Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President

0 Kudo

Author	Comment
mrdaveyd	Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President		Lead	[-]
Posts: 735 12/24/08 04:56:59	Tags : None Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President By Rosa A. Clemente The Green Institute http://www.greeninstitute.net/clemente_obama "Each generation out of relative obscurity, must discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it." Frantz Fanon It has been 45 days since the Hip Hop generation helped usher in the first Black male President of the United States of America. Since that historic night, many within Hip Hop culture, like writer Greg Kot of the Boston Globe, entrepreneur Russell Simmons, artists Common, Jay-Z and P. Diddy, have declared President-Elect Obama the first Hip Hop president. In my humble opinion they are wrong, dead wrong. It does not matter how many Hip Hop pundits, non-profit organizations, and recognizable figures within the culture declare it. Much like an MC or B-Girl battle, I'm ready to challenge that declaration. As a long time community organizer and Hip Hop activist and journalist, I have always followed a rule: never allow someone to become your priority while you become his or her option. For President Elect Barack Obama and the entire Democrat Party leadership in this country, the Hip Hop generation has never been a priority, we have always been an option and that option is used mostly to get out the vote during elections. Efforts like Vote or Die, *Generation Vote, Rock the Vote, Respect my Vote, do not empower a generation - they are catchy slogans emblazoned on pretty white tees that offer empty rhetoric. At the end of the day, those G.O.T.V. efforts become guaranteed votes for the Democratic Party and often fail to educate their followers about candidates that run outside of the two-party system. I believe that like many before him, President-Elect Barack Obama's campaign used Hip Hop to create excitement amongst young people in this country, but we must clearly see through the $750 million bling-bling marketing haze of his campaign. The few times he was pressed on his association to Hip Hop, he spoke about offensive rap lyrics and Black men having respect for themselves by pulling up their pants. I do not recall one specific mention of the political victories and social consciousness brought out by millions in the culture. Just because you brush off your shoulders, fist bump the future First Lady, or play a mean game of street ball, that does not make you Hip Hop. What we have now is an Obama administration that came into power with the promise of change, but is remixing that promise by sampling from the Bill Clinton Presidency, including Hillary herself, and this new remix will do nothing to change the mass conditions of our people. In Van Jones* new book, *The Green Collar Economy, Van says, "It is time to change from fighting against something to fighting for something." For me that statement encapsulates why I chose to accept Cynthia's McKinney's invitation to be her running mate and why the Green Party made history by choosing us as the first women-of-color ticket in American Presidential politics. I accepted the call because I was no longer interested in fighting against the Democratic or Republican Party. I want to fight for a Hip Hop political movement not dominated by white liberal politics or white foundation money. I want to fight for a Hip Hop political movement that is African-centered, respects women as leaders and believes in Universal Health Care. A Hip Hop movement that fights for amnesty for undocumented immigrants and an end to the prison industrial complex. We must all fight for a Hip Hop political movement that wants to be at peace with our global brothers and sisters, that will build a truly independent media apparatus and will stand up and mobilize against the increasing racial violence against Latino/a immigrants and demands a live-able wage. We need a Hip Hop movement that is not afraid to say that the Palestinian people should have the full right of return and that the Israeli Occupation of their homeland is illegal. I need Hip Hop to affirm the right of the Puerto Rican people and our island to be an independent nation and I need Hip Hop to help free all of our political prisoners and prisoners of war. We need Hip Hop to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end the death penalty and we must create a Hip Hop political movement that empowers working class communities, fights for Green Jobs and will never deny L.G.B.T. brothers and sisters their God-given human rights. Finally I want Hip Hop to uplift and support its women, to accept women of color as capable much needed leaders, and to understand that as long as it continues to deny women their much fought place in the culture, Hip Hop will die. So this is what I am fighting for. For me its not only about holding Obama, the House of Representatives, or the United States Senate accountable. Holding public officials accountable is important, but building a multi-racial social justice movement is a necessity for our very existence. Yes Hip Hop, President-Elect Barack Obama may be the first Black President, but he will not be the first Hip Hop President. Only we the people of Hip Hop can make that a reality. Rosa A. Clemente* can be reached at clementerosa@gmail.com Rosa Clemente, her husband Justice, and her daughter Alicia-Maria, live in North Carolina. This the first in a series of four articles commissioned for the Green Institute by Rosa Clemente. Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
Digital Champ.politicalpalace	Re: Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President	#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 18 12/25/08 14:13:07	Obama is not the hip-hop president. Being 47 and from Hawaii he missed hip-hop as being an influence on his cognitive processing. He's even said it. If he was from New York or L.A there could be a chance. You have true hip-hoppers in their fifties from these places. In Hawaii I'm not sure exactly you just can't but a finger on it, but hip-hop culture probably didn't become culturally influential to those interested until the Run-DMC era. Their career was the like the bridge from the first generation of hip-hop to the second, along with people like LL Cool Jay, KRS-1, Ice-T and Too Short. Some areas are more culturally expedient than others. In hip-hop New York and then L.A were the early grounds. Before commercialization which began with the Sugar Hill Gang (a late first generation group), to get hip-hop it had to be hand delivered. In an east coast city like Baltimore, me personally I got plugged into hip-hop at 11 courtesy of a neighbor from the Bronx that brought it down. Tapes, dress, dance, walk the whole nine. I thought he was a space alien when I first saw Michael. This was like two years before Sugar Hill gang came out. I'm 41 now. Cities like Philly, Detroit, Oakland, Houston, came into consciousness of hip-hop around the same time. When Rappers Delight came out in 1979 we had a clue already to what rap was. Now in New York you had grown men in their early twenties making the music, supporting, and driving the facets of the emergent culture, they are in their fifties - late forties now. Like DJ Red Alert. In Baltimore for say we didn't have the artisans at this period so our first generation don't run as old as theirs - for the most part, you do have some that pick-up hip-hop fairly late and it stuckl but early forties is about where a early B-more hip-hop head is at. We were those kids claiming a music and style that was different for our parents, and being permanently impacted by hip-hops force. We came in at the middle of the first generation. L.A. got on really early through Zulu Nation, and spread around to Oakland and Houston. Other cities down south and the midwest came into their first awareness of hip-hop with Rappers Delight in 1979. When I had to finish school in VA in 1985 my older uncles didn't like it. The kids my age didn't fully understand, they were still on their parents music. Hawaii being far out probably was similar and didn't come into their first generation of hip-hoppers until Run DMC took over mainstream. They may have heard Rappers Delight, but the movement wasn't there. It was just a different kind of record. Before hip-hop hit any respective area, the kids and teens of that time listened to the music of their parents. So Obama is probably down with the Ojays, Cameo, etc.. By the time he became in tune with hip-hop he was already a young adult. Which means you can still appreciate the music, but unless you become a artisan, it's different from growing up in the expression. What's interesting about early hip-hop culture is that in different places, different pillars of hip-hop became focal points. In L.A it was dance. Hip-hop dance was bigger than M.C'ing at first. They were already into electronica sounds like Cameo and Parliament, then when hip-hop came with the cross fader dance really took off there. Popping and locking, to the point where it was hip-hops biggest draw. They really didn't hit the mic serious until Ice-T who was a first generation hip-hopper who performed for the second generation coming up. That's another thing the previous age generation plays the music for the one coming up. By in large it's men that make the music kids look up to. In New York of course rapping became the primary focal of hip-hop from the beginning. It fit the fast talking, confrontational New York attitude "sucker think he good, sucker think he can whup me, I know he can't whup me, boy his whole style is chump, just let me get mine first" (Education of Sonny Carson 1974). In Baltimore it was the breakbeats, the blend mixes. Then we did our own thing and speeded it up and started mixing house records. Only thing was we made it to fast to really M.C. So at house parties the traditional starting point for first generation M.C's we didn't have that. The house mix became the show case. Everything else was traditional, the dress, the thought patterns, but no M.C. The ones that we had tried to be like New Yorkers and they couldn't get with how we liked our beats. Over southwest in Houston I heard break dancing was real big first. In Chicago I would wager with it's strong gang culture and large subway system graffitt was big early. There was very little graffiti early on in Baltimore. Hip-hop can now be broken into three distinct generations. The 1st generation which consist of people from late thirties to fifties. Performers started with Kool Herc up to Kurtis Blow. The Second generation which consists of people from mid thirties to early twenties and started with the crossover of Run-DMC and goes up to the careers of say Nas, Eminem, and Snoop Dog to give regional balance. Now we have the third generation which are children and teenagers. Performance wise I mark this era starting with the stardom of Little Wayne. He fits the rule of being the previous generations age (27) but catering to the proceeding one. The first true third generation star rapper is Souljah Boy. Where as the first generation rappers started their thing at house parties, the second started their thing at talent shows and stage battles. This third generation starts their thing on the internet. Last Edited By: Digital Champ 12/25/08 15:45:59. Edited 2 times.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
The Great Ka	I Totally Agree	#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1 12/25/08 14:37:30	Go ahead sista Rosa! I have been trying to figure out myself why he is being label the first Hip Hop President. We just witness one of the greatest marketing machines in the history of America. The President Elect Obama has some how convince a lot of Hip Hop figures that he's down for Hip Hop. Are there any critical thinking caps on in the Hip Hop arena? Are you that desperate? As the late great author and entrepreneur Amos Wilson once said "Things Change But Remain The Same." I guess now we have a free ticket not to "Fight The Power." Rosa you have my support and attention! Be Empowered Now! Last Edited By: The Great Ka 12/25/08 14:40:10. Edited 1 time.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
ezwriter1.politicalpalace	rosa is kinda trippin'	#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 8 12/28/08 01:13:18	technically, Rosa's right -- Obama isn't a "hip hop" president; he never wrote graffiti, went crate-digging, or b-boyed. however, i don't think there's any question that obama is the first member of the hip-hop generation to be elected president, which is a much more accurate statement. to put it another way, obama is about the same age as many of the old-school rappers, and comes from a multicultural background. i dont think he intentionally courted the hip-hop vote, but it turned out for him. why? because for the first time, the hip-hop generation had a candidate they could relate to. that's fairly significant. i remember when Dennis Kucinich tried to call himself the hip-hop candidate in 2004. yeah right! During the campaign, it was great to see folks from the hood in Oakland where i live trade in their Mac Dre t-shirts for Obama shirts, and actually be interested in electoral politics.that's a serious shift in consciousness! the fact that Obama rose from being a community organizer to president alone should inspire other organizers. I respect what rosa's trying to do -- inject movement politics into mainstream politics -- but her essay not only downplays the fact that Obama was able to mobilize the youth vote to its highest level since Vietnam as well as an unprecedented number of first-time voters, but becomes a transparent ploy for her own political ambitions. instead of really making a case that backs up her premise with supporting facts, she launches the written equivalent of a stump speech, with predictable far-left views which ignore the reality for any US president, who must work with both houses of congress and cut deals with both parties. and while alternative political parties look good on paper, until they can get more than 1% of the electorate they can be safely ignored by the powers that be. though in theory i'm down with everything Rosa's saying about what she thinks a hip-hop movement should be, the fact is that hip-hop at this point does not have an identifiable political agenda or power base. and, hey, good luck building any effective political bloc "not dominated by white liberal politics or white foundation money." last time i checked rich black folks weren't especially fond of being reminded where they came from (the ghetto), and the black middle class has never been down with hip-hop -- until Obama's fist bump and references to "Ray Ray from the block." Hmmm, wasn't Rosa the Green Party's VP candidate? didn't white liberal money fill their coffers? Other than her and McKinney, i dont see a whole lot of nonwhites in the greens. please correct me if i'm wrong here. Let's be real. a statement like "We need Hip Hop to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan" is just not very realistic. Hip hop doesn't control the DOD budget. let's work on getting rappers to stop acting like gangsters when they really arent first, ok? what we need hip-hop to do is stop promoting things which disempower us as a community, like BET and commercial radio. What's especially ironic is that Rosa quotes Van Jones, who sold out community organizers (who were attempting to build an effective hip-hop social justice platform) for a Rockefeller grant and moved his nonprofit's focus away from prison reform and police accountability campaigns in order to court the white liberal money flowing through the green movement. For the last three years, Van's been jocking Nancy Pelosi, and before that he was jocking Arianna Huffington. And while Van has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, he hasnt created a single green job himself. In fact, the only active green jobs program he's actually connected to is a solar power installer internship in Richmond, CA which does not guarantee employment upon completion of the program. Furthermore, with Oakland facing a massive budget deficit, it's looking more and more unlikely that the Green Jobs Ordinance Van used to get in front of the cameras will come to fruition anytime soon. That's what you call New Age poverty pimpin'. Van's a great speaker, but he's a media whore. As far as uplifting women, doesnt having Michelle Obama as first lady count for anything, Rosa? i mean, women of color now have a positive role model who is respected and not treated like a second-class citizen by her man. Isn't that progress? Getting back to the main topic, Rosa writes, "The few times he was pressed on his association to Hip Hop, he spoke about offensive rap lyrics and Black men having respect for themselves by pulling up their pants. I do not recall one specific mention of the political victories and social consciousness brought out by millions in the culture." this isn't entirely accurate. for one thing, offensive lyrics are an issue in rap music, and black men do need to respect themselves a bit better. For another, i'm not sure what "political victories" hip-hop has brought about (and perhaps Rosa isn't either, since she doesn't actually list any). In California, proposition 187 and 21 both passed. In New York, hip-hop didnt stop Guiliani's "Quality of Life" campaign or prevent Sean Bell or Amadou Diallo from being murdered by police. the only time hip-hop has been successful in politics is when it's attached itself to larger social justice issues and aligned itself with multi-organization coalitions, as was the case with the Hot 97 protests and the immigration marches a few years back. however, without question, by far the biggest, most significant, and most far-reaching "political victory" that can be associated with hip-hop i can think of is... the election of Obama. By the way, Obama didnt completely disassociate himself from Jay-Z and Ludacris the way he did with Jeremiah Wright, although he came under fire by conservatives who tried to make rapper's support of him a hot-button issue. and he has a social consciousness hip-hop would do well to emulate. to put it another way, there are hip-hop songs sampling him, the same way that hip-hop has sampled Farrakhan, Malcolm X, and James Brown. saying that he didn't name-drop Public Enemy or KRS-One is an essentially meaningless point. So while Obama did not specifically run on a hip-hop platform, his election validated all non-white people in this country and set the biggest precedent to date for acceptance of multiculturalism on a mainstream level. He has validated hip-hop on a level it was unable to do on its own. At this point, Obama is bigger than hip-hop. He's not only the first hip-hop president, he's the first Internet president. His candidacy forced hip-hop to grow up a little bit and take itself more seriously, which is at least a step toward empowerment. Now that he's been elected, hip-hop should not sleep on creating change. Hip hop should take advantage of the paradigm shift his election created and organize more effectively around issues. For example, Obama's pledged not only to universal health care and a more responsible evironmental policy, but has spoken out against disparities in sentencing guidelines which result in racially unequal levels of incarceration. I dont think hip-hop at this point has the political clout to push any of those things through on its own, and, honestly, neither does Rosa Clemente or the Green Party. Last Edited By: ezwriter1 12/28/08 01:23:31. Edited 1 time.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
upsetthesetup		#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1 12/29/08 14:14:32	Hip Hop can't even define what is Hip Hop and what it isn't. We lost that fight a long time ago. For decades people have been saying this or that is Hip Hop when the Hip Hoppers say no it's not. So this is just another incident in people ascribing hiphopness to something that might not be hip hop. But it is worth noting that people like Jay Z, Common and Russell actually have some weight when it comes to saying what's hip hop and what's not. It's not like George Stephenopolous or Wolf Blitzer are out there saying Obama is Hip Hop. People actually listen to Jay, Common, Bun B and Russell and all the other hip hoppers who put the culture's weight behind electing Obama - more people listen to them than Rosa Clemente. So who really speaks for Hip Hop? The culture as a whole? Or one lone hip hop purist activist? Last Edited By: upsetthesetup 12/29/08 14:18:30. Edited 1 time.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
TungzRA		#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 26 12/30/08 06:43:41	Speak, sister Rosa!!!!! I couldn't have said it better myself. Tungz
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
SwedishReader		#6	[url]	[-]
Posts: 6 01/01/09 06:35:40	Thanks (as always) for another great read. I remember that Fanon quote from college, it really grabbed me then. Anyone who focuses on activism or spirituality or any of the issues listed at the end of the article, whether they identify with hiphop or not, doesn't get to the white house. It seems to me he is somebody who will not systematically go out of his way to sabotage other people's lives and efforts, which will shift things for the better. Best of luck to him.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote
FlavorBlade	Re: Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President	#7	[url]	[-]
Posts: 37 01/04/09 17:13:37	Green Party, huh. I heard of you but never paid any attention. It's like minor league ball in a major league city. You really got have a special interest. Pun intended. I did some research however. I agree with your 10 key points. I think you will have the rare oppurtunity to grow in one year in what would have taken ten years if you maximize events. Welcome to 2009. A year like no other. Hip Hop can't even define what is Hip Hop and what it isn't. Upsetthesetup Hip-hop is everything that exists because of it.
Interact My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Invite Blocking Ignore User's Posts	Reply Quote