I'm calm now. Respect to everyone I"ve responded too. No malice or anger intended.

I see this topic everywhere. I've been online for about 6 years talking about hip hop, from the perspective as head, as college radio dj, a counselor, hip hop organizer, et cetera. This topic never ends.

What do you want hip hop to do for our community?

Right now it is an industry for a lot of folks. Even those folks not making any mone off of it, it is something that keeps them from doing other things.

Do you think hip hop can inspire black and brown children to pursue their educations? To gain skills so that they can participate in a capitalist economy, or devise a different economic system for our community?

If those are the kind of goals you are looking at, hip hop is NOT the answer. On the cool, the 60's didn't have a soundtrack. We weren't being told how to live and what to think by our entertainers. It was folks just like you and me putting their lives on the line. Lynched in the south, beat up in the north, working farms in the West.

You want that world where your children can go into a store and not be considered thieves, or a world where school vouchers is not the solution.

Don't look to hip hop for that answer. Who is hip hop really lead by? 15-30 year old brothers who have not seen nor studied the world at large. Hip Hop is not made by Kweisi Mfume's, Kofi Anaan's, or Nelson Mandela's. Maybe by future black leaders, but they haven't really developed a platform on the mic yet.

Hip Hop ain't starting a revolution. At best, maybe the cultural institution of black music can finally start to benefit our pocket books in a larger way. But the spin off industries from the Bad Boy Project aren't employing neighborhoods.

>is why are those of
>us who aren't using all
>this technology and other resources
>to come together and unite
>to make a louder voice
>be heard. AND (and this
>is the kicker), how many
>of those who profess consciousness
>are really open to being
>conscoius -- or is it
>merely just the "style"

It is. Most of the conscious mc's i've met do not compare to the community leaders that I have met. I've spoke to this one Imam from Brooklyn that was closing down crackhouses, what Hip Hop Mc is trying to even think of something like that? I'm sure you could name a couple of social workers that happen to rhyme, but when it comes down to it, hip hop artists aren't trying to be black panthers or NOI or school board members.

peace
k. orr
You know one of my favorite songs is "Prophets of Rage"