Posted by Min. Paul Scott on 8/17/2002, 10:01 pm Min. Paul Scott Flipping through the TV channels the other night, I In this character, Bishop, I saw the manifestation of Unfortunately, despite all our hip talk and While they may scream and shout at the top of their Although, they appear to be on opposite ends of the Contrary to popular belief, white Americas biggest Ive always found it odd that the same neighborhoods The problem that we are facing today is that everyone Langston Hughes once talked about a dream too long Those of us in the Afrocentric/Conscious Community Based on the challenges that Afrikan people are facing As Frederick Douglas said Power concedes nothing Win, loose or draw, we must devote our energies to Minister Paul Scott has recently launched the National
Still Scared of Revolution 2002
saw the movie, JUICE for the 100th time. I tuned in
just as Tupacs character, Bishop was complaining to
his boyz about the lack of respect shown to them and
his feeling of powerlessness in gaining the JUICE
(ie
money, power, respect) that other people in the
neighborhood had. You gotta get the ground beneath
your feet pardna; the wind behind you back
.!!!
the frustration of brothas and sistas who are tired
of going to meeting after meeting, lecture after
lecture and discussion after discussion only to wake
up the next morning to find out that nothing has
changed.
politikin , to borrow from the Last Poets, Niggas
Are Still Scared of Revolution. in 2002. This is
especially evident in the world of Hip Hop, where the
self proclaimed THUG Niggas despite all of their
screaming and shoutin over a hot track about how bad
they are, never use that anger to fight
against the oppression of Afrikan people.
Even when they do address issues pertinent to the
state of Black America, their rhetoric is markedly
different than when they are getting at a brotha for
dissin them on a CD.
lungs about their beef with another brotha, when
facing the man they can only whisper a prepared
statement that has been proofread and approved by
their record labels public relations department.
I just cant imagine MC Kill for the Thrill rollin
up in a board meeting at a Fortune 500 company
threatening to give the CEO a beat down if he doesnt
have his money right. Reason being, for every MC Kill
for the Thrill there are a thousand others out there
who could say the same raps, minus the drama. KRS
once warned that rappers are in danger but in 2002
rappers are expendable. If you look at shows like
Citas World, soon rappers will be replaced by Cyber
MCs, programmed to automatically receive 5 mics from
the Source. As Don King might say If there wasnt a
Trick Daddy, white America would have to create one.
spectrum, the white power structure and the THUGS
actually have a love/hate relationship and while on
the surface they appear to be in opposition, they are
really interdependent. The white power structure needs
the THUGS to use as poster children for the
justification of things like the prison industrial
complex , discrimination and police brutality and the
THUGS need the white power structure to supply them
with the cash to get their Bentleys detailed.
fear is not a gangsta, but an educated Black man with
his priorities in order.
that Black folks are scared to drive through at 90
miles an hour in broad daylight, you can find a
yuppie,
white woman slow peddling her 10 speed without
a care in the world. I guess it's true that despite
all
the wolf tickets that we sell to each other, in 2002,
aint nobody scared of black folks accept other black
folks. Even the proverbial little old white lady, who
years ago would have clutched her pocket book and
trembled when a brotha joined her on the elevator
would, today, probably hit even toughest THUG with her
purse and mug him.
is waiting for something . The church folks are
waiting to die and go to heaven, the conscious
brothas and sistas are waiting on the revolution and
the Hip Hop heads are waiting for the second coming of
Biggie. So many of us spend our lives in a conscious
coma, fully aware of what is going on but powerless to
lift a finger to stop it.
deferred becoming a withered grape. We have used that
grape to make Mad Dog 20/20 and have attempted to
drink ourselves out of the reality of our condition.
have a standard rap and no matter what gathering of
deep people you attend, someone is going to run
down how we were the founders of civilization/built
the pyramids/discovered the peanut ,etc. What makes
the current condition of Hip Hop so painful is that
with our glorious past, today, we are not even
able to stop corporate America from filling the heads
of Black children with dreams of thuggism. Nor
have we come up with an alternative that can compete
with the hyped up, Hip Hop stories in magazines about
the joys of genocide.
in the 21st century, we must approach the ending of
anti-afrikanism as if our lives depended on it (They
do) or like there is no tomorrow (for many brothas
there isnt) Every book on Hip Hop must have the
immediate solution of our problem as its goal and not
serve as a forerunner for a volume 2. Every Conscious
CD must inspire our people to do something more than
bob their head to the beat. If it does not it is
merely a tool of the oppressor to pacify our people
and becomes a classic case of all that rappin but
aint nothing happnin. The struggle must not be
like a movie where you already know that the evil
villain will escape because you have already seen the
previews for the sequel.
without demand, it never did and it never will. At
some point there has to be a grand finale. There has
to be a boiling point. The universe itself dictates
such. But we have to control the direction of the
change. Suppose the Black community collectively
declares September 13, 2002 (which happens to be the
anniversary of the death of Tupac Shakur) as the end
of negative Hip Hop and the rebirth of Black
Consciousness? Suppose all of us who preach, write or
rap about the pitiful condition of Hip Hop come up
with a concentrated effort to bring about a new era,
NOW! At least we would come to a conclusion that
either 1) when Black folks come together we can
accomplish what we will or 2) the forces that oppress
us are just too powerful, our ancestors all died in
vain and we need to trade in our pens, computers and
microphones for Playstations and spend the rest of our
lives trying to beat the high score.
making a change. As Eldridge Cleave once said We will
have our manhood or the earth will be leveled by or
attempts to gain it.
Hip Hop Reformation Campaign. For more information
contact: operationmedia@yahoo.com. To sign the Hip Hop
Manifesto Petition go to:
http://www.petitiononline.com/hiphop/petition.html
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