tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/public-enemy-30165/articlesPublic Enemy – The Conversation2023-10-02T19:23:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097842023-10-02T19:23:59Z2023-10-02T19:23:59Z50 years of hip-hop: Its social and political power resonates far beyond its New York birthplace<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/50-years-of-hip-hop-its-social-and-political-power-resonates-far-beyond-its-new-york-birthplace" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Some historians say hip-hop culture all started at a <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hip-hop-is-born-at-a-birthday-party-in-the-bronx">party one hot August night in the South Bronx in 1973</a>. DJ Kool Herc plugged his parents’ record gear into a street lamp and began creating what is known as breaks — longer instrumentals in records created by replaying the musical interludes over and over. </p>
<p>In 1980, the first <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192750303/rappers-delight-how-hip-hop-got-its-first-record-deal">commercial rap record</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-sugarhill-gangs-rappers-delight-becomes-hip-hops-first-top-40-hit"><em>Rapper’s Delight</em>, was recorded</a>. With its large distribution network and popularity, this song reached the Billboard Top 40.</p>
<p>Soon hip-hop culture and rap music became a global phenomenon — leading to this year marking the <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-global-musical-phenomenon-turns-50-a-hip-hop-professor-explains-what-the-word-dope-means-to-him-200872">50th anniversary of hip-hop</a>. </p>
<p>Today, hip-hop culture, and <a href="https://medium.com/just-to-talk-about/the-4-pillars-of-hip-hop-and-cinema-59e99acf73a5">its four main elements</a> — MCing (rap), DJing, breaking (dance) and graffiti, are staples of youth culture <a href="https://www.pbs.org/articles/q-a-chuck-d-lorrie-boula-and-yemi-bamiro-on-fight-the-power-and-the-50th-anniversary-of-hip-hop/">all over the globe</a>. </p>
<p>Beyond being a billboard sensation and generating celebrity artists, hip-hop culture and art are <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1152139160/50-years-of-hip-hop">still as youthful and popular as ever</a> far beyond where they originated.</p>
<h2>Social and political power of hip-hop</h2>
<p>Scholars of hip-hop and popular culture, such as Tricia Rose and Richard Iton, have highlighted the important <a href="https://www.triciarose.com/books/thehiphopwars">social and political power of hip-hop</a>.</p>
<p>For example, Iton examines how through extra-political means, such as mass movements, uprisings and protests, Black people both today and historically have used <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-search-of-the-black-fantastic-9780195178463?cc=ca&lang=en&">popular culture and art to ignite calls for social and political change</a>. </p>
<p>Created as an <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/hip-hop-standing-black-lives-decades-15-songs/story?id=71195591">art of resistance</a> by young Black people struggling against oppression, hip-hop culture has found a home in resistance struggles globally.</p>
<p>As is commemorated in a radio documentary about the rap group Public Enemy, Chuck D, Public Enemy’s leader, once famously stated rap music <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/jun/25/black-cnn-hip-hop-took-control">is “the Black CNN</a>.” He believed rap functioned similarly to news channels through “informing people, connecting people, being a direct source of information.” </p>
<h2>Connecting people, exposing issues</h2>
<p>For decades hip-hop artists have <a href="https://youtu.be/gYMkEMCHtJ4">used their power as</a> popular culture stars to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTuRPuhneAs">influence the political sphere</a>. As <a href="https://www.okayplayer.com/news/hip-hop-professors-in-academia.html">academics have begun to take notice</a> of the power of hip-hop to inspire youth and impact social change, more and more research on the history and power of hip-hop has developed. </p>
<p>Hip-hop is being used for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/17/us/cnn-heroes-alvarez/index.html">therapeutic purposes</a> and can help provide young people with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2014.974433">sense of self and community</a>. Young people have been using hip-hop in their respective communities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2014.992322">to shed light on important social issues and demand change</a>.</p>
<p>Youth all over the world are using hip-hop both as the means and the fuel to fight for social and political change.</p>
<h2>Speaking up</h2>
<p>There are many Indigenous artists using <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/a/kyle-mullin/indigenous-rap-renaissance">rap music</a> to engage in Indigenous resurgence as well as speak up about colonialism and racism. </p>
<p>Artists such as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/music/prism-prize-2023-snotty-nose-rez-kids-damn-right-1.6899919">Snotty Nose Rez Kids</a>, the rap duo <a href="https://www.socanmagazine.ca/news/video-interview-snotty-nose-rez-kids-create-life-after/">from the Haisla Nation</a> in British Columbia, combine socially conscious rap lyrics with music and dancing from their culture, often to question colonial Canadian policies and demand change for social problems. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Snotty Nose Rez Kids official music video ‘I Can’t Remember My Name.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>Their music video for “I Can’t Remember My Name,” intersperses footage of performers stripping off western suits and people in traditional regalia dancing. Lyrics like “I’m smudging the dirt off my shoulder” melds traditional practices with hip-hop culture.</p>
<h2>Forging hybrid identities, outlets for stress</h2>
<p>Scholars Mela Sarkar and Dawn Allen have documented how Québec-based rappers of Haitian, Dominican and African origin <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15348450701341253">use rap music to build community and forge hybrid identities in the context of migration, the globalization of youth culture</a> and systemic barriers like poverty and racism. </p>
<p>In Toronto, several organizations offer after-school hip-hop programming in order to support young people in finding <a href="https://www.toronto.com/life/wellness/unity-charity-celebrates-10-years-of-helping-youth-through-hip-hop/article_f2ca403f-5097-5c28-9e93-573a9b42b4aa.html?">positive outlets for stress</a>. </p>
<p>Hip-hop artists in Toronto are using their art to challenge dominant stereotypical narratives of Black and racialized communities and highlight important social issues, such as racism, poverty, violence or substance use. For example, RISE Edutainment offers Black youth a community to use <a href="https://www.breakfasttelevision.ca/videos/this-organization-strives-to-empower-young-bipoc-artists/">art as a way to understand systemic inequality</a>.</p>
<h2>A classic: ‘Jamaican Funk Canadian style’</h2>
<p>To mark this momentous anniversary in hip-hop history, special events have been popping up including concerts and <a href="https://www.torontodance.com/rolling-loud-hip-hop-festival-in-toronto-september-9-11/">festivals</a>. </p>
<p>The Juno Awards 2023 <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/music/junos/2023-junos-will-celebrate-the-50th-anniversary-of-hip-hop-with-all-star-performance-1.6764442">celebrated this anniversary</a> by showcasing some of the talented rappers north of the border including <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/urban-music-emc#">the first Canadian MC</a> to sign an American record label, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1864239259">Michie Mee</a>, playing her hit classic, “<a href="https://youtu.be/ObqLwv7UtP8">Jamaican Funk Canadian Style</a>.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC Music Video - The Making of Michie Mee’s ‘Jamaican Canadian Funk Style’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Positively impacting young people</h2>
<p>Over the last 50 years, hip-hop has been positively impacting young people who identify with its messaging and find comfort and solidarity in the community it creates. </p>
<p>This culture has grown and spread over the last half-century and shows no signs of stopping. </p>
<p>Hip-hop’s message of empowerment and the platform it provides to marginalized communities means we can expect another transformative 50 years ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Lippman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Created as an art of resistance by Black artists in the U.S., hip-hop culture has inspired global struggles and youth culture across the world, including in Canada.Anna Lippman, Sociology Instructor, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1408792020-06-25T12:20:11Z2020-06-25T12:20:11ZHip-hop is the soundtrack to Black Lives Matter protests, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344030/original/file-20200625-33515-18j39cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4184%2C2780&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rapper YG, center in white, at a June 7 protest over the death of George Floyd.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Protests-Los-Angeles/7f60b0562bf74e68b29c611dd6660170/1/0">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The sound of Public Enemy’s 1989 song “Fight the Power” blared as face-masked protesters in Washington, D.C. broke into <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CBbTzHiHTkK/?igshid=jg3sh0mc7xq8">a spontaneous rendition of the electric slide dance</a> near the White House.</p>
<p>It was the morning of June 14, and an Instagram user captured the moment, commenting: “If Trump is in the White House this morning he’s being woken up by … a Public Enemy dance party.”</p>
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<p>Coming amid widespread protests over police brutality and structural racism in the United States, the song is an apt musical backdrop. It opens with a quote from civil rights activist <a href="https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/thomas-n-todd-39">Thomas “TNT” Todd</a> before going into a sample-laden funk rap track referencing past black protest songs from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QZvoOqUkqw">Isley Brothers</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBVVztMA4CQ">James Brown</a>.</p>
<p>Demonstrators in other parts of the country similarly used hip-hop as a form of sonic protest. In New York, protesters <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9395570/ludacris-approves-protesters-chanting-nypd">chanted the hook to Ludacris’s 2001 song “Move B—-”</a> as they were penned in on the Manhattan Bridge by police officers.</p>
<p>Footage of the crowd singing, “Move b—-, get out the way. Get out the way b—-, get out the way” to uniformed officers seemingly got the approval of Ludacris, who reposted a video on his Twitter account <a href="https://twitter.com/Ludacris/status/1268030618610348034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1268030618610348034&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.billboard.com%2Farticles%2Fcolumns%2Fhip-hop%2F9395570%2Fludacris-approves-protesters-chanting-nypd">accompanied by a raised fist emoji</a>.</p>
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<p>No one who has listened to hip-hop since its <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hip-hop-is-born-at-a-birthday-party-in-the-bronx">origins in the 1970s</a> should be surprised that rap music has become the soundtrack to protests in the wake of George Floyd’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html">killing in Minneapolis on May 25</a> while in police custody.</p>
<p>Hip-hop artists have protested police violence in their music for decades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, rappers from different corners of the United States described the brutal and discriminatory police tactics they witnessed in their communities.</p>
<p>Most famous perhaps is N.W.A.’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADdpLv3RDhA">“F— tha Police”</a> from 1988. Fellow Los Angeles rapper Ice T <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/paye7y/talking-cop-killer-with-body-counts-ice-t">faced backlash</a> after his metal band, Body Count, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XihXOw634o">released “Cop Killer</a>” in 1992.</p>
<p>In the Geto Boys’ “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phv-CquLH8o">Crooked Officer</a>” from 1993, the Houston rap group bears witness to racial profiling and police violence in the so-called <a href="http://blogs.memphis.edu/dirtysouth/2013/10/18/dirty-south/#:%7E:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cdirty%20south%E2%80%9D%20is,that%20originated%20from%20the%20south.&text=The%20name%20dirty%20south%20is,it%20as%20his%20stage%20name.">Dirty South</a>, before asserting: “Mr. Officer, crooked officer, I wanna put your ass in a coffin, sir.” In the same year, New York’s KRS-One referenced the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816">racist origins of American policing</a> in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A572eclLc68">Sound of da Police</a>,” connecting the violent tactics used against enslaved Africans to the NYPD of the late 20th century and referring to an officer as a “wicked overseer.”</p>
<h2>Minneapolis goddam?</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://history.arizona.edu/people/tyina-steptoe">cultural historian who studies connections between race and music</a>, I know that the rich history of protest in Black American music started much earlier than hip-hop. The tradition is as old as Southern blues and continued through jazz and rhythm and blues.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f31EzRopJ4">Joe Turner Blues</a>,” a song that likely originated in the late 1800s. According to folklorist <a href="http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/about-alan">Alan Lomax</a>, Black residents of the Mississippi Delta used the earliest versions of the song to describe a white sheriff named Joe Turner who sent Black men to chain gangs or to work on building levees.</p>
<p>The lyrics recount a lover’s tale of loss: “They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone. Got my man and gone.” References to police officers in songs like “Joe Turner Blues” also link that tradition to the songs of enslaved Africans who warned about <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-from-slave-patrols-to-traffic-stops-112816">the slave patrols who combed the South</a> in search of runaways.</p>
<p>As with hip-hop, protest against law enforcement came from communities of color in different parts of the country.</p>
<p>From east Texas, blues musician Texas Alexander describes false accusations of murder and forgery in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APsIKxTtmHI">Levee Camp Moan Blues</a>.” He laments, “They accused me of forgery; I can’t even write my name” – a statement that indicts both the segregated public school system of Texas and corrupt law enforcement officials.</p>
<h2>Soul rebels</h2>
<p>In the 1950s and 1960s, jazz musicians contributed to <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814770412/anthem/">the emerging civil rights canon</a> through songs like Charles Mingus’ “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtLiwC1hcrI">Original Faubus Fables</a>” and Nina Simone’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ25-U3jNWM">Mississippi Goddam</a>.” </p>
<p>Black musicians also made direct references to racial profiling and police brutality. Marvin Gaye tackled police violence on his 1971 album, “What’s Going On.” “Trigger happy policing” is one of the many social problems mentioned in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Ykv1D0qEE">Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)</a>,” and he demands, “don’t punish me with brutality” on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPkM8F0sjSw">album’s title track</a>. </p>
<p>Protesters also co-opted seemingly nonpolitical Motown songs as part of their struggle against police brutality. As uprisings against violent police tactics erupted in places like Watts, Detroit and Newark between 1965 and 1967, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc">Dancing in the Street</a>” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas became part of the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/dancing-in-the-street-detroits-radical-anthem">soundtrack for urban protest</a>.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/3J1INzYAePavvpxq4LP7gV" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>
<p>Expressing anti-police sentiment in song is not exclusive to the Black American experience. Texans of Mexican descent have detailed their run-ins with law enforcement in Spanish for centuries through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/style/trapcorridos-chicano-los-angeles.html">Southwestern corridos</a> – narrative ballad songs.</p>
<p>Like much of the blues played by Black Americans, the corridos that emanated from the Rio Grande Valley in the 19th and early 20th century often described conflicts between Anglo-American law enforcement and Mexican Americans. “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Jp4p8_fH8">El corrido de Gregorio Cortez</a>” recounts an actual event from 1901, when an Anglo-Anerican sheriff shot a man named Romaldo Cortez. His brother Gregorio then shot and killed the sheriff before eluding the Texas Rangers for 10 days.</p>
<p>Gregorio is celebrated as a hero who resisted Anglo-American domination: “They had a shootout and he killed another sheriff. Gregorio Cortez said with his pistol in his hand, ‘Don’t run you cowardly Rangers, from one lone Mexican.’”</p>
<h2>New protest songs</h2>
<p>Whether emanating from blues or corridos, Mexican and Black American music protested the ways that police buttressed white political, economic and social power. Similarly today, Latino activists point to <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/protests/hispanic-and-latino-communities-show-support-to-the-black-lives-matter-movement/85-4b0b5fa2-2e6a-438f-8844-7af4c028e11d">shared concerns over race and law enforcement in their support</a> for Black Lives Matter.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, recording artists are continuing the tradition of using music to protest police violence in communities of color. Los Angeles rapper YG <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramteyfi9bE">released a single</a> called “FTP” on June 4, in a nod to N.W.A.’s “F— tha Police.” And hip-hop producer Terrace Martin likewise <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OMirbGvn8o">dropped a track, “Pig Feet”</a> commenting on the current unrest: “Helicopters over my balcony. If the police can’t harass, they wanna smoke every ounce of me.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tyina Steptoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rap songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches over the killing of George Floyd. But the history of Black American music as a form of protest dates back to the 19th century.Tyina Steptoe, Associate Professor of History, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048642018-11-14T13:58:06Z2018-11-14T13:58:06ZHip-hop and HIV - one rap song’s positive message still holds true<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245051/original/file-20181112-83573-12rcsp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YouTube</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>American hip-hop group, <a href="https://www.michaelfranti.com/">The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy</a>, first graced my ears in late 1992. It was thanks to my housemate in undergraduate school who was an <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/style/indie-rock-ma0000004453">indie music</a> fan. He knew I was a hip-hop head, and made no hesitation in excitedly playing me The Disposable Heroes’ first album, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/hypocrisy-is-the-greatest-luxury-mw0000073719"><em>Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury</em></a>. </p>
<p>As the opening song launched, I scanned the track list on the CD case - “Language of Violence”, “Socio-Genetic Experiment” and the globally significant “Television, the Drug of The Nation”, were some of the song titles. I realised I could be witnessing the rise of another politically charged great to follow in the footsteps of the incredible <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080516232352/https://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0%2C%2C1795958%2C00.html">Chuck D</a>, who led the powerful, socially-conscious hip-hop group <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130807202625/http://www.publicenemy.com:80/">Public Enemy</a>.</p>
<p>The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy appealed to indie-rock kids as much – if not more so – than hip-hoppers though. It was largely due to their electronica driven dubbed-out sonics and guitar soundscapes but also their previous incarnation as post-punk industrial rock band <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beatnigs-mn0000032938">The Beatnigs</a>. Yet the political strength in frontman Michael Franti’s rapping resonated with the sound of early 1990s hip-hop in flow and eloquence, and on no song is his vocal quality greater than “Positive”.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy’s Peel Session 1992, including ‘Positive’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Political messages</h2>
<p>Released in 1992 on the B-side of “Famous and Dandy (Like Amos ‘n’ Andy)”, the song “Positive” seemed to slip by the great political messages of Franti, yet was particularly poignant for the time. And while they were an American band, their songs were universal and had an impact across the world.</p>
<p>The narrative in “Positive” centres on a tormented soul as he deals with the angst of awaiting an HIV test result, and follows his train of thought as he weighs up the reality of being HIV positive. </p>
<p>Franti’s subdued delivery symbolised a state of shock and emptiness as the protagonist attempts to reconcile with ex-partners, make sense of his situation and consider his future. All the while the band jams a backdrop of smoked-out funk and blues-infused harmonica riffs, adding to the song’s atmospherics as it builds the serendipitous story. </p>
<p>The protagonist has fallen in love, and agrees to undertake an HIV test for his and his love’s peace of mind, and here is where the skeletons in the closet begin to rattle:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I love you, then I better get tested</p>
<p>Make sure we are protected</p>
<p>I walk through the park dressed like a question mark</p>
<p>Hark! I hear my memory bark</p>
<p>In the back of my brain</p>
<p>Makin’ me insane, like cocaine.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His recurring thoughts “How am I gonna live my life if I’m positive? Is it gonna be a negative?” are far from rhetoric, and eek through the calm jazz-funk fuelled music in each chorus. In verse two, he approaches the clinic and nerves play on his past existence, and reflects: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>About all the time that I neglected</p>
<p>Making sure that I was protected</p>
<p>They took my blood with an anonymous number</p>
<p>Two weeks waitin’ and wonderin’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the weeks following the test, the long wait for the results induces a rising fear as the protagonist attempts to reassure himself: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I go home to kick it in my apartment</p>
<p>I try to give myself a risk assessment</p>
<p>The waiting is what can really annoy ya</p>
<p>Every single day is more paranoia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unable to bear the wait, he teaches himself about the virus to kill time, and slowly counts through the plethora of past lovers he’s had sexual contact with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m readin’ about how AIDS gets transmitted</p>
<p>Some behaviour I must admit it</p>
<p>Who I slept with, who they slept with</p>
<p>Who they, who they, who they, who they slept with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This song is more than a protest. It deals with the prejudices surrounding HIV and AIDS as well as having an educational angle. </p>
<p>The song was revisited in 1994 after Franti formed his new band <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/spearhead-mn0000001241/biography">Spearhead</a>. It was released as the fourth single from Spearhead’s debut album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/home-mw0000119267"><em>Home</em></a>. With added female backing vocals and a much smoother delivery on Franti’s part the song feels toned down - yet its significance is underscored through its remaking. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Spearhead’s version of ‘Positive’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Leading cause of death</h2>
<p>Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) first made global headlines in the early 1980s, and the American-based <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> reported that by 1993, HIV had become the leading cause of death for young African American men. And it wasn’t unique to the US.</p>
<p>At the root of these shocking statistics was education. In 1993 on the outro to the track, “Midnight”, by American hip-hop group <a href="http://atribecalledquest.com/home/">A Tribe Called Quest</a>, the digitised “tour guide” states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Did you know that the rate of AIDS in the black and Hispanic community is rising at an alarming rate? Education is the proper means for slowing it down.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A Tribe Called Quest with ‘Midnight’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22960&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">stigma</a> and misunderstanding attached to HIV and AIDS has improved since the turn of the millennium. In 2007 Rattani, Syed and Sugarman <a href="https://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/article/view/MMD-2015-7-1-6">demonstrated</a> that the positivity about HIV in hip-hop lyrics has improved and: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>despite the conspiratorial views towards HIV/AIDS in hip-hop lyrics, nearly twice as many lyrics were found providing a strong and overwhelmingly positive collection of messages related to HIV/AIDS prevention. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a big step forward, but appears to have fallen off the subject agenda in the past decade. 36.7 million people worldwide are <a href="https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/global-statistics">currently</a> living with HIV/AIDS, and over 2.1 million of them are children. Hip-hop can and should be at the forefront of HIV/AIDS education, and songs like “Positive” still have the educational values needed to reduce the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, which sadly continues to thrive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The stigma attached to HIV and AIDS, particularly in hip hop culture, is rife. The disease is represented poorly and often factually incorrect through lyrics.Adam de Paor-Evans, Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / Research and Innovation Lead, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912642018-03-19T16:00:07Z2018-03-19T16:00:07ZA 1988 song about television addiction is more pertinent today than ever<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209895/original/file-20180312-30958-14fup9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chuck D (L) and Flavor Flav of the US rap group Public Enemy performing in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve C Mitchell/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Veteran American hip hop group <a href="http://publicenemy.com/">Public Enemy</a> need no introduction when it comes to paradigm shifts in that music genre. From the moment leader and rapper Chuck D, fellow rappers Flavor Flav and Professor Griff, group DJ Terminator X and the S1W group (aka Security of the First World) launched off the <a href="http://www.defjam.com/">Def Jam</a> record label’s platform in 1987, their acute sociopolitical presence resonated throughout hip hop culture and far beyond.</p>
<p>With their debut album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/yo%21-bum-rush-the-show-mw0000194784">“Yo! Bum Rush The Show”</a> (1987), it was clear that Chuck D’s lyrical pressure was destined to confront racism, destitution and a myriad of other issues connected with African American life. </p>
<p>However, the song I would like to discuss here is the lesser-celebrated <a href="https://genius.com/Public-enemy-she-watch-channel-zero-lyrics">“She Watch Channel Zero?!”</a> from their 1988 sophomore album <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/public-enemy-it-takes-a-nation-of-millions-to-hold-us-back-20110330">“It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back”</a>. Dealing with the subject of television addiction, Chuck D reaches beyond the sphere of the African American and into most of westernised existence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘She watch Channel Zero?!’ by Public Enemy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This reach is further exemplified through the sonics of the song. Its driving metal edge also championed the rap-metal fusion sub-genre. It not only forged collaborations with the American heavy metal band <a href="https://anthrax.com/">Anthrax</a>, but also opened the door for <a href="https://www.ratm.com/">Rage Against The Machine</a>, <a href="https://linkinpark.com/">Linkin Park</a> and <a href="http://www.paparoach.com/">Papa Roach</a>. </p>
<h2>The ills of television</h2>
<p>The track appears second on side two, after the serene yet curt non-rap “Show ‘Em Whatcha Got”, and follows Flav’s intro speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re blind baby, you’re blind from the facts</p>
<p>oh, y'are 'cause you’re watching that garbage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so, successive to a brief five seconds of white noise, a metal-laden foray strikes on the ills of television. Four bars of bellicose guitars sampled from the intense “Angel of Death” by American thrash metal band <a href="https://www.slayer.net/">Slayer</a> underpinned with sharp metallic samples and purposely muffled TV snippets construct the atmosphere for Chuck D’s contextual assault:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The woman makes the men all pause</p>
<p>And if you got a woman she might make you forget yours</p>
<p>There’s a five letter word to describe her character </p>
<p>But her brains being washed by an actor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chuck D constructs a narrative about a woman who is addicted to soap operas. She becomes wholly obsessed with certain characters in the shows. This obsession damages her ability to distinguish between real life and television representation. As she becomes more overcome by “osmosis” through her television sceeen, desperation sets in as she channel-surfs “cold lookin’ for that hero”. </p>
<p>As broadcasts across channels meld into one, she could be watching any channel. And so she does indeed “watch channel zero”, amplifying the emptiness of all television channels. The song’s timing was highly apposite; the Baby Boomers were seduced by soap operas and Generation X sucked into MTV, and the message here is twofold. The song’s message is that the TV watcher, under the illusion that the heroes she seeks do not exist in reality, she ostracises herself from the realities of life, including her family: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>But her children</p>
<p>Don’t mean as much as the show, I mean</p>
<p>Watch her worship the screen.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She measures herself and her desires against this “perfect” world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And she hopes the soaps are for real</p>
<p>she learns that it ain’t true, nope…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet, she still denies the real and continues her futile diversion. </p>
<p>After Chuck’s first verse, Flav reappears, this time taking the traditional role of the male partner:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yo baby, you got to cut that garbage off</p>
<p>Yo! I want to watch the game</p>
<p>Hey yo, lemmie tell you a little sommin’: </p>
<p>I’m'a take all your soaps</p>
<p>An’ then I’m gonna hang ‘em on a rope.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The male antagonist here also longs to watch television, resorting to threats if he too can’t consume his televised ball game.</p>
<h2>Hostile drone</h2>
<p>Repeated no less than 24 times throughout the song, the phrase “she watch” morphs into the music’s relentlessly repetitive yet hostile drone, echoing the experience of television addiction. It’s a metaphor for the process of hyperreality. This story of course, is representational of broader and even current society. Whilst the song’s elements are conventional, the dialogues and sonics reveal the ominousness of screen dependence, the second facet of the song’s message.</p>
<p>French philosopher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/07/guardianobituaries.france">Jean Baudrillard</a>’s notion of <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-9/">“hyperreality”</a> is a valuable theory to explore this situation. Within the frame of hyperreality, the idea of the simulacra or likenesses replaces that of reality. Characters on TV shows, or indeed, stage sets, film locations and sometimes the actors themselves become signs which can consume and distort one’s sense of reality.</p>
<p>When these signs become more important than the real, one’s real relationships break down. Signs and reality are no longer juxtaposed; rather the sign supplants the real. Once the real disappears, positioning the imaginary against the everyday becomes impossible, leading to problematic social engagement. </p>
<p>Following the explosion of screen-based personal devices such as smartphones and tablets, currently perceived as essential components of contemporary life, the risk of users slipping into hyperreality has multiplied enormously since the television age. As a result the Boomers and Generation X have become highly critical of Millennials (born between 1979 and 1991) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-be-worried-about-generation-z-joining-the-workforce-heres-why-not-81038">Generation Z</a> (people born after 1992), and anxious for anyone born after 2010 – <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/generation-alpha-2014-7-2?IR=T">Generation Alpha</a> – and their future of living life through a screen. </p>
<p>However, we need to remember that the simulacra that have resulted in this way of life started way before the arrival of the smartphone. The message in “She Watch Channel Zero?!” is more pertinent today than ever, and not only for young people.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a series featuring Songs of Protest from across the world, genres and generations.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Following the explosion of screen-based personal devices, the risk of users slipping into hyper reality has multiplied enormously since the television age.Adam de Paor-Evans, Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / Research and Innovation Lead, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886712018-01-28T10:40:21Z2018-01-28T10:40:21Z‘The Word’: an obscure protest song that still holds relevance 32 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203738/original/file-20180129-100893-ujba58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Junkyard Band</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">junkyardband.us</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The better protest songs are the universal ones that still remain relevant years after they were first released. <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Junkyard-Band-The-Word-Sardines/release/71279">“The Word”</a>, a forgotten gem which was written and recorded in 1985 by The Junkyard Band, is a fine example.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">“The Word” by the Junkyard Band.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.beastiemania.com/whois/junkyard_band/">The Junkyard Band</a> was a collective of 10 young musicians from the Barry Farm housing projects in Washington DC in the US. Some were as young as nine-years-old at the time of writing “The Word”. Although the promotional record was issued in 1985, commercial release by <a href="http://www.defjam.com/">Def Jam Recordings</a> only happened the next year. </p>
<p>The Junkyard Band were fundamentally a go-go outfit, the roots of which are firmly anchored in Washington DC and the 1970s funk scene. Go-go has been <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/style/go-go-ma0000004428">described</a> either as a “bass-heavy, funky variation of hip-hop”, or <a href="http://www.beastiemania.com/whois/junkyard_band/">“a derivative of seventies funk”</a> rather than a “sub-set of eighties hip-hop”. </p>
<p>The name of the band came from the fact that they appropriated household objects such as tins, pans, hubcaps and buckets for percussion instruments in lieu of commercial instruments, much like the blues-jazz jug bands of the 1920s. </p>
<p>Unfortunately The Junkyard Band’s discography is limited. Also, in the aftermath of the huge success that “The Word” brought them, Def Jam Recordings focused on raising <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/beastie-boys-mn0000038469">Beastie Boys</a>, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ll-cool-j-mn0000094752">LL Cool J</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/public-enemy-mn0000856785">Public Enemy</a> to the international stage, which led to other Def Jam artists receiving less promotion.</p>
<p>Despite this, the band continued to shine in a live context.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Junkyard Band with “Sardines”.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The Word” was followed by their other important political release “Sardines”. These were their only releases on Def Jam, but they went on to release eight 12"s and five cassette/CD only albums on the Washington label Street Records & Tapes. There last recording was in 1999 but they continue to perform live regionally. </p>
<h2>Inside the song</h2>
<p>“The Word” begins with a front-yard style conversation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Man, Reagan making bombs with all the money these days.</p>
<p>yeah man, my sister couldn’t even get no school loan.</p>
<p>my grandmother couldn’t even get no food stamps man, damn.</p>
<p>Well, that’s the word these days!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The song then launches into an enormous synthesizer descent as the percussion simultaneously kicks into a rich, go-go swing before calling out the chorus hook: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Talking about W – O – R and that D!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The response is “talking ‘bout the word!”, before dropping into the first verse. </p>
<p>The lyrics throughout are a firm critique of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/07/ronald-reagan-republicans">Reaganomics</a>. In the first verse the narrative is about Momma heading out to the “food stamp place”, whereby upon her asking for food stamps, the response is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>hey miss, haven’t you heard? The trench is getting deeper for you and your honey, Reagan gave the Pentagon the food stamp money!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The following two verses build on this story, and zoom out of the urban realm to the character “Farmer Brown”, who cannot sell his crops due to spring floods, and the response:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trench is getting deeper for you and you buddy, Reagan gave the Pentagon the Farmer Brown money!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Farmer Brown is told he’d better “sell that mud”, linking to the narrative in the third verse that opens: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now they took our land, and they took our home, we gotta find another place, the government is moving in to build an air force base…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The storyline also harks back to the experiences of the African diaspora, as well as the cultural displacement suffered at the hands of the build programme during 20th century New York masterminded by the powerful city official <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/the-legacy-of-robert-moses/16018/">Robert Moses</a>. </p>
<p>After verse three, the percussion shifts in urgency, and both chorus and rap hooks are repeated with the additional frantic chant of, “Reagan making bombs”, before closing in a typical go-go manner with “get on the good foot, y'all” lyrics over full percussion patterns and synth drops. </p>
<h2>The politics of the time</h2>
<p>Increased spending on nuclear and other weapons as well as cuts in welfare were critical to the content of “The Word”. Living under the threat of nuclear war, “The Word” resonated with its audience. </p>
<p>The song was written at a time that Reagan was ploughing an estimated $110 billion into the <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/star-wars-program.htm">Strategic Defense Initiative</a> (SDI). Nicknamed <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Strategic-Defense-Initiative">“Star Wars”</a>, it was planned as the US’s defensive system against potential nuclear attacks at a time when the <a href="https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/what-was-the-cold-war/">Cold War</a> with the Soviet Union was still intense.</p>
<p>At the same time, Reagan’s <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/reaganomics_killed_americas_middle_class_partner/">trickle-down economics</a> were <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2011/09/20/the-dark-legacy-of-reaganomics/">not working</a> for the lower classes. Over his two terms the national debt grew from USD$997 billion to USD$2.85 trillion.</p>
<p>Those low-income working families were also hit by cuts, with Reagan’s policy focusing solely on non-working families, and an estimated USD$25 billion was cut from programmes affecting the poor.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203392/original/file-20180125-107940-kvpmx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Def Jam sampler which introduced The Junkyard Band to fans outside the US.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Junkyard Band made worldwide impact, partially due to the song’s inclusion on the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Various-Kick-It-The-Def-Jam-Sampler-Volume-One/release/89879">Kick It! Def Jam sampler</a> which brought the song to hip-hop fans in the UK and Europe.</p>
<p>Thirty two years on the record still holds great relevance. Many of the same key issues challenged by The Junkyard Band in 1985 still rage on today across the globe.</p>
<p>There is Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-is-making-americans-see-the-us-the-way-the-rest-of-the-world-already-did/2017/09/08/50f7c5ac-8ce8-11e7-84c0-02cc069f2c37_story.html?utm_term=.0af2767f4e2a">deepening of the trench</a> between his administration and much of the world, his continuing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-obamacare-executive-order-health-insurance.html">threat</a> to Obamacare and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40882877">heightening tensions</a> with North Korea. </p>
<p>And in the UK Theresa May has gradually been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/brexit-nhs-theresa-may-article-50">dissolving</a> the National Health Service and is leading the country out of the European Union.</p>
<p>It is time to tell the people 'bout The Word once again.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a series featuring Songs of Protest from across the world, genres and generations.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1985 The Junkyard Band shifted the paradigm by challenging Reaganomics. Many of those same key issues still rage on today, across the world.Adam de Paor-Evans, Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / Research and Innovation Lead, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847272017-10-03T12:16:02Z2017-10-03T12:16:02ZGabon’s political force is its thriving hip-hop scene<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187574/original/file-20170926-17414-bikw6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Duo Movaizhaleine and artist Wonda Wendy take a minute's silence to honor the dead during a concert in Paris, February 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Silber Mba </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Gabon as in <a href="http://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_CEA_209_0143--masculine-strength-and-rap-music.htm">other African states</a>, rap has become instrumental in constructing political identity.</p>
<p>On August 17, Gabon celebrated 57 years of independence with a massive <a href="http://news.alibreville.com/h/74818.html">free concert</a> in the capital, Libreville. The aim: to promote national unity in a festive fashion. An impressive lineup of local hip hop stars – including Ba'Ponga, Tris, Tina and Ndoman – were invited to draw in the younger crowds.</p>
<p>The celebrations held particular significance in light of another, darker anniversary. Last year on August 31, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/31/gabon-election-results-disputed-incumbent-ali-bongo-victor-jean-ping">shockingly violent</a> crisis erupted following President Ali Bongo’s <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/09/09/presidentielle-gabonaise-comment-truquer-une-election-pour-75-000-euros_4995385_3212.html">contested electoral victory</a>.</p>
<p>One year on, the country is <a href="http://www.jeuneafrique.com/depeches/468781/politique/gabon-un-an-apres-la-presidentielle-un-pays-en-situation-delicate/">still feeling</a> the social, political and economic effects, as is its rap scene.</p>
<h2>Violent demonstrations</h2>
<p>In the early 1990s, Gabon’s government was shut down by violent demonstrations and a general strike. It forced dictator Omar Bongo, who <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2009-2-page-126.htm">had been in power since 1967</a>, to set up a national conference reestablishing a multiparty system and granting greater freedom of expression.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘African revolution’, one of V2A4’s first hits, explicitly mentions the misappropriation of public funds.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Against the backdrop of this popular uprising, the youth of Libreville began writing rap music. Inspired by American hip hop artists like Public Enemy and NWA, and French rappers like NTM and Assassin, they expressed their need for escape, freedom and change.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Si'Ya Po'Ossi X bluntly describes daily life in the ‘mapanes’, poor urban areas where the majority of people live.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet this subversive scene hasn’t been totally exempt from the kinds of ties between music and politics that have existed since the onset of African independence in the 1960s. In fact, some protest rappers have links to the “system” through family ties with political elites. V2A4, for example, is made up of the son of the Interior minister (a close relative to former president Omar Bongo) and the child of a local businessman. Both study in France and live off the wealth of the “system”.</p>
<h2>Bling Gabon style</h2>
<p>From the 2000s on, inspired by <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-gangsta-rap-2857307">gangsta rap</a>, video clips have started to feature more gold chains, souped-up cars, women in suggestive poses and virile displays of masculinity.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The rapper Kôba is an icon of bling culture in Gabon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ushered in by bling style rapper Kôba, a new generation of rappers began to write songs that deviated from the protest-driven hip hop of their predecessors. This trend was encouraged by the appearance of new record labels, with close ties to the government and elites, further reinforcing the link between music and politics.</p>
<p>This fusion between music and politics reached new highs during the 2009 election. Presidential candidate Ali Bongo used the popularity of rap artists to attract youth support and distinguish himself from his father, Omar, who had died in June that year.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Presidential candidate Ali Bongo on stage with rap stars from Hay'oe, who supported his campaign.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following his election in 2009, Ali Bongo brought new faces from the world of hip hop into the government. Due to these kinds of affiliations, Bongo’s semi-authoritarian regime has exercised particularly tight control over the hip hop scene, in particular via the media.</p>
<h2>Without jobs</h2>
<p>Right from the start, Bongo’s first seven-year term in office was <a href="https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=POLAF_144_0157">marked</a> by a decline in living standards and social infrastructure and continuing high unemployment levels – more than 20% of the population, and 35% of young people are <a href="http://www.banquemondiale.org/fr/news/feature/2015/03/31/gabons-unemployment-conundrum-why-economic-growth-is-not-leading-to-more-jobs">without jobs</a>. This, while the Bongo family’s spending has <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2015/08/20/ali-bongo-seme-a-tout-va-la-fortune-de-papa_1366491">reached outrageous highs</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://gabonreview.com/blog/musique-f-a-n-g-entre-nouveau-single-diatribe-contre-censure/">Censorship</a>and the co-option or <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/12/20/gabon-des-manifestants-reclament-le-depart-du-president_4544324_3212.html">silencing of opposition</a> have become increasingly common. Dissenting hip hop artists now have to find alternative ways to spread their messages.</p>
<p>Most subversive rap is now produced abroad, with several well-known Gabonese rappers making their music in China, South Africa, the US or France. These artists-in-exile form a highly political network. Their songs reach the streets of Libreville through social media, becoming calls for political debate and action.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The title ‘Mister Zero’ was recorded in south of France by rapper Saik1ry who condemned Ali Bongo’s disastrous record, now an anthem at opposition demonstrations. </movie
Back home, many artists continue the fight in spite of censorship. In 2015, outspoken rapper Keurtyce E became the first to release a song openly opposing the current regime.
Keurtyce directly threatens the President in his song ‘We’ll make a fresh start’
Beyond the lyrical content of these songs, Gabonese artists ingeniously use the musical arrangements to subversive ends.
Clever use of sampling
Sampling, cutting and looping allow artists to anchor their music within the local context, by using samples from traditional instruments or famous local songs, for instance. These techniques also carry political meaning, with artists mixing in lyrics, musical samples or slogans from activist musicians who they see as their ideological forebears.
Pierre-Claver Akendengué, for example, an icon of 1960s pan-Africanism and resistor to the authoritarian regime during the one-party system, remains a major source of inspiration for Gabonese musicians today.
The chorus from Movaizhaleine’s song ‘Aux choses du pays’ (To the stuff of our country) is adapted from the music of Akendengué.
Rapper/producer Lord Ekomy Ndong recently demonstrated another means of subversion. In a new song in which he samples excerpts from a speech by President Ali Bongo, juxtaposed with the words of social media activists, to condemn corruption and misappropriation of public funds.
Subversion through juxtaposition by Lord Ekomy Ndong.
Flareups on social media
During last year’s election, a great rift appeared in the rap scene between supporters and opponents of the president. A series of flareups on social media and diss-and-response songs deepened the divide.
Bongo had his praise singers:
On the one side, rappers aligned with the Bongo family, involved in rallies and producing songs to support the incumbent party.
But Bongo’s opponents were as vocal:
On the other side, protest rappers, denounce increased corruption and poverty since Bongo has taken office.
Rappers who had previously cooperated with Bongo joined opposition movements to demonstrate their disappointment with government failures. It intensified after troops opened fire on demonstrators following the release of the election results. Several people were killed and numerous others disappeared.
Just two months after this crackdown, Kôba, former poster boy for the system, released the song “Odjuku”. The title is a reference to Bongo’s supposed Nigerian biological father. The rapper reignited the controversy surrounding the president’s origins and joined other artists in declaring “On ne te suit pas” (We don’t follow you).
Kôba,‘Odjuku’
Forgetting the quagmire
One year on, the government is trying to make people forget its quagmire with events such as the massive August 17 free concert.
Yet, the protest movement is still active: demonstrations continue within striking government departments and at Libreville University. In the streets of Paris and New York, Gabonese expats rally together.
LestatXXL/Lord Ekomy Ndong ‘Sur mon drapeau’ (By my flag)
Through their songs, rappers like Lestat XXL and Lord Ekomy Ndong, commemorate the sorrowful anniversary of the 2016 repression:
Here no one will forget. We’ll hoist up the flame…
No red on my flag. Nothing will ever be the same.
<em>Alice Aterianus-Owanga is the author of “Rap Was Born Here! Music, Power and Identity in Modern Gabon”, published by Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, September 2017.</em>
<em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.</em></span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Aterianus-Owanga received funding from French Minister of Higher Education and research for this research, and she is currently receiving fundings from the Swiss National Fund for research. </span></em></p>Rap has become instrumental in constructing identity and radically reshaping relations to politics in Gabon and other African states.Alice Aterianus-Owanga, Postdoctoral researcher in Anthropology, Université de LausanneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/840932017-09-20T14:16:49Z2017-09-20T14:16:49ZBanning the bootleg: the end of a music era, or the beginning of a new one?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186817/original/file-20170920-920-16nwpgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bootlegs - across formats - have experienced buoyancy within the music marketplace for the last 40 years or so.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of the <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-bootleg-in-music">bootlegged recording</a> has existed for over a century. Bootlegs are unofficial recordings sold without the consent of those who hold the rights to the music. There are many kinds of bootleg, ranging from complete forgeries of the official release to copies that intentionally appear different, for example, through their artwork, pressings and formats.</p>
<p>It was not until the late 1960s that bootlegged music became desirable. This was triggered by the release of Bob Dylan’s 1969 <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/article/8937-this-little-conspiracy-the-great-white-wonder-and-the-dawn-of-the-album-leak/">“Great White Wonder”</a>. Recorded with The Band, it was the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/15/call-me-zimmerman-bob-dylans-great-white-wonder/">first major bootleg</a> of the rock era. The record, which was clandestinely recorded without the knowledge of Dylan’s record label Columbia, was released <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/25-historically-significant-bootleg-recordings.html">rubber-stamped</a> with the title “Great White Wonder”. The two records had blank white labels where the record company’s name would normally appear.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the tracks from the Bob Dylan bootleg ‘Great White Wonder’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Columbia eventually learnt how to deal with the threat of bootlegs: it released them officially as part of its <a href="https://bobdylan.com/albums/the-bootleg-series-vol-1-3-rare-and-unreleased-1961-1991/">Official Bootleg Series</a>.</p>
<h2>The big bootleg renaissance</h2>
<p>The bootlegged product - whether vinyl, cassette or CD - has experienced buoyancy within the music marketplace for the last 40 years or so. Although its popularity faded with the arrival of <a href="http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/revolutions-brief-history-digital-music/904234">digital downloads</a> and a focus on <a href="http://piracy.web.unc.edu/factsfigures/">data pirating</a> in the noughties, the physical bootleg has more recently been subject to something of a renaissance. </p>
<p>Over the last five years, bootlegged records have been increasingly snapped up by collectors in online marketplaces such as <a href="http://www.juno.co.uk/">Juno</a> and <a href="https://www.discogs.com/search/">Discogs</a>. But a few weeks ago Discogs, which has over 35 million items for sale and “connects buyers and sellers <a href="https://www.discogs.com/about">across the globe</a>”, took steps that could see the sale of bootlegs banned from its marketplace.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://mixmag.net/read/discogs-moves-to-improve-platform-by-blocking-the-sale-of-unofficial-releases-news">article</a> in the dance music magazine, <em>Mixmag</em>, Discogs stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We must protect our buyers and sellers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is, presumably, to protect the sellers from legal action for offering an illegal product for sale, and buyers from being ripped-off. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186758/original/file-20170920-905-1qtyi8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Discogs is one of the world’s largest online music marketplaces.</span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Discogs Chief Operating Officer Chad Dahlstrom <a href="https://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=39760">said</a> it will be focusing resources on its <a href="https://support.discogs.com/en/support/solutions/articles/13000015000-seller-s-agreement">seller’s agreement</a>. Part of this will be not to list for sale items that violate copyright “such as bootlegs, counterfeit, pirate copies”. These releases will nevertheless remain on the database.</p>
<p>This may seem like an obvious and sensible move for Discogs. But the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/745775?page=4">conversations</a> that the move sparked show that banning bootlegs and unofficial products for sale is not so clear cut. This is apparent when you look into the world of hip hop.</p>
<h2>Hip hop’s cultural drivers</h2>
<p>Hip hop has always drawn strongly and creatively from existing music, and it is this ethos that anchors its cultural value. It’s therefore not surprising that hip hop has a complex history of bootlegging. The <a href="https://medium.com/cuepoint/ultimate-breaks-beats-an-oral-history-74937f932026">“Octopus Breaks” series</a>, <a href="https://cityparksfoundation.org/events/ultimate-break-and-beats-anniversary-breakbeat-lou-special-ed-camp-lo-hosted-by-lord-finesse/">compiled and edited</a> by producers, Leonard “BreakBeat Lenny” Roberts and Louis “BreakBeat Lou” Flores, epitomises the value of the unlicensed product. Described as a “seminal series”, it has been sampled by some of hip-hop’s top producers like Gangstarr’s <a href="http://premierwuzhere.com/">DJ Premier</a>, <a href="https://www.drdre.com/">Dr Dre</a> and Public Enemy’s <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/2697271/the-bomb-squad/">The Bomb Squad</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Public Enemy used samples to create some on the most seminal hip hop.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.discogs.com/label/848585-Octopus-Breaks-2">“Octopus Breaks”</a> were compilations of those rare and hard to find records, mainly <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/funk-ma0000002606">funk</a>, containing the fabulous percussion breaks which are the foundations of hip hop. </p>
<p>Demand for these compilations was so high that in 1986 the series became legitimate. It followed the acquisition of mechanical copyrights under the new label <a href="https://musicbrainz.org/label/13aa46dc-e630-4431-9472-f773a3950863">Street Beat Records</a> which released 24 volumes between 1986 and 1990. Ironically these were in turn bootlegged throughout the noughties. Their contribution to the evolution of hip hop is undeniable, equipping DJs, beat makers and producers with raw material to develop their practice.</p>
<p>Like The Octopus Breaks, new labels such as <a href="http://www.juno.co.uk/labels/5+Borough+Breaks">5 Borough Breaks</a> and <a href="http://www.juno.co.uk/labels/Originals">Originals</a>, have sought to bring hard to find songs to a broader audience. Releasing the highly desirable currency of 45 RPM (or seven inch) records, the concept is that each release has the original song on side A, and the hip hop song most famed for sampling that break on side B. The Originals’ <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Winstons-Mantronix-Amen-Brother-King-Of-The-Beats/release/2897587">eighth release</a> for example, <a href="https://www.redbull.com/car-en/these-are-the-most-sampled-artists-and-songs-in-music">“Amen Brother”</a> by The Winstons, is backed with <a href="http://www.whosampled.com/sample/910/Mantronix-King-of-the-Beats-The-Winstons-Amen,-Brother/">“King of the Beats”</a> by Mantronix. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the most sampled songs of all time, ‘Amen Brother’ by the Winstons.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A further complexity in unofficial hip hop records come via remixed formats such as the edit, the cut ‘n’ paste, the mega-mix and the mixtape, often having solely a regional or local impact, or given away free as promotional material. In these cases, it is the skill and creativity of the maker that is at stake more than the unlawful recordings. </p>
<p>These productions contain a level of critical engagement that hip hop thrives on – a counter-narrative to the official release and the belief that these bootleggers are, in fact, artists. I would argue that these bootlegged products become true <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/reification">reifications</a> of hip hop’s dynamics. They encapsulate an attitude and document the intangible, in the process filling the cultural gaps left by official releases. As such they are crucial dot-joiners in hip hop, contributing much more to music culture than a traditional bootleg. </p>
<h2>A welcome relief</h2>
<p>Discogs’ decision to retain bootlegs in its database is a welcome relief. Documenting them for historical purposes is essential to the archiving of all music genres. </p>
<p>Of course, there is a darker side to bootlegging. The reality is that bootleggers who are unwilling to approach the original recording artists or record labels and flatly ignore copyright issues are in <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7724330/phone-recordings-concerts-illegal-federal-bootlegging-laws">violation of the law</a> and liable for prosecution.</p>
<p>On top of this, it’s very unfair when artists aren’t acknowledged on a bootleg. In these cases the releases are often ego driven forgeries and act as a substitute for a lack of artistic output on the part of the bootlegger. </p>
<p>I’m in no doubt that bootlegs will continue to be manufactured, but whether they reevaluate themselves remains to be seen. The forgeries we can live without, but I’m optimistic that Discogs’ move will propel a much more engaging form of bootleg. </p>
<p>If recent discussions are anything to judge by, the future of the bootleg might just reinvent the official release.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bootlegs will continue to be manufactured.
The future of the bootleg might just reinvent the official release.Adam de Paor-Evans, School Lead for Research and Innovation, School of Art, Design and Fashion, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/637782016-08-10T15:46:22Z2016-08-10T15:46:22ZUnder the influence of … Spike Lee’s film ‘Do The Right Thing’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133660/original/image-20160810-20932-1zjptc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The poster for 'Do The Right Thing'</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our new weekly series, “Under the influence”, we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art or artists in their field. Here, University of the Witwatersrand film studies lecturer and filmmaker Dylan Valley explains why Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” is one of the director’s most influential films.</em></p>
<p>For a black film and media student at the University of Cape Town, Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” (1989) was a revelation. I watched it on a DVD one afternoon with my friend Frank in one of the damp tutorial rooms in the Arts Block on Upper Campus, only a few steps away from where Cecil John Rhodes’ statue stood. </p>
<p>Our film history curriculum at that point had been mostly European and American cinema. While still American, this was something completely different. It had been nearly 20 years since the film’s inception and it took place on a completely different continent, and yet it was so relatable.</p>
<p>More than just that, it was a visceral film experience, a wake-up call, but also an affirmation. Watching it in 2016 it’s eerie (and tragic) how relevant its central theme of racial tension and structural violence still is, both in America and South Africa.</p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” takes place over the course of the hottest day on a block in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Spike Lee plays Mookie, a 25-year-old who seems to be meandering through life, but is on a mission to get paid. He works at the local Italian pizzeria, Sal’s, where most of the neighbourhood eats and hangs out.</p>
<p>The simmering heat of the day (visualised by deep reds and yellows on screen) reflects the tensions between the Italian pizzeria owner, Sal (Danny Aiello) and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), the self-appointed neighbourhood spokesperson. Buggin’ Out questions the lack of representation of black people on the walls of the pizzeria, which services a mostly black clientele: “Sal, how come you ain’t got no brothers on the wall?”</p>
<p>Sal’s hostile response to Buggin’ Out’s provocation leads to a protest that ends in police brutality and the loss of black life, and marks the demise of the pizzeria.</p>
<h2>Why is/was it influential?</h2>
<p>Despite its explosive dénouement, one of the main strengths of the film is the complexity of its characters and the representations of blackness on screen. Lee moved beyond stereotypes of African Americans in cinema and created characters reflected in the everyday. In “Do The Right Thing”, black people are not presented in the traditional binary of subservient and smiling, or violent and dangerous, but rather are able to exist as more rounded expressions of themselves. </p>
<p>While Buggin’ Out is concerned with black nationalist politics and representation, he also bugs out when a white gentrifier on the block accidentally scuffs his brand new US$100 Jordan sneakers. Even though this infliction is frivolous, it leads to a cathartic (prophetic?) outburst: “Man motherfuck gentrification!”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No one in “Do The Right Thing” is necessarily “heroic”. Even Radio Raheem, the likeable, stylish giant who blasts the film’s opening theme and leitmotif, hip-hop group <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/public-enemy-mn0000856785/biography">Public Enemy</a>’s <em>Fight The Power</em>, from a large boombox, imposes his music on others. He is mostly an irritant in the neighbourhood. Radio Raheem is unnecessarily confrontational with the Korean shopkeepers who have recently moved onto the block. It’s reflected in the scene where he goes to them to buy batteries, “I said 20 ‘D’ batteries, motherfucker! Learn how to speak English first, alright?”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘20 D’ clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although in the same scene, he smiles and tells shopkeeper Sonny (Steve Park), “You’re alright, man”, diffusing any threat of real conflict. </p>
<p>Mookie isn’t necessarily noble or likeable, however his actions towards the end of the film disrupt this reading of him and show significant character development. Ironically, there is not that much black and white in this film; the characters live in a world of greys. </p>
<p>While the film has no typical heroes, it is more clear about its villains, particularly the police. Also there is pizzeria owner Sal’s son Pino (John Turturro) who is openly racist and tells Sal, “I’m sick of niggers.” Sal is more complicated, as he sees himself as a good guy who takes pride in feeding the neighbourhood. </p>
<p>Sal later tells Mookie he sees him as “son”. Despite this, during the film’s climax and in the verbal screaming match between him and Buggin’ Out, he flips and uses racial epithets, telling Radio Raheem to turn off that “jungle music” and hurls profanities like “nigger mutherfucker”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of ‘BFI Modern Classics: Do The Right Thing’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his book, “<a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=lnVZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en">BFI Modern Classics: Do The Right Thing</a>”, Ed Guerrero points out that it is Sal who destroys Raheem’s boombox with a bat: “A line is crossed here, from words to physical action.” When that violence escalates and turns fatal, the victim doesn’t need to be an angel for us to have tears in our eyes. He was real, we knew him.</p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” was partly inspired by the <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/a-racial-attack-that-years-later-is-still-being-felt/?_r=0">1986 Howard Beach incident</a> in which a black man, Michael Griffiths, was killed while escaping an angry white mob with baseball bats after exiting the New Park pizzeria. The mob had earlier tried to chase him and his friends out of their neighbourhood for being black. Unsurprisingly, this was only one of the stories that Lee drew from to write “Do The Right Thing”. This story is sadly familiar nearly 30 years later.</p>
<h2>Why is it still relevant today?</h2>
<p>In 2016, amidst the #BlackLivesMatter <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/">movement</a>, and a never-ending list of unarmed African Americans being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-people-killed-by-police-america_us_577da633e4b0c590f7e7fb17">killed by police</a>, the film is even more relevant. In 2015, young black men were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men">nine times</a> more likely to be killed at the hands of police than other Americans, and 2016 looks to be on par. In a South Africa where the police killed 34 miners in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> for striking for a better life, and where the politics of representation and ownership are still unresolved, the tragic trajectory of “Do The Right Thing” will send chills down your spine. </p>
<p>When the film was released, journalists feared it would <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/when-spike-lee-became-scary/261434/">spark race riots</a> and hate crimes. There were even warnings issued to white people to avoid seeing the film. Instead, it caused a nation to reflect, and affirmed the black experience around the world. Despite critical and fan acclaim, the film was mostly snubbed by the Academy Awards in 1990, receiving <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/awards">two nominations</a> for Best Writing and Best Supporting Actor (Danny Aiello). </p>
<p>Tellingly, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097239/awards">Best Picture</a> went to “Driving Miss Daisy”, which Ed Guerrero calls </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the paternalist problem picture with its long-suffering black servant … The contrasts between Morgan Freeman’s rendering of an elderly, humble and enduring Negro servant in “Driving Miss Daisy” and Spike Lee’s portrayal of the feckless, urban youth Mookie could not have been greater in the 1989 Oscar year.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spike Lee accepting an honorary award at the Oscars in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Anzuoni/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last year Lee finally won his Oscar at the Academy’s annual <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/spike-lee-finally-gets-his-oscar.html">Governor’s Awards</a>, an honorary nod for his contribution to cinema.</p>
<p>Filmically, there is so much more to be said of “Do The Right Thing”: its beautiful cinematography, it’s on-point casting (Rosie Perez’s debut as Tina, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as an elderly couple) and its belligerent dialogue (“I’m just a struggling black man trying to keep his dick hard in a cruel and harsh world!”).</p>
<p>The film often breaks the “<a href="https://alwaysactingup.wordpress.com/what-is-the-4th-wall/">fourth wall</a>” – the imaginary “wall” that exists between actors and the audience – making us aware of its construction, like in Raheem’s dreamlike love/hate soliloquy and the racial hatred montage. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pa-oUPTr9LI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘Love/Hate’ clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Watching it all these years later, perhaps what’s most impressive is how fresh the film still feels, even down to the classic hip-hop and “Afro-centric” clothes and haircuts (there are many Buggin’ Outs walking the streets of my home city of Johannesburg as we speak). </p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” was a challenge to Hollywood’s cultural hegemony. Lee fought to get the story told on his terms, exchanging larger financial support for his artistic vision.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the film doesn’t offer neat answers, but rather important questions, which haven’t lost any of their urgency today. As a filmmaker, one can only hope to create work with such long-lasting affect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Valley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With #BlackLivesMatter and a never-ending list of African Americans being killed by police, the film ‘Do The Right Thing’ is even more relevant now than when it was released 27 years ago.Dylan Valley, Lecturer of Film & Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.