Al Tamper brings music for the day (re: the age) on an album produced entirely by DJ Alo. This is not an album review; the is fine-crafted Chicago HipHop music and inspiration.
Independence Day
May 16th, 2001 was a landmark occasion for HipHop culture; the day when the Temple of Hiphop Kulture and the Universal Zulu Nation among many others including signatories of the Hiphop Declaration of Peace confirmed that HipHop was a culture and the United Nations through UNESCO would help to uphold that culture.
Since that time great events have happened resulting in great upheaval of that culture including in cross cultural evolution of the nations surrounding HipHop’s homelands and most remote outposts. Business and institutions have come and gone; tastes have shifted; leadership within the culture has suffered greatly through demise and disgrace and through lessons learned by all of HipHop’s success and failure is that we are simply a reflection of our ancestors.
HipHop’s biggest metaphysical problem is not embracing the community, the communal liberty and justice of its primary ancestors. We instead take out cues from our most recent antecedents and venerate them flawless and flawlessly. We have been taught creation myth and philosophy but less about continuing action. We have made the culture’s pioneers godhead when the freedom fighters and revolutions that made and broke them go untold. HipHop still has not committed to its decolonization, and for Sanctuary Threesixty/STS*, here is a fine beginning.
May 14, 2018 marks what is the Temple of Hiphop Kulture’s annual observance period, Hiphop Appreciation Week. The week is also being observed by independent HipHop culturalists as well, STS is in solidarity as a mainly meditative period. Observations will be shared here on topics over the coming week primarily around edutainment; but also creation myth, spirituology of urban metaphysics; and building better community.
STS will post observances through the entire period but our height is the anniversary that our tribes came out of the shadows. Here’s to May 16.
Q-Tip, the Gatekeeper
The following are a series of posts to Twitter by producer/MC Q-Tip, offering perspective as to why HipHop culture stays on guard for inauthenticity. The posts, in all of their unedited glory are, together with typos, etc., eloquent and articulate.
[Q-Tip is a member of A Tribe Called Quest, Native Tongues and the Universal Zulu Nation as well as a solo artist and producer of other artists.]
HipHop is a artistic and socio-political movement/culture that sprang from the disparate ghettos of NY in the early 70’s
Coming off the heels of the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and approaching the end of the Vietnam war it was a crossroads 4 America
specially for blacks in the US our neighborhoods were PROLIFERATED w/a rush of HEROINE
our school systems here in NY dungeon traps with light for learning
blk men some of whom didn’t return from tours of duty n the ones who did came w/war baggage (agent orange, addiction, ect..)
these men had families but due to these events and throw into the mix the public emasculation…
they proved to be handicapped parents. The surrogate parents? The STREETS
the streets of gangs, crimes, and the hustlers coddled us and swept us up
but! Being a spirited, rhythmic & expressive people music art dance outlined our existence
it proved a way for us to exhault to scream to dance to laugh and find OUR VOICE
we weren’t at the time skilled musicians as kids. We had records, turntables, ideas and INGENUITY
being natural chemist we took from whatever was availed to us and we created something mighty and special
we cut breakbeats back n forth we took a hybrid of Jamaican toasting along w/ radio jock rap( hank Spann, Gary Byrd, ect.) and
we put our rap down..
it was a neighborhood thing really. Black and Latino Kids were carving out their space and it became infectious
eventually Keith Cowboy coined the phrase hiphop . Yrs later the first rap record was recorded and now we r moving
but during these strides this country still had the monster of racism and racial insensitivity breathing and ruling
believe it or not young black n Latino lives specifically weren’t acknowledged in mainstream American culture unless Ofcourse..
the convo was abt gangs , being criminals or uneducated. And hey! Like I stated early our families were rushed our schools
sucked and we were left to put devices to survive
but HIPHOP showed that we had DEPTH, fire, and BRILLANCE
the music was undeniable! It moved from NY N became national and even GLOBAL
hiphop now was FOR EVERYBODY!! All of those who cld relate to the roots, the spirit, the history, the energy.. It reached YOU
it touched your spirit n took u up. We magnetized you! That’s what BRILLANCE does
now u are fulfilling your dreams … BUT!
you have to take into account the HISTORY as you move underneath the banner of hiphop. As I said before
hiphop is fun it’s vile it’s dance it’s traditional it’s light hearted but 1 thing it can never detach itself from
is being a SOCIO-Political movement. U may ask why … Well
once you are born black your existence I believe is joined with socio-political epitaph and philos
based on the tangled and treacherous history SLAVERY alone this is the case
it never leaves our conversation… Ever. WeAther in our universities our dinner tables our studios or jail cells
the effects still resononates with us. It hurts… We get emotional and angry and melancholy
did u know president Clinton was the ONLY PRESIDENT to apologize for it?
did u know that remnants of slavery exist today thru white privilege? When certain “niceties” r extended your way because of
how u look? Isn’t that crazy? I say this 2 say u are a hiphop artist who has the right 2 express herself however she wishes
his is not a chastisement this is not admonishment at ALL this is just one artist reaching to another hoping to spark insight
into the field you r in. I say this in the spirit of a hopeful healthy dialogue that maybe one day we can continue
I’ve been on twitter a long time and this will probably be my last series of tweets pretty much but
I’m Kool with it as long as I got to share this w u. Zzzzzzz’s up! Peace!
Mentorship
Imagine a HipHop culture in which each active participant, successful in their own right, undenianly talented in the arts and/ or business of the culture taking a protégée; imagine the master and apprentice leading study and practice groupsamong the youngest in art-and-culture cwntered schhols founded by practicioners of the culture instead of just the university-approved pop culture professor and rap star guest lecturer.
Imagine organizations like the Universal Zulu Nation, Rock Steady Crew, Temple of HipHop at the forefront of this effort.
Now… If we can continueto imagine, we can biild.
Great interview from 3/9/14…
Vocalist/poet/educator/commentator; the Bay Area’s Epiphany Castro hosts a weekly 2 hour gab called Epiphany’s House I was her guest and we listened to great music and talked of our backgrounds in it; What mentoring means to me; lots lots more. Check her out every week on Blogtalk Radio, home of other great spoken word & performance poetry related shows.
Suggested reading for HipHop cultural study [an ever growing list]
The Gospel of Hiphop, KRS-ONE
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Jeff Chang
Hip-Hop Revolution, Dr. Jeff Ogbar
Fight the Power- Rap, Race and Reality, Chuck D
Black Noise- Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose
Have Gun, Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Death Row Records, Ronin Ro
Gunshots in Me Cookup, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
Bomb the Suburbs, William “Upski” Wimsatt
Total Chaos- The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, an anthology edited by Jeff Chang; features Bill Adler, Suheir Hammad, Kevin Coval, Staceyann Chin, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Rha Goddess, Danny Hoch and more
The Art of Getting Over, Stephen Powers
Don’t Rhyme For the Sake of Riddlin’- the Authorized Biography of Public Enemy, Russel Myrie
The Ice Opinion, Ice T
The Dead MC Scrolls, Saul Williams
No More Prisons, William “Upski” Wimsatt
B-Boy Cynics Getting Weeded in the Garden of Delights, Adam Mansbach
These Are The Breaks, Idris Goodwin
The Anthology of Rap, edited by Adam Bradley & Andrew DuBois- a collection of lyrics from popular rap and HipHop music.
…another edition of ‘Ill Documentary Theater’…
Back to the Sanctuary…
KRS-One in Chicago with Chuck Diesal…
This interview and performance capped a great weekend of Blastmaster KRS ONE headlining clubs and festivals in Chicago.
Inspiration for The Way of the B-Boy… The music.
The Way of the B-Boy: Curriculum, poems and life.
At this stage of my career as a performance poet, there are certain expectations within this community of artists and writers: a book. Not just any book, but hopefully a publisher will hook up editing, press, ISBN, the whole 9. Luckily for me, my first book was a part effort by Fractal Edge Press, a brainchild of Chicago writers affiliated with Puddinhead Press. In 2004/5 Fractal Edge gathered writing from many hosts and regulars of Chicago’s open-mic poetry scene. Conscience Under Pressure was one of the 1st 10 collections released, followed by The PolyRhythmic Anthology [a.k.a. The Hosts @ Trace]. Both with ISBN codes, square-bound spines and the best distribution that consignment can buy or D.I.Y.
Conscience represented my first few years immersed in a scene that to that point had boosted or provided career foundation for writers that sprung from HipHop culture such as Saul Williams, Sage Francis, B Dolan, Dessa, Kevin Coval and many others. The poetry slam community has seen more than it’s share of both failed rappers, and MC’s true to their culture even with their non-linear, often abstract “spoken word” as opposed to straight beats and rhymes. It was the written side that had flourished since I decided that the “Let’s start a band!” wouldn’t get past “Let’s start.” My book (as well as my work PolyRhythmic book) contained relatively diverse styles, mostly free-form and representative of my early frontman B-Boy meets Rocker MO. As I have improved over the last decade as a writer I have had many submissions to journals and anthologies accepted and published, recorded a couple CD’s. I always intend to stand shoulder to shoulder with my published peers by repeating the difficult trick of hooking on with a publisher/distributor that will put your career in a more literary, more academic spotlight. BUT…first, a mission…
I am Hip Hop. I am a B-Boy. There are certain aesthetic principles that I lean towards in order to legitimize my career to myself. My newest collection, Way of the B-Boy is hand-made, mostly self-edited, complete personal expression of my culture with no other filter. From recreating images of late night club or block jams to spelling out the Zen of rooftop “one-man-show” to simply how the language is used, Way of the B-Boy is not an example of what is expected of a writer-performer in the slam community. It is what is expected of any MC or DJ, breaker or graff writer: Self-creation, action and an example of not just doing something but being.
The book is hand-made, black cover similar to journal or piece book, no page numbers or table of contents, just 4 sections preceded by the HipHop curriculum sketch previously seen in this blog. Each section its own theme and distinctive energy and related pieces. Altogether, it is a testament to the urban inspirations that have gotten me and much of the world around me to this point. It is a testament to the being of HipHop, an expression of spirit not unlike Saul’s The Dead Emcee Scrolls or KRS-ONE’s The Gospel of HipHop.
I look forward to presenting much of the work at feature readings. Some of the work has already seen light at festivals, open mics and major slam competitions, if you are interested in a copy, they will be available in the coming weeks on the retooled BillyTuggle.net as well as straight out of the backpack.
Sanctuary Threesixty 