Rap,HipHop, and Class

Christopher Niles cniles at ricochet.net
Sun Nov 29 13:10:21 PST 1998



>homogenizing of black pop so as to crossover into
>mainstream commercial success.

Hi Maria,

Yeah, Black rage sells and it sells big. It didn't take but a minute for "white" promoters to get comfy with Black rage once they realized there were big profits in cynicaly pimping it to Black youth and a good deal of disaffected "white" youth, too. It's a pity: all that Black rage that, at its poltical best, has catalyzed important, if problematic, social movements is now either commodified to service capital and the reproduction of whiteness or neutralized behind prison bars.

BTW Maria, do you do hip-hop?

Say, here's an interesting two-pronged political strategy: One, create an anti-patriarchy, anti-white (race NOT skin), anti-capitalism, pro-democracy political strategy center/recording studio/pirate radio station in the ghetto which would serve as a center for critical political organizing and provide young musicians with an alternative recording and exposure alternative while exposing them to important political ideas and struggles. OK, that's a run on sentence but not a bad idea, hein?

Two, burn the prisons down.

Hmmm. Anybody wanna develop this idea with me( at least part 1)? Any Washingtonians (as in DC) in the house wanna meet about this?

Niles DC New Abolitionists



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