Until now I've avoided getting all political on here but a situation has arisen which requires some action and Hip Hop is the perfect vehicle.
I, like many others across the nation this week, received this BNP leaflet through my door promoting their cause for the European elections on June 4. As much as I have a deep seated loathing for racist criminals I don't think you can ever censor these people, they have to be countered with coherent critique.
That's where we stumble upon a problem and I think it's a problem for UK Hip Hop in particular. While there's been plenty of critique in the media, much of it comes from politicians, who lets face it aren't exactly in everyone's good books. That's bound to turn many off the subject straight away.
This is a situation whereby Hip Hop can step up to the plate and make a contribution to exposing racism and hatred and motivate positive change in ordinary people as we so often like to claim whenever someone criticises the culture. Remember Blak Twang on This Morning? Instead what do I see? Nothing. There's no Hip Hop blogs picking-up on this issue, no hastily recorded freestyles about Nick Griffin drinking tea with the Queen and no discussion.
Well, it is just music after all. But it's not is it? One of the things I've always loved about Hip Hop is it's ability to encompass more that just the music it's a culture and that extends to a consciousness about society. How many raps have you heard about prejudicial police stop and search policies, knocking the war in Iraq or widespread poverty, drugs and social deprivation? Thousands. But it seems recently we've dropped the ball.
This silence is a bit too reminiscent of Cameron's outburst over the evils of Hip Hop a few years ago, a speech which only Rhymefest (who's from Chicago!) addressed. Then there was Boris Johnson's belittling of Hip Hop last year which again seemed to go unnoticed. Where were emcee's as voices of the people and keepers of the culture then? Come to mention it what is K-lash up to these days? He seemed pretty pissed about this sort of stuff before he dropped off the radar. Or Skinnyman for that matter? He was quick to jump up about his right to smoke in public.
I'll make it easy for you, the BNP candidates for Wales are Ennys Hughes, Laurence Reid, Clive Bennett and Kevin Edward. Surely we can find a few rhymes in there somewhere? I'd do it myself but we all know that wouldn't be pretty. If you're not from round here you can look up your local mob over at the BBC.
Now I'm not one to try and tell people what they should do with their art, time or money. If you're a rapper and you simply don't care that's fine, you can't be what you're not that's not what Hip Hop's all about. I'm just saying it would be nice if someone gave a shit.
Photos courtesy of Mia!
