African American hip-hop that has spread all over the world began in America as protest music. While other cultures use it as protest against oppression, in America it has devolved into a soundtrack for the Prison Industrial Complex.

Hip-hop fans may memorize Lil’ Wayne, Dr. Dre and Eminem lyrics; some dream of Rihanna’s latest twerk, but the international cultural art form also reverberates to the beat of a decidedly different and revolutionary drummer.

In 2011 Tunisian hip-hop artist “El General”, Hamada ben Aoun, recorded what became the soundtrack to an Arab Spring revolution. “Rayes El Bled”, (“Mr. President”) was anointed the “rap anthem of the Mideast Revolution” by “Time” magazine.

Mr. President today I am speaking in name of myself and of all the people who are suffering in 2011… there are still people dying of hunger who want to work to survive but their voice was not heard/ get off into the street and see people have become like animals/ see the police with batons takatak they don’t care since there is no one telling him to stop… I see the snake that strikes women in headscarves/you accept if for your daughter?

“El General” was picked up and questioned for three days, but the Arab Spring revolution overthrew governments in four countries, ousting Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Bolivian Abraham Bojorquez of the popular hip-hop group Ukamau y Ké Bolivia became internationally known for his hip-hop Andean stylings exposing the injustice of the 2003 Bolivian Gas War and a corrupt corporate media. He went to prisons and mining communities to support young rappers. Unfortunately he was tragically killed at 26 when a bus hit him.

In Africa two Senegalese hip-hop artists Xuman and Keyti rap the news at home and abroad on Journal Tele Rappe (JTR) speaking to thousands on Youtube and television. “It’s the news like any other news, except that it’s rapping; there is humor in it. We don’t just give the news, we cover positions which are highly subjective, and the public consensus too,” says Keyti.
Immortal Technique, Felipe Andres Coronel, a Peruvian immigrant who landed in Harlem in 1980, is an American political activist whose hip-hop artistry punks the government, exposes political corruption and institutional racism, and raps revolutionary ideas.

Hip-hop was born out of the poverty of black kids on Bronx street corners or in basements with the latest drum machines. A homegrown art form exploded on the music scene in 1979 with The Sugarhill Gang’s song “Rapper’s Delight”.  But the protest roots of this distinctly African American music can be found in the lyrics of Gil Scott Heron, often considered the godfather of Hip-hop, who warned us, “The revolution will not be televised:”

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Mendel Rivers to
eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

Curators of Hip-hop, (COHH) founder Jermaine Fletcher in a recent interview says that real hip-hop connoisseurs “think of the true form of hip-hop as being protest music. As being a way to speak out against larger systems.” He says that hip-hop is an international language that brings people together. The purpose of his organization is to preserve the culture that has spread worldwide with dialogue, screenings and presentations at universities and colleges like Duquesne, Morehouse, Howard University.

The Curators document rappers like Logic, Prie, Matt Reeves, and Dee-1 and support the growing trend for rappers to sign on labels independent from the major producers like Atlantic, Def Jam and Interscope. In 2014 they independently released the documentary “Curators Vol. l. A Story of Independence.” The Pan African Film Festival, AC3 Festival featured the film and it has ben screened on college campuses.

Jimmie Thomas, co-founder of COHH, says, “There are so many people black, white, Asian whatever, that are culture vultures.” He also offers, “What people in hip-hop culture have to realize is that we have created something that everybody wants to be like … I have no problem with that.”

Although there are American political rappers, the more promoted lyrics of “gangstas”, “bi*chs” and “hos” have created a whole thug culture that dresses black kids for the Prison Industrial Complex while it gives rebellious white or Asian emulators coolness “creds”. Far from revolutionary.

Political and social commentator, James Strong wrote:

Specifically, Japanese b-girls and b-boys are passionately in love with hip-hop and the hip-hop way of life. They love hip-hop fashion, they admire hip-hop hairstyles, they cherish hip-hop dance and they revere hip-hop slang. Rapping, clubbing and break dancing are as exciting to them as it is to black school girls in the hallways of any high school, black clubbers on the dance floor of any night club and black rappers on the street corners of any city.

Hip-hop arrived at the Oscars to win for best song in 2006 with “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” by Three 6 Mafia from the Terrance Howard movie “Hustle and Flow”. The protest came from members of the black community like Juaquin Jessup who complained, “It was just like during the time when all the blaxploitation films were coming out with African Americans being portrayed as pimps and hos and gangsters … It was another example of how they pick the worst aspects of black life and reward that.” Jessup was 51 years old.

I am an elder of the generation of Smokey Robinson, the love poet, Marvin Gaye whose song “Sexual healing” was titillating enough for us, and for whom Nina Simone’s Young, Gift and Black was an anthem. Even though I smiled as I found “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” a catchy tune, I was embarrassed when it made it onto the Academy stage. But I put Immortal Technique on my website and bought a CD “Arabic Groove”, hip-hop music in the Arabic language that makes me dance.

African American culture is complicated without being international and so is hip-hop. It’s like an associate once said about America, “I love America, but she done me wrong.” I feel that way about hip-hop.

Hip-hop may have been the backbeat for Occupy Wall Street, the soundtrack to Black Lives Matter, the choice of black millennial protesting in colleges and universities across the nation demanding relief from racism, misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia, but are these young people struggling uphill to enlighten the world that black people are more than gangsta lyrics suggest: violent, oversexed and disrespectful of women, a characterization no less harmful than the head scratching watermelon Negro images of a Jim Crow past.

I agree with young people who want to get past the ‘60s elders with their James Brown, “I’m black and I’m proud” icons, and pedestal women lyrics like Smokey Robinson’s “Choosey Beggar” that says “your love is the only love to make this beggar rich” (and black women still make less in the marketplace than anybody else). But let’s face it, hip-hop in America has not liberated us from college debt, police brutality, prison infamy, Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump or the one percent. Also, in Tunisia people now suffer from economic collapse since tourism is down, and they are building a wall to keep out immigrants.

Political activist and reggae artist Bob Marley inspired revolution. He said, “None but ourselves can free our minds.” The disenfranchised voice of former slaves has helped free people all over the world from the Ukraine to China. Can we ever truly cast off our own yoke to free ourselves?

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