted rapping by the Outkast member Big Boi. He offered Render a collaboration on their 2000 track Snappin’ & Trappin’, launching his career and leading him to drop out of college after just one year. “Even though I won a Grammy, my grandma still complained that I didn’t bring her a degree,” Render says. “Dropping out is one of my biggest regrets, but I’ve been given everything I’ve ever wanted in terms of being able to have a rap career, so I need to make it better for the people around me and the people that come after me.”“Making things better” includes fighting the use of rap in criminal trials, as US prosecutors have used lyrics by artists such as 6ix9ine, Drakeo the Ruler and Tay-K to try to show that defendants had violent interests or gang affiliations. Alongside Jay-Z and Kelly Rowland, Render recently supported the New York Senate rap music on trial bill, which aims to ban the practice.Having written an op-ed for the Vox website in 2015 about the police’s “well-documented history of antagonism towards rappers”, Render is now watching one of the artists featured on Run, Young Thug, fight racketeering charges alongside 27 others. Prosecutors claim that Young Thug’s rap collective, YSL, is a criminal gang with ties to the national Bloods organisation, and are attempting to use Thug’s lyrics and social media posts against him. “I can’t comment on the charges,” Render says, “but Thug is a victim of a policy being used in a racist way and all of our first amendment rights could be endangered if they attempt to use his words against him. Let Black art live, otherwise we’re going to see a proliferation of rappers no matter what sex, age or ethnicity dragged into the court.”As well as Young Thug, the extended version of Run contains an opening monologue from the comic Dave Chappelle. In his introduction, he compares the Black experience to the Normandy landings. “Ain’t no rhyme or reason why it’s not you on the ground, but as long as it’s not, you have to keep moving,” Chappelle says. “You’re just as heroic as those people who stormed the beach.”“Chaos abounds around you; the people that you know and love are often taken from you or left forever scarred,” Render agrees. “It creates bonds and camaraderie that last your entire life.” He seems untroubled by the furore over Chappelle’s jokes about transgender people, which led to Netflix employees walking out in protest at the company hosting his standup specials. For Render, freedom of expression trumps everything. “If comedians are not allowed to talk shit about everybody, freedom of speech is in trouble,” he says. “When they cannot express themselves, there’s going to be a real problem with everyone else being able to do so as well.”The last time Render spoke to the Guardian, just after the killing of George Floyd, he declared that Black people might feel that “nobody gives a shit” about them. Two years on, after the global protests for Black Lives Matter, does he feel more optimistic? “Not much has changed for Black people since 1619,” he says – the year that the first enslaved Africans arrived in North America. What progress there is has come “only because we push to get the rights and freedoms we deserve, or that have already been promised to us in the Bill of Rights or the United States constitution. If I work hard in making sure fairness and equity are given to my community and the communities that are like mine, only then can things get better. But the work doesn’t stop.”Might he one day go into politics full-time, instead of just supporting others? He briefly ran as an independent candidate in the 2015 elections for Georgia’s 55th district and says Chappelle recently tried to convince him to run for state governor.“I politely declined,” he adds. Later, maybe? “I will run for office the day that I’m unbribable. When I get rich for real, when no amount of money can corrupt me, maybe.”Killer Mike’s new solo single and video, Run, is out on 4 JulyTopicsRun the JewelsThe G2 interviewOutkastHip-hopGeorge FloydBernie SandersUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      'Lynching was treated as a celebratory event': Adrian Younge on the history of US racism

      by

      “I’m sacrificing myself to deliver a message,” says the composer, multi-instrumentalist and now podcast-maker Adrian Younge. “We aren’t aware enough of black history, nor of the integral role black people have played in building America. There is an educational sterilisation going on and it’s my duty to make people understand that history of racism – something America has pioneered.”With more than 400 years to cover since US slavery began, Younge’s project to educate the public is a vast and complex one. Yet, speaking on a video call surrounded by analogue recording equipment in his LA studio, it is a story Younge believes he has spent his life and career building up to. “This is my What’s Going On project, my record talking about why we are in the place that we are in,” he says. “It’s as if James Baldwin hooked up with Marvin Gaye to make a record produced by David Axelrod. It’s psychedelic soul but it is very professorial at the same time. There’s so many layers to it.”Indeed, there are. The resulting project comprises a 26-track album, written, played and recorded entirely by Younge, entitled The American Negro, a four-part podcast – Invisible Blackness – hosted by Younge – and a short film, again written and directed by Younge himself.Racism is a learned behaviour, one America developed through building its nation on the backs of slave labourSuch auteurship could seem somewhat egotistical but Younge – a 42-year-old musician who has made his name in collaboration with the likes of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Kendrick Lamar – sees it as necessary. “Pre-Covid, I was travelling the world performing and I was shocked at how little people understood about racism and its history,” he says. “Racism is a learned behaviour and one America developed through building its nation on the backs of slave labour and those economic gains. America is a slavocracy: it is a nation founded on bigotry, and those principles continue today. People might think racism no longer exists because there is no longer a slave system, but they don’t realise the laws that enabled the slave system still put us in a position where we have to jump over insurmountable handicaps to just become equal.”It is an incendiary argument and one that has found an increasing foothold in historical scholarship. The writer Edward E Baptist recently argued that the expansion of slavery during the first decades of American independence was foundational in enabling the country’s modernisation, while film-makers such as Ava DuVernay have convincingly plotted the continual subjugation of African Americans through the legal and penal system.While Younge’s album puts luscious orchestral arrangements and spoken-word interludes to use in creatively unfurling the development of structural racism in the US, it is through the podcast Invisible Blackness that he most comprehensively lays out his thesis. With guests including Public Enemy’s Chuck D, the trumpeter Keyon Harrold – whose son was recently in the headlines after being falsely accused of stealing an iPhone – and Digable Planets rapper Ladybug Mecca, Younge explores how his guests’ creation of socially conscious hip-hop influenced his own understanding of inequality. He also uses his previous career as a professor of law to authoritatively detail the origins of this American “slavocracy”.“I use the phrase of the show’s title to illustrate that we all have invisible blackness, this sense of ‘otherness’ inside us, because we are all descended from the first human being in Africa,” Younge says. “It all means that we are radically equal. And I have black radicals on the podcast, like Chuck D, to find out what he had to go through to educate others about this. We’re all looking at the past to understand what’s happening now, to inform people so they can ultimately make their own opinions with all the knowledge at their disposal.”Lynching was a form of bigotry porn: it is the galvanising of a group by emotion, rather than thoughtIt is a measured approach, yet not one without moments of visceral, emotional charge. Most strikingly, the cover art for The American Negro album is a black-and-white image of Younge being lynched, in the fashion of a “lynching postcard”. “Lynching was a form of bigotry porn: it is the galvanising of a group by emotion, rather than thought, as it’s easier to act without thinking,” he says. “Lynching was a celebratory event, one where people would pay to take ‘souvenirs’ like a thumb or an eyeball and they would then send each other postcards to say: ‘I was here’. So when you look at the album cover, which represents one of these postcards, I want to highlight how we were seen as the symbols of evil in America. And viewing the image now, we symbolise the American problem of racism. I want people to have a personal experience when they see it; I want them to see me as any other person of colour that can be killed with no judicial reprisal. I want people to see that I am real and I want them to see themselves in me.”It is a powerful image, one that calls up the horrors of history while referencing its grim modern iteration: filmed police brutality against people of colour. In fact, the May 2020 police killing of Minnesotan George Floyd occurred while Younge was at the beginning of recording his album. “George Floyd’s death didn’t affect the progression of the record at all and that’s what’s sad, right?” Younge says. “It’s the same thing; before that you had Eric Garner and before that, you had so many black people dying without judicial reprisal. That is what makes the world complacent towards the treatment of black people, because it’s so commonplace.”However, the global Black Lives Matter protests sparked by Floyd’s death did augur something different. “Part of me is happy that Trump was president because, while he has inspired more bigots, his lack of reaction to these police killings and white supremacy has also launched the greatest global protest that we’ve seen regarding race. He’s removed complacency,” says Younge. “I have two daughters and I see how young people are so much more woke than they were before now. There’s 12-year-olds on TikTok explaining racism because of him.”Despite the centuries of ingrained inequality laid out in Younge’s project, is it still possible to hope for a future change? “We’re in a better place now than we have been for decades,” he says. “America has been forced to acknowledge there is a problem but there is a deferred commitment to solving it. Our governments have the power to make those changes and so they need to make it happen – and soon.”Until then, Younge is keeping occupied. “Right now, I am the busiest I’ve ever been in my life,” he says, “but I’m doing something good and so it feels good. I’m giving so much of myself because this is an ongoing fight. This project is something that people could look back on 50 years from now and still have more to say.”The podcast Invisible Blackness is available now on Amazon Music. The American Negro by Adrian Younge is out on 26 February. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Kanye West announces 'Kanye 2024' as he fails to make election impact

      by

      Kanye West has suggested he will run for president in 2024, following his failed bid this year.
      Alongside a photo of him next to an electoral map filled with Republican and Democrat wins, he tweeted “welp”, an expression of disappointment. He added: “Kanye 2024”.

      ye
      (@kanyewest)
      WELP KANYE 2024 🕊 pic.twitter.com/tJOZcxdArb

      November 4, 2020

      West was a latecomer to the 2020 race, announcing his candidacy in July. Initially focusing on abortion and faith, he later drew up a 10-point platform, calling for support for the environment and arts, an anti-interventionist foreign policy, and reforms to the legal system and policing.
      He struggled to make it to the ballots of many states, including some that legally barred him from appearing, and encouraged supporters to write him on to their ballot papers. Across the 12 states whose ballots he appeared on, he won fewer than 60,000 votes. He found most success in Tennessee, winning more than 10,000 votes, 0.3% of the state’s total.
      As he cast his own vote, West said he had never previously voted in a presidential election. He tweeted: “God is so good. Today I am voting for the first time in my life for the President of the United States, and it’s for someone I truly trust … me.” More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      'Ghetto presidents': musicians risk all to take on authoritarian rule in Africa

      by

      They call him the “ghetto president”, and his ambition is to bring the dreams and the sounds of the streets to the corridors of power.Bobi Wine, a popular reggae star and prominent opposition MP in Uganda, will release a new album next month that addresses what he calls “the real issues people are facing – the injustices, corruption, high taxation, misrule, abuse of human rights, dictatorship.”“Rise up, African musicians, and we can accomplish the task,” Wine said in an interview. “We can’t be defeated. The more they oppress us, the stronger we become. No dictator in history has ever defeated the artists and no one will ever.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Is Kanye West seriously running for president? – podcast

      by

      The rapper has entered the race for the White House invoking his religious beliefs. Prof Josef Sorett looks at whether West’s presidential bid is anything more than a stunt

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Kanye West launched his bid for the White House on Sunday with a chaotic event in North Carolina. He delivered a rambling address that touched on theology, homelessness and corporate power before engaging one member of the audience in a long discussion about abortion. Prof Josef Sorett of Columbia University tells Rachel Humphreys that while West’s entry to the presidential race could be a promotional stunt, it is underpinned by his strong religious values that run through his music. And it raises interesting questions about the nature of the relationship between religion and politics in the US and where black voters fit into that discussion. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Kanye West makes chaotic presidential rally debut in South Carolina – video

      by

      Play Video

      0:33

      In the first rally of his last-minute presidential campaign, Kanye West delivers rambling remarks at a South Carolina convention centre. The venue appeared to lack audience microphones, so the rapper repeatedly asked the crowd to be silent. ‘Quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet,’ he tells the crowd, before saying the American abolitionist Harriet Tubman ‘never actually freed the slaves. She just had the slaves work for other white people.’ Members of the audience can be heard saying, ‘Y’all, we’re leaving now’
      God, abortion and better acoustics: Kanye West launches campaign with chaotic rally

      Topics

      Kanye West

      US politics

      US elections 2020

      Rap

      Hip-hop

      South Carolina More