The power of music and the power of politics met Tuesday, with a hip-hop mogul and one of the most prominent leaders in Congress joining their considerable forces to spotlight issues facing youth in America.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a youth conference co-sponsored by entrepreneur and entertainer Russell Simmons in Washington. The one-day event, called Keeping the Promise to Our Children, brought legislators together with entertainment A-listers, including Oscar-nominee Terrence Howard, who used their celebrity to advocate a variety of causes: foster care, health care and education among them.

Simmons’ Hip Hop Summit Action Network and the nonprofit, California-based Children Uniting Nations hosted the event. This is the fourth conference organized by Daphna Ziman, an adoptive mother of a child formerly in foster care and founder of Children Uniting Nations, which matches children in foster care with mentors.

Actress Gabrielle Union and actor/musician Howard were among the celebrities at the conference who pushed for policy changes directed at improving educational outreach to foster children. Only 54 percent of children in foster care graduate high school, according to the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall Center for Children.

“Intervening in the lives of these young people, giving them a sense of dignity and worth, providing them with more opportunities, therefore, is one of the most important things you can do, not just for them, which is the most important thing, but for the strength of our country,” said Pelosi at a news conference before the event.

Panel discussions at the conference also addressed nutrition, mental health, HIV/AIDS and drug abuse. Children Uniting Nations plans to lobby Congress on these issues, said the organization’s spokeswoman, Juliette Harris.

Last year, the organization pushed for a $5,000 college loan subsidy for students who mentor at-risk youths, and the subsidy was passed in the House as part of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act. This year, the organization has lobbied for the Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2009, which was introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana; and Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-New York, also attendees at Tuesday’s conference. The act proposes an allocation of $15 million for foster-care mentoring programs.

Investing in youths now can help them stay out of trouble and be more successful adults, said Simmons.

“We have such a great opportunity to make changes at this time and save our communities money and anguish,” said Simmons. “The economics of saving kids save money.”

Source:
CNN

The Maqusi Towers in Gaza City look a bit like US housing projects. The neighborhood consists of several tall apartment buildings grouped together in the northern part of town. It is also ground zero for Gaza’s growing Hip-Hop community. On a recent evening in one small but well-decorated apartment, a dozen rappers and their friends and families relaxed, danced, smoked flavored tobacco, and rapped the lyrics to some of their songs.

The occasion was a post-show celebration of the taping of Hip Hop Kom, an American Idol-type talent competition for Palestinian rappers. Fifteen acts from across Palestine performed on Thursday night, and the show was broadcast simultaneously in Gaza City and the West Bank city of Ramallah. Through the use of video conferencing and projection, each city could see and hear the performances happening in the other. Five groups from Gaza participated, and Gazawians came in first, third, and fourth place.

The Gaza City show was held in a small theatre in the Palestine Red Crescent building. Although only publicized by word of mouth, nearly 200 young people filled the theatre, loudly cheering for the rappers and breakdance crew who took the stage.

One of the organizers of the contest, a charismatic literature major named Ayman Meghames, is a minor celebrity here. Part of Gaza’s first Hip-Hop group — named PR: Palestinian Rapperz — Ayman dedicates his time to supporting and publicizing Gaza’s young music scene.

Armed with a ready smile, Ayman was seemingly everywhere at once that night. He was on stage introducing the acts, helping with technical difficulties, greeting friends, and coordinating with the West Bank organizers.

For Ayman, making music is a form of resistance to war and occupation, and also a tool to communicate the reality of life in Palestine. “Most of our lyrics are about the occupation,” he tells me. “Lately we’ve also started singing about the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Any problem, it needs to be written about.” Rapper Chuck D, from the group Public Enemy, once called rap music the CNN for Black America. For Ayman and his friends, music is their weapon to break media silence. “Most of the world believes we are the terrorists,” he says. “And the media is closed to us, so we get our message out through Hip-Hop.”

One of the first acts to take the stage was a duo called Black Unit Band. Mohammed Wafy, one of the two singers, displays the innocent charm of a teen pop star as he jumps from the stage and into the audience. Tall and skinny with a shock of black hair, Mohammed is 18 and looks younger. Khaled Harara, the other singer (and Mohammed’s next door neighbor) is a few years older and several pounds heavier, but no less energetic on stage.

As the evening progressed, the energy in the room continued to rise. The next act featured six members from two combined groups (DA MCs, and RG, for Revolutionary Guys) now collectively called DARG Team. The crowd was up on their feet, many of them singing along as the performers displayed a range of lyrical stylings.

In Mohammed Wafy’s apartment, the perfomers waited anxiously for the results of the contest. The call came in on Ayman’s cel phone. Putting it on speaker, everyone listened as the results were announced: DARG team had come in first place, and Black Unit had placed third. There were no hurt feelings apparent for those that didn’t win — for these young performers, every victory is a shared victory. DARG members will now go on to Denmark to produce an album (if they can get out of Gaza).

Fadi Bakhet, a studious and slightly preppy looking Afro-Palestinian in wire-rimmed glasses, is DARG’s manager, and also the brother of one of the members. As the night continued, the gathering moved to his apartment. They celebrated the successful show, which also fell on the last day of exams for many students, and the laughing and conversation continued late into the night. The next day was hot and sunny, and thousands of Gazawians gathered on the beach to swim and relax by the Mediterranean.

These stories may seem incongruent with much of the international reporting about Gaza and the Hamas government. But it is exactly for this reason that they should be told.

If you follow the reporting on Palestine in the US media, you may imagine a fundamentalist state. Hamas-stan, as at least one Israeli commentator has called it. You may imagine a nation of terrorists, where women are oppressed and men launch rockets. But perhaps when we learn that Palestinian families swim on Friday afternoons, that they study literature in the day and rap about imprisoned friends at night, we can rethink the US’ unquestioning support for Israeli aggression against this almost entirely defenseless population.

Yesterday, I visited a journalism class at the Islamic University, taught by Rami Almeghari. The students had many questions, but one young woman’s words in particular stayed with me. “What can we do to reach people in America and tell them how things really are here,” she asked. “How can we get them to listen, and to see?”

Source:
Article written by Jordan Flaherty for Dissident Voice

The United Nations has launched a trust fund to build a permanent memorial for victims of slavery, and appointed entrepreneur and hip-hop pioneer Russell Simmons as a Goodwill Ambassador to promote the project.

A 2007 General Assembly resolution designated 25 March as an annual day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and called for a permanent memorial to be erected at UN Headquarters to acknowledge the tragedy and consider the legacy of slavery.

“We hope to encourage broad study of the causes and lessons of the 400-year slave trade. We want to mobilize educational institutions and civil society to discuss the threat of intolerance from which no society is immune,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to the launch ceremony, read out by Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka.

Mr. Simmons told reporters his role would be to increase awareness, especially among young persons, of the history of slavery, its lasting impact, and current slavery issues.

“It’s humbling to be invited to join the UN community in this role as Goodwill Ambassador. In recognizing the past, we understand the stakes in ensuring that something as devastating to the human condition as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade will never happen again,” he said.

“My life’s commitment is to be of service to the empowerment of young people living in struggle, who undoubtedly have been effected by this legacy.”

The memorial, projected to cost $3.5 million, is expected to be completed by 2012.

Source:
UN News Center

At least a couple of times a week, U.S. Army Capt. Alfonso Johnson opens his laptop at his base in Afghanistan and plays a rap video _ a clip with his young son singing of his fears his father will die in combat.  “I’m 11 years old, already grown up, ’cause my dad’s been gone so much,” Xavier chants into a microphone, his head bobbing to a hip hop beat. Then the boy gets more blunt: “I’m feeling real sad now, I can’t lie, ’cause there’s a chance that my dad might die.”

Rather than depressing him, Johnson says the song, called “Keep ‘em Safe,” makes him feel closer to his son. That is partly because of the memory of working with Xavier to make the song and video in the U.S. But the lyrics also have a harsh honesty that lets 37-year-old Johnson feel the torrent of emotions his son, now 13, is experiencing back in Fort Drum, N.Y.  

Monday marks Memorial Day, when military families confront the reality of soldier deaths directly. Johnson hopes their song can also help other children deal with their fears.

“Kids watch the news all the time, and they know that soldiers are dying in combat,” Johnson said. He has been stationed since January in a valley in Wardak, a mountainous province a short drive from Kabul where U.S. and Afghan forces have been fighting Taliban militants.

Johnson serves as a public affairs officer. Rather than stress that he does not go into combat each day or play down the risks, he told Xavier before his deployment that the Afghan mountains were dangerous and he would have to carry a gun wherever he goes. He is scheduled to serve a one-year tour.

“Keep ‘em Safe” originated from a poem that Xavier wrote just before Johnson was scheduled to leave on a tour of Iraq about two years ago. A medical condition prevented him from making the Iraq deployment and he was reassigned to a group headed to Afghanistan.

Johnson, who keeps a synthesizer plugged into his computer and spends his free time composing hip hop tracks, picked out a beat and some music and helped his son turn it into the song.

During 19 years living on and off army bases, Johnson said he has seen how children Xavier’s age can have a rough time when they bottle up their worries about parents serving in war zones.

“Sometimes they might get in trouble in school just because their dad is gone and they miss him and the family is not quite running right,” he said, hoping that a song can help channel those feelings.

“It can help other kids express themselves, say things that they wouldn’t say normally,” Johnson said.

Psychologists say the separation brought on by military service is often hardest on teens, who have a much better sense of the risk their parents are facing than younger children.

“Adolescents can anticipate future events, so of course they have much more anxiety that the parent may die,” said Kathleen Roche, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and co-author of a study on how military deployment affects families.

Reached by phone in Fort Drum, Xavier said he felt the need to tell everyone what he and his friends who also have parents serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were feeling.

“I just wanted to express myself,” Xavier said, adding that he was nervous about the song at first, but began playing it to more and more people after close friends said they liked it.

The chorus is a plea. He sings, “Keep ‘em safe, keep ‘em safe, keep ‘em super-safe, keep ‘em safe till they get back home.”

Johnson’s wife Natashi said the song was her first inkling that her son was ready to deal with the emotional reality of the danger his father faces. Since then, she said she has been more open with Xavier and her 11-year-old daughter, Xzeria, about her own fears.

“It made me include them more, and I’m a lot more honest and upfront with them, not to the point of scaring them, but before I just felt there was no need to go into details about what their dad is doing or where he is,” she said. She still tries to keep them away from 24-hour cable news, but she talks to them more about the details of their father’s work in Afghanistan.

Johnson said he talks to his family on the phone twice a week, but mostly the conversations are about school or family news _ not emotions. That’s why Johnson says he listens to Xavier’s rap _ it contains all those feelings they don’t talk about on the phone.

After Xavier performed the song at a number of military talent shows, he and his father made a video for it and posted it on YouTube. It has only had a few hundred hits, most of them likely from family and friends, but father and son are just happy to share it with whoever is going through the same struggles.

“Hopefully it just touches some military families,” Johnson said as he played the video, his eyes turning a little red, his head moving to the beat.

Source:
Washington Post

Written by Gary Lapon, Northampton, MA – A few weeks ago, I saw DAM perform at Hampshire College, where they expressed solidarity with Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine for pushing their college to divest from the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

The show was amazing, as DAM brought an energy and achieved a synthesis between MC and audience that gave weight to their statement: “Hip Hop is not dead. It is alive in Palestine.”

I picked up a copy of Slingshot Hip Hop at the show, and have since watched it several times. It is a complex film that holds important lessons and inspiration for those who are the targets and opponents of oppression and repression.

At one point early in the film Tamer Nafar of DAM discusses the decisive influence of Tupac Shakur’s video “Holla If Ya Hear Me,” a stark look at issues such as police brutality, gun violence, racism and poverty. Nafar, although at that time unable to understand the lyrics, felt as though the video was filmed in Lyd, his home.

Later in the film, Nafar explains that the worse the conditions facing an MC, the more powerful their art, and that Hip Hop is a defiant response to oppression and a tool for channeling one’s anger. Holding a copy of Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, Nafar says, “Here there is a fear of an Arab…nation.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

DIGGING DEEPER in the crates (I’d recommend Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop as a great place to start), the similarities between the South Bronx, the birthplace of hip hop in the late 1970s, and Palestine, the home of its exciting resurgence in a form that is anything but co-opted, are striking.

Slingshot Hip Hop shows the home demolitions by Israeli bulldozers in Arab areas of Palestine to terrorize Palestinians and make room for Israeli settlers.

In the early 1960s, New York City bulldozers cleared whole neighborhoods and displaced thousands in the predominately Black and Puerto Rican South Bronx to build the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Several artists in the film cite the Second Intifada as a defining moment in their lives that gave birth to or at least shaped and inspired their work today. The Intifada, an uprising that began in 2000 in response to Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa mosque but really marked a popular rejection of the failed Oslo strategy of negotiation and collaboration with Israel, was a mass struggle that utilized a diversity of tactics to resist the Israeli occupation.

In 1977, in the midst of a crippling recession, a blackout in New York City set off rioting and “looting” that was especially intense in poor Black and Latino sections of the city, including the South Bronx. Although not nearly as conscious or defined in purpose as the Second Intifada, the riots were political: they were an expression of the just rage of a people impoverished, brutalized by police, oppressed and displaced.

Just as the Second Intifada was an expression of frustration with Arafat’s failed strategy to win liberation through negotiation, the 1977 riots were an expression of frustration with the failure of the movements of the 1960s and ’70s to provide a solution to the injustice faced by Blacks and Latinos in the inner-cities of the North.

The Second Intifada provided DAM with the political material to compose their breakout 2001 single “Meen Erhabe?” (“Who’s the Terrorist?”), which laid the foundation for political Palestinian hip hop and was downloaded over 1 million times.

The “looting” of 1977 provided many Hip Hop artists with the physical material, sound equipment and turntables, to develop and take the culture “all city” and beyond.

If these connections are surprising, consider that the same government whose police occupy the South Bronx funds Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Martin Luther King Jr. said during Vietnam that bombs dropped overseas explode at home. They still do.

The fact that DAM is playing to packed crowds in the U.S. and Slingshot Hip Hop is opening the eyes of young people to the injustice faced by Palestinians is a reason to be hopeful, as is the outbreak of protest here and around the world in response to Israel’s recent slaughter in Gaza, and the growth of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in its wake.

Just as hip hop is a means to channel anger, we must channel that hope back into the struggle, because if we’re ever going to get freedom here in the U.S., Palestinians need to win freedom in their country.

Our oppressors understand this, hence the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel. It’s time for the oppressed and exploited in Palestine, the U.S., and everywhere else form our own “special relationship.”

Source:
SocialistWorker.org

An accompanying video shows clips from Ms. Bhutto’s political life and scenes from her funeral, and ends with pictures from the family album. The song, I Would Take the Pain Away, has been airing on Pakistani state television and posted to YouTube. Ms. Bhutto’s three children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa, have spoken very little about the assassination of their mother, who was killed in December of 2007 as she campaigned for a third term as prime minister.

Bilawal, now 20, studies at Oxford University, while Aseefa is still in grade school in Dubai. Bakhtawar is a student at Edinburgh University in Scotland. The three make visits to Pakistan, where their father, Asif Zardari, is now President, appearing occasionally at official events, most recently for the first anniversary of Ms. Bhutto’s death.

Before her death, Ms. Bhutto reportedly used her contacts to introduce her daughter to rap superstar Sean Combs, known by his stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy.

“She has a poetic side to herself,” Farhatullah Babar, a long-time aide to Ms. Bhutto, said of Bakhtawar. “It’s just that a young daughter of a slain mother felt like doing this.”

The Pakistan Peoples Party, which Ms. Bhutto led until her death, made clear, however, that Bakhtawar did not plan to follow a career in music. She has not ruled out following her mother and grandfather into the country’s tumultuous politics. Like other South Asian countries, politics in Pakistan is dominated by dynasties, and Bakhtawar reminds listeners that her grandfather and two uncles were also murdered.

While Ms. Bhutto was alive her children played no political role. Within days of her death, Bilawal was made chairman of the party, at the suggestion of his father. In practice, Mr. Zardari, who became co-chairman, runs party affairs.

Source:
Globe and Mail

While Senegal’s daily news papers praise the government’s action – new roads being built for a recent summit, urban renovations — Waterflow denounces the corruption and the poverty that plague his country. “Most people,” he said, “the masses, don’t have everything they [need] to live a normal life. They don’t have running water, often they don’t have electricity.”  

With more than 2,500 groups that enjoy increasing popularity, the hip-hop scene has gained exceptional political influence. Many political observers agree that hip-hop artists influenced voters to oust President Abdou Diouf in 2000, who had been in power for almost 20 years, and elect President Abdulaye Wade.

“The election of 2000,” said DJ Magee, “is the only known case in the world in which hip-hop has been seen as one of the main reasons behind the change of regime.” Wade’s election prompted great hope in Senegal, especially among young people who thought that poverty would finally be reduced.

But according to Waterflow, with Wade at the helm, the country’s economic and social situation has not improved. Waterflow, along with other hip-hop artists, have lost faith in the politicians they helped get into power. “There was so much hope that Wade would bring hope,” said DJ Magee, “and that was crushed.”

So now, Waterflow and others see hip-hop artists as the only new political force able to drive the country and defend the deprived. He says the hip-hop community has a mission to cheer up the Senegalese people and help them stand up for their rights.  “We need to wake up,” said Waterflow, “Senegal, please stand up.” “I believe it’s the people who can change the Senegal,” he said, “not the political leaders.”

Poverty and unemployment are endemic in Senegal. Every year, young people flee the country and put their lives in jeopardy just to try their luck in Europe. They often spend fortunes in trying to reach the Canary Islands illegally onboard fishing boats. Some are found washed-up dead on the Senegalese coast after their small vessels were overturned by raging seas. “For them, it’s an attempt to escape,” said DJ Magee, “very much like the people who flee Cuba for the U.S.”

But even for the Senegalese who make it safely to Spain, Italy or France, Europe is no dreamland. According to Waterflow, many Senegalese who emigrated to Europe now wish they could go back, but they don’t, simply because they are ashamed not to have established themselves in the West.

Like many young people in Senegal from a modest upbringing, Waterflow and his crew Wageble had a dream. But instead of giving up, or trying their luck in foreign lands, they stayed in their home country to show that they could make their dreams come true in Senegal. “Wageble is an amazing group,” said DJ Magee. “They really walk the walk. They practice what they preach. It is amazing to see how much they have done for their neighborhood, Thiaroye Azur.”

“We want to show to the Senegalese youth,” said Waterflow, “that even when you come from a very like poor place in Africa, you can be someone else, you know, you can like, travel around the world and do your music.”

Despite his numerous business trips to Europe and America – a privilege usually reserved to the elite in his country — and the fact that he speaks fluent English, which is also rare in Senegal, Waterflow says he feels 100 percent Senegalese, and he would not trade either his roots nor his identity for any other.

“Senegal, it’s me, me I am Senegal,” he said, “so of course I love Senegal, it’s my country, it’s my soul, you know.”

Source:
ABC News

In a campaign appearance the next day talking about the debate, Obama reached over to his shoulders and made a motion to brush off any “dirt” that may have collected there as a result of the debates, a gesture borrowed from hip-hop artist Jay-Z. The potential President of the United States being willing and knowledgeable enough to reference a major hip-hop artist is significant, and helps explain why so many young people gravitate towards his him. Hip hop is the most dominant music in the world for youth and its influence on pop culture today is unmatched.

Obama’s relationship with hip-hop is a reciprocal one. Over the course of his historic campaign, he has influenced the music even as it has continued to influence him. Though hip-hop artists have always rapped about social issues like poverty and police brutality, they typically shun electoral politics or political candidates. However, many of hip hop’s brightest stars — ranging from “underground” artists like Talib Kweli to the mainstream like Nas and Ludicris — have come out in support of Obama. Indeed, the last track on Nas’s latest album is entitled, “Black President” whose chorus is a 2Pac sample of “Yes we can…change the world.”

I wanted to understand why so many MCs have come out in support of a politician. I decided to go to the source and spoke with legendary hip hop pioneers — Slick Rick, Biz Markie, and the group Whodini — all of whom performed last night in Denver as part of the national convention festivities. They performed at a party thrown by an organization called “Party With a Purpose,” which is holding a series of events this week at the DNC in attempts to link young people and politics through music.

“Obama is going to be the first black president, the first president of color in our melting pot society,” stated Slick Rick, who considers himself a long-time Democrat. As one of the first MCs who started rhyming in the parks in New York, Slick helped form the foundation of hip-hop. Wearing his signature eye patch along with a prominent Obama button and gold chains, Slick named Obama’s ability to “walk the walk with a genuine passion” as his most impressive attribute.

Performing for a crowd of mostly people of color under 45, Slick and others moved the room by interlacing hip-hop classics with affirmative messages for today’s campaign. Party-goers — who included an enthusiastic mix of celebrities, party activists and elected officials — had an easy time singing along with the old school rhymes. Rapper Biz Markie lead the crowd in a rendition of his 1989 hit “Just a Friend,” supplanting the original chorus with: “OBAMA you. You got what I need. You gonna be the president. You gonna be the president. OBAMA you…”

Bun B, a Houston-based MC with the group UGK, told me that he had never seen so many people enlightened and galvanized. “I’m someone who people look up to and so it’s important for me to show my involvement,” Bun B said. He firmly believes that Obama gives all people, especially the disenfranchised, faith that change can happen. “[Obama's presidency] would open doors for everyone.”

Connecting Obama with the potential success of the underrepresented was a common theme among party attendees and artsists alike. Saurabh Kikani, a hip-hop enthusiast and Obama supporter from California said, “Hip-hop has always been a youth-oriented music and was born out of poverty and the mass arsons that took place in black communities in the Bronx in the late 1970s. It has embraced Obama not just because he is a black candidate from the South side of Chicago, but he represents the type of success that hip-hop glorifies.” Kikani then added that “the music is always about striving for something bigger and being the best at something whether it’s DJing, MCing, or accumulating the most wealth. But the presidency is the ultimate symbol of success.”

Ecstasy, also with the group Whodini told me with much pride, “Young black people, and children of color are always being told ‘if you put your mind to it, you can become president.’ Well, now it’s for real! We can be the president!”

Chuck D once called hip hop, the “black CNN” and made sure to bring critical social and political issues into the music. But the influence of corporate music interests, especially in the 1990s, led to music that spun in a more materialistic, “mainstream” direction. It many ways, it parallels the shift of the Democratic Party to the center during the same period under Bill Clinton.

The movement Obama’s campaign has generated is affecting not only the political system, but artistic mediums as well. “There are materialistic artists with genuine talent out there and Obama’s movement is pushing them to get beyond the bling,” Kikani further observed. “Ludicrous is a perfect example. Not too long ago he came out on the scene as a simple party rapper. Now to see the guy name dropping Obama and rapping about the Republican party and political change is something I never would have predicted.”

Like a record spinning on a turntable, hip-hop is coming full circle. It was born out of oppression and the desire for the disenfranchised to express themselves. It is now reacting to the world around it and the freshness of the Obama campaign. It is bringing the beat back to its less materialistic and more socially engaged past and going a step further by entering the electoral process. That is what hip-hop does. It takes “samples” from the past, and creates something entirely new with them.

Jalil from Whodini summed up Obama’s relationship to this moment of change for the country and for hip hop: “Same generation. Good music. Good politics. Good hip-hop. This is real hip-hop.”

Source:
The Huffington Post

According to news sources, the first Hip Hop for HIV concert will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. Sept. 14 on the steps of Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St. The goal of the event is to increase awareness, alleviate the fear associated with HIV/AIDS, and encourage everyone to know your status and help eradicate the spread of the disease.

Knowing your status and “testing for tickets” is the core concept of this soon-to-be annual event. Testing sites will be designated throughout the Metroplex as participants collaborate with community organizations to begin confidential testing. Those tested will receive a free ticket to the concert.

“Testing for tickets is one creative way to address the disease, specifically the age group between 15 to 30 years of age,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Dwaine R. Caraway. “People can learn their status, then be proactive about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, taking preventive measures, and becoming more informed about the social and medical services available for treatment. This initiative is part of our Teen Summit program that we kicked off last year.”

The concert will feature international, national and local Hip Hop artists such as David Banner, Mike Jones, Bun B, Day 26, Pleasure P, Young Berg, Trap Star and more. The artists will emphasize the importance of knowing your status and encourage education and prevention.

Source:
Pegasus News

Ludacris’ “Politics as Usual” alludes to an imminent victory for Obama by handing out major put-downs to his rivals. It dismisses Hillary Rodham Clinton as a vice presidential candidate — “that (expletive) is irrelevant”_ and says presumed Republican nominee John McCain doesn’t belong in “any chair unless he’s paralyzed.”

Obama, usually a Ludacris fan, was quick to distance himself Thursday. “While Ludacris is a talented individual, he should be ashamed of these lyrics,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail statement. He also called the song “outrageously offensive.” Calls to Ludacris’ publicist and manager were not immediately returned Thursday.

That Obama’s one-time praise for Ludacris has turned to scorn really is politics as usual, said John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and author of “All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America.”

“Of course, Obama and his people have to condemn the rap, because it does say some vulgar things,” he said. “If you’re running for president, you’re supposed to be an upstanding individual.”

While hip-hop fans are expected to be a factor in the November election, the song is not. “Hip-hoppers and black folks understand the game,” said Jeff Johnson, an activist and host of an upcoming news and public affairs show on Black Entertainment Television. “They’re thinking, ‘An Obama who knows how to play the game is still better for me than a McCain.’”

“There are a ton of people who clearly are looking for (Obama) to denounce this in order to continue to view him as credible,” Johnson said. “He, for political purposes, has to separate himself from anything controversially black.”

During the Democratic primary, Obama was bolstered by the black vote, and he has pledged to boost black participation by 30 percent in November — potentially adding nearly 2 million votes in 11 Southern states, enough to tip the balance in several states that have been solidly Republican. The hip-hop generation stands poised to help him meet his goal.

Last week, the nonpartisan group Hip-Hop Caucus and hip-hop star T.I. launched the “Respect My Vote” campaign. The group conservatively estimates they will register 75,000 voters on the ground and 150,000 on the Internet, focusing mainly on those between the ages of 18 and 29 who are not on college campuses.

In March, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons endorsed Obama. Simmons chairs the New York-based Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which estimates that the hip-hop generation will be nearly 50 million strong this year — representing nearly a third of the electorate.

McWhorter, who is an Obama supporter, said the song — and Obama’s reaction to it — should come as no surprise. Rappers are supposed to be clever and confrontational, which is why the song is not likely to be on voters’ minds this fall. “I’m not aware of hip-hop music affecting any election so far, and I don’t think that this is going to be one, either,” McWhorter said.

Obama has spoken out against some of hip-hop’s stars before, but praised Ludacris and hip-hop icon Jay-Z as “great talents and great businessmen” in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

“There’s no doubt that hip-hop culture moves our young people powerfully. And some of it is not just a reflection of reality,” he told Vibe magazine last August. “It also creates reality. I think that if all our kids see is a glorification of materialism and bling and casual sex and kids are never seeing themselves reflected as hitting the books and being responsible and delaying gratification, then they are getting an unrealistic picture of what the world is like.”

Some may remember what has happened when a politician has stepped into such critical territory before. In 1992, then-Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton accused the hip-hop artist Sister Souljah of inciting violence against whites. Some black leaders criticized Clinton, but by staying above the fray, he galvanized his image as a politician who refused to pander.

Then again, Obama also has appeared to have embraced some of hip-hop’s cultural touchstones. During the primaries, hip-hoppers cheered Obama’s brush of the shoulder at one campaign appearance — a subtle reference Jay-Z — and again when he and wife, Michelle, shared a fist bump on the night in June when he became the apparent Democratic nominee for president. Both were silent nods to the black community, and especially the hip-hop generation.

Bakari Kitwana, who co-edited the upcoming “Let’s Get Free: Strategies for Organizing the Hip-Hop Voting Bloc” with Johnson, said the hip-hop community’s celebration over Obama’s candidacy highlights a “disturbing reality” for some as artists like Ludacris become emboldened.

“Before, a lot of the songs about Barack were supporting his campaign,” Kitwana said. “This song is different in that it almost claims the victory. That’s scary for some people who don’t want to see that happen.”

For young voters, the controversy could pull them deeper into the mire of mainstream electoral politics, Kitwana said, causing them to look more critically at the process. But many aren’t even engaged in such conversations, said Johnson. “There is a community of people who aren’t watching CNN or reading The Huffington Post,” Johnson said. “The question is, ‘Does this hurt him with who?’”

Source:
Associated Press