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The Mission
The Problem
Hip-hop began in the Bronx in the early 70s as a shared response to the conditions of state sponsored terror. It is the most impactful cultural movement in modern history, but in the early 90's there was a notable perversion of the message and goal.
Lead by corporate entities, hip-hop/rap took a sharp departure from it's empowering roots and leaned heavily into a destructive, violent image: the unapologetically immoral "thug" boasting about his misogyny and criminality.
This doesn't happen in a vacuum. Sony, Time Warner, and Universal (now UMG) control over 90% of music media; they've controlled hip-hop music since the early 90's, when the message abruptly shifted. Is it simply a coincidence that, while patently racist "Tough on Crime" legislation paved the road for the private prison industrial complex, the top two investors in the this booming prison industry were also the top two investors in Sony, Time Warner, and Universal?
This is the hip-hop to prison pipeline.
The Solution
I use grassroots outreach and my music as a more accurate, tangible portrait of the soul of Black America. To put it in a phrase, character over caricatures. Most people wouldn't even attempt what I do, and tell me so themselves, so it's imperative that I continue to work by a standard that I define. Self-determination and character are required to thrive against the difficulty that has been visited on my community.
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The Root
Oppressors prey on desperation and ignorance. For example: Many people have no idea that the concept of "white supremacy" is only about 350 years old.
In 1676 Nathanial Bacon led a several months long rebellion of Europeans and Africans against the "planter elite" in Virginia. In the aftermath, fearful of losing their positions, these plantation owners established Africans as a permanent slave class and began codifying a separation of "races" with special privileges granted to "white" people.
Their goal was to divide and conquer.
350 years later, allegiance to the concept to "white supremacy" (along with mass media misinformation) still convinces tens of millions of "white" people to forego their basic needs for the perceived "privilege" of being on the "winning team." To be clear, they're not winning. America is not winning. Appalachia is ABSOLUTELY not winning. In an already desperate environment without knowing the truth, what can they possibly be expected to produce but the same results?
And that's the key. That's why they try to erase history. That's why news companies can have no legal obligation to journalistic integrity. That's why "law enforcement" officers have no legal obligation to protect the citizenry.
We The People are VERY powerful. When we know the truth we gain the power to act on it. And that power cannot be resisted.
You feel me?