Soundtrack for Insurrection

catch up with me at me new blog

hey folks,

this is just an update for anyone that was wondering what happenned to me.  the answer is... lots of stuff!  My band has played 4 shows this month and has two more to go and 5 in september, so i'm busy as hell.  got a new album in the works, playing live on 91.5 kkup (cupertino, CA) this friday at 5pm, and doing a lot of writing on my blog (http://blog.circlealpha.com).  so if you're interested, that's the place to find me.

cheers,
lynx
circlealpha.com
blog.circlealpha.com
beltainesfire.com

Now booking shows for the Celtic Nations Tour!

I've just posted a rough calender of cities and dates for my first international tour, the Celtic Nations Tour, scheduled for mid-summer this year. The goal is to do shows in all of the Celtic nations (Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galacia) Bilboa, Barcelona, possibly Catalonia, and London.   

If you see your city or a city near you listed and you want to book a show, hit me up. I'm completely open at this point and just starting to put the pieces together.  My only caveat is that I need as many paid gigs as possible to cover my costs. 

the scedule is posted at: http://emceelynx.circlealpha.com/press/celticnationstour06.htm and you can contact me either through myspace or via my website.

solid,
lynx

selling out

I got this email jan 10, 2006 from a listener who started out by saying that s/he loves the music and appreciates all the work I've put in, and that they think asking for donations is a good idea, but that the phrase "i have no plans to start charging for my music any time soon" made them wonder if I had plans to charge in the future and that if I did charge I would stop being an anarchist and become "just like snoop dog, but with better lyrics." I was a bit surprised, not only because I thought it was pretty clear that I'm dedicated to making my music available free online, but because I felt like even if I did charge there would still be a pretty big difference between what I'm doing and what someone like Snoop Dog does (no offense to snoop, but i think it's obvious that he and I have pretty different approaches to putting our music out). Anyway since i took almost two hours to write, edit, and then re-write a long and detailed response, and i know there are other folks out there with similar feelings, i figured i should post this up to set the record straight.

Doing so is not meant to criticize the author of the original email, I appreciate feedback - positive and negative - and always reply to letters from listeners. All I'm asking is that ya'll please understand where I'm coming from on this.

--------------------------------

Comment: Hi

First, congratulations for the new album, we as listeners know that you 
have really worked too hard this years for the revolution, you have 
contributed with all your energy for making great music among many other 
activities:

I think it´s great what you have been doing until now, however i just 
noticed some changes in your web site:

1- You said:  " I refuse to make it a commodity by attaching a price to 
it - music is like oxygen - it should be everywhere and it should be 
free"·  It´s great.However you also said:

"I have no intention of charging for anything any time soon". I donot 
know why you said "soon". I got surprised, are you planning to charge 
later, maybe in 3 years?

I understand that we as proletarians have to work, and i think it is a 
good idea the "pay pal" donations. By that way if we can support the 
music we can make donations. But if you start selling your music you 
would quit being an anarchist and you would be just another comercial rap 
singer but with good lyrics, just like Snoop Dog but with differente 
lyrics.

I also donot understand why you have included copyright in your songs, 
is it necesary? I think you should have used copyleft, dont you think?

I hope you dont feel ofended, but i consider you a honest anarchist, 
and i think its my duty as your partner to tell you this. Only consider 
that please. Its my personal opinion.

That all buddy. Take care!

Let´s destroy state and corporations!

---------------------------------

Hey,

Thanks for taking the time to write, and I’m glad you like the new music. I've put in a lot of work and i appriciate the recognition.

Saying I don't plan to start charging any time soon means I have no plans to start charging for downloads, but that if circumstances demand it (for instance if my costs go up and no one donates anything), I might have too reconsider my whole distribution model - which might mean charging enough to at least break even and might mean quitting altogether. So basically I’m not boxing myself in, but I’m saying I’d like to keep giving it away for free as long as it is possible to do so. In any case, I’ve removed the phrase “any time soon” from the donations page to avoid confusion.

Just to play devils advocate, why would it make me not an anarchist to charge? You like to get paid for your work, don't you? What if you spent five years working for someone only to have them tell you that since you're an anarchist they shouldn't have to pay you? It’d probably make you a bit grouchy...

If we were living in an anarchist society then none of us would have to worry about getting paid and we could just do what we love, but we're not. We’re living in a capitalist society and in the here and now it costs money to make music, not to mention the cost of living. I have to pay bills just like everyone else, whether I like it or not. It cost over $200 to renew my domain name and web hosting a few months back and it cost $100 to get the album mastered. Additionally, I’ve spent several thousand dollars on musical equipment, and - since virtually all the shows I do are benefits and I don’t get paid to perform – I usually end up losing money on live shows. That’s before we even address the issue of whether it’s ethical or not to want to make a living doing what I love and not have to be a wage slave any more. I’m so far from making a profit at this point it’s comical. If this was a business I’d have been bankrupt years ago.

Juxtapose that with the fact that my last album had over 100,000 downloads and that if I charged $1 each for downloads the way iTunes does I’d have made more then 10 times my annual income. I could give 2/3 of that money away to local anarchist organizations and still more then triple my standard of living – ya know, get an apartment with enough room to actually have friends over every once in a while, take a friggin vacation for the first time in my life, shit like that – but I know and you know that’s not why I’m making music. I’m doing this because I love making music and because I want to communicate with people. So please, never compare me to snoop dog again, it’s beyond insulting. By the dollar-a-track measure I’ve given away more then $100,000 worth of music in the last year alone, and that’s more cash then I’ve earned in my entire life up to this point combined. If that’s not enough to prove that I’m not in this for the money I don’t know what is.

Being an anarchist means I want to change the world so none of us has to deal with this shit, but like I said on the new album "in the mean time, I’ve got to make rent". That’s reality. Dealing with reality doesn't make me snoop dog; it makes me a working-class wage slave. I’ve heard the whole "it's good you don't charge because if you did you'd be a capitalist" argument before and - no offense - it strikes me as kind of silly. There are literally thousands of anarchist collective businesses all over the world that are collectively owned by their workers and in which there are no bosses or management and profits are shared or reinvested in the community. They use currency because they have too in order to function in the world as it is, but that doesn’t mean they are not anarchist, it just means that there is a difference between the way we’d like things to work and the way things actually work in the world as it is. By your definition there would be no difference between them and privately owned exploitive corporations, and I think that misses something critical. Are you seriously going to tell me there's no difference between a worker-owned democratically run non-hierarchal collective business which pays its members the full value of their labor and supports the community (like rainbow grocery here in San Francisco, for instance) and a giant multinational conglomerate just because they both sell things?

The only difference between rainbow grocery and me (if I decided to sell my music) is that I would be a collective of one – exploiting no one and stealing from no one. Snoop Dog, by contrast, is signed to a huge international corporation that systematically exploits and steals from its workers, its artists, and from the people who buy its products in order to make money for its shareholders and executives. The two are on entirely different planes of existence, to say there is no difference is just plain wrong.

In any case, the short answer is that no, I don't have any plans to charge for my music. Like I said I feel very strongly that music should be free for the taking and as long as I can afford to keep giving it away I will. If you really want to help keep it free, make a donation (ha! the irony!). I’ve had the donation button up for a week and not received a single cent yet, and gift economies only work if people give back. If people don't give back there's going to come a point where I won't be able to afford to keep giving, and that's just how it is. At that point I’ll have to either stop putting music out or start charging for it, and that would be a very hard choice for me to make... it's not one I want to have to make, believe me.

Please don't be offended by my response, I understand where your coming from and I strongly agree with you that it's a lot better to keep the music free. I just felt like I had to respond to the point since I think there's a critical difference between being a capitalist who profits by stealing other people's labor and making an honest living on one's own labor. One is parasitic and exploitive, and the other is not. In any case, I am doing neither, but if at some point in the future I have to go the "charge a fair price for something i created with my own labor" route, I don't want to be called a sellout.

Solidarity,
Lynx

new album posted

My new album, Living in the Shadow, is finished, mastered, and now available for download from my website: http://emceelynx.circlealpha.com/mp3.htm

It's 16 tracks of all-original material, and the songs deal with issues ranging from Global Warming and the flooding of New Orleans to direct action forest-defense campaigns and social justice to the absurdity of mainstream black-face rap music to songs about life, love, and family.

hope you all enjoy listening as much as i enjoyed creating. 

Also! 
For folks in the San Francisco Bay Area, there will be a record release party New Years Eve at the 252 Ninth St. Warehouse in San Francisco featuring an open mic and performances by Riot Folk!, Entartete Kunst, The Wills Wilde, and Beltaine’s Fire, (my new band).  Doors open at 8:30, open mic at 9:00pm.  $5-10 sliding scale

solid,
lynx

whiteness and race issues (again)

I wrote this as a reply to a post on another blog looking for comments on "how can white people build an anti-racist white culture",   which i thought was an odd thing to attempt since as long as it's a "White" culture it's reinforcing racial identity - and thus racism.  in any case, here's what i came up with off the top of my head. 

I'm curious what ya'll will think, so feel free to comment....

the url for the original blog post is  http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/weblog/2005/11/antiracist_whit.html

-----------

a few points:

1) I’ve noticed over and over again that much of what gets described as "white" privilege in America is actually class privilege. people of color are far more likely then white people to be poor (the average black family's income is just over $10 thousand a year compared to around $48 thousand for white people), so it's understandable that so many people associate "whiteness" with being relatively well off. what people forget, however, is that the vast majority of poor people in this country are white. these ties closely into point 2...

2) white people are not a culturally, ethnically, or economically homogenous group. Anglo Saxons actually only form around 8% of the total population of the US, the other 64% of the population identified as "white" is composed of assimilated ethnic minorities - who on average are MUCH less wealthy then the white elite.
As an example, there are aprx. 30 million Scotch-Irish Americans (12-16% of the total population), and their average incomes are far below the "white" average (I don't have a solid exact figure). Appalachia, where they are most heavily concentrated, is one of the single poorest regions in the entire country - it's essentially a giant reservation for poor Celts. Irish, Italians, and eastern European Americans are also majority poor and working class. The fact that the wealthiest 2% of the population owns something like 80% of the countries wealth, and most of them are Anglos, severely distorts the average "white" income figures I listed earlier. If we look critically the fact that Anglo Saxons (who have traditionally seen non-Anglo whites as culturally and even racially inferior) are disproportionately wealthy doesn't really do a damn thing to tangibly improve the lot of poor and working-class whites. The experience of "whiteness" experienced by the majority of poor white people is a very, very different thing then the experience of middle and upper class whites - a distinction that most Radicals and Academics forget to make.
If we were to - as a culture - recognize the distinct experiences and struggles of Celts, Slavs, Italians, and other invisible minorities instead of lumping them in with the relatively elite Anglo minority; our entire social structure would be turned upside down. The first step of that process is recognizing their existence in our rhetoric and analysis.

3) If the vast majority of "white" people whose cultures have been actively repressed and marginalized were to reclaim their own cultures there would be no need for them to "appropriate" other people's cultures. People appropriate because their looking for something deeply important that has been stolen from them and they cannot find within the bounds of "whiteness" - so they look outside of it.

4) also, there is a critical difference between disrespectful appropriation and a respectful and open dialogue and exchange between cultures and traditions. There is nothing inherently wrong with "white" people practicing Tai Chi or acupuncture (to refer to the earlier posters examples) - especially if these medical techniques address health problems that pharmaceuticals cannot address. It’s just plain dumb to suggest that people should not take advantage of a medical technique that addresses a legitimate health problem because to do so would be appropriation. It would be stupid to say Asians can't use aspirin and it's equally stupid to say white people can't practice Tai Chi. If Tiger Woods can Golf then the Beastie Boys can Rap, and it's really that simple. The more critical issue is whether interactions between cultures are respectful or patronizing.

5) structural racism is still very much in effect - just look at the prison system. in my experience it's much more productive to focus on organizing then it is to sit around and endlessly deconstruct everything. If you want to combat racism, do it by organizing against things like the drug war that affect millions of peoples lives every day.

6) On the personal level, no one cares how many black (or Asian, Indian, Chicano, etc.) friends you have, and as long as you think of them as your "black" friends instead of as your friends there's gonna be tension. Basically recognize and respect differences where they exist but focus on what we have in common. cuz if we can't work together we're all fucked.

to summarize, the best thing for "white" people who want to build an anti-racist culture to do is (a) stop assuming that skin tone correlates to class status, (b) learn about and ASSERT your own history culture and identity, (c) be consciously respectful of other peoples cultures, (d) take action to oppose structural racism whenever and wherever you find it, (e) and finally chill the fuck out and stop creating unnecessary counter-productive tension.

Katrina

So I’m thinking about New Orleans, Louisiana, and hurricane Katrina. I wrote a song on the subject a couple days ago, but at the time I was thinking mostly about global warming and how to convey to people that that shit is going to start happening all over the world more and more as global warming and environmental degradation progress. Which is true, and a point that I think people absolutely have to come to grips with as soon as possible while there’s still a chance to fucking DO SOMETHING to at least slow down the process (it’s already too late to stop global warming, the best we can hope for now is harm reduction). As I’m reading the news, however, there are a lot of other issues my song left basically unaddressed that are pretty fucking important.

First of all, if anyone had any doubts or illusions on the subject, the government response (or rather lack of response) highlighted pretty clearly the fact that America is still fundamentally an Apartheid state. Our schools tell us black people are free because government-sanctioned social segregation is no longer overtly in force, but the fact is that in every way that matters America is still racially segregated. Black people (and increasingly Chicano’s as well) are far more likely to live in high-poverty areas with high crime rates, substandard schools and social services, and a profound lack of economic opportunities. Black folks are still discriminated against in hiring and firing, in access to basic economic benefits like home ownership loans, and far less likely to attend college – both because substandard schools generate substandard test scores and because college is so ridiculously expensive. I’m a student at ultra-liberal “we have the oldest ethnic studies program in the country and named our student center after Malcolm X” San Francisco State, and I can count on my fingers the number of black people in my classes. If the Bay Area is the lefty/progressive multicultural capital of the country, what does that say about the rest of America? I could keep going for days about the shit that I’ve seen, and I’m WHITE, I don’t even have to bear the brunt of it, I just see it happening around me and try to do what I can to make a difference.

In New Orleans our segregated societies response was to call for evacuation but not provide any means for people who don’t drive and didn’t have any place to evacuate too. FEMA actually declined offers of assistance from Amtrack when they offered to help bus people out. After the storm hit – when government relief completely failed to materialize and people were left with no food or water – poor black folks who went looking for food in the abandoned stores were deemed looters, and the National Guard deployed units freshly returned from Iraq to shoot anyone caught looting on sight. And don’t talk to me about how this is a human failure, this is the direct result of human negligence and apathy. The President stayed on vacation for two full days after the storm hit playing golf while people starved to death. His mother, Barbara Bush, the former first Lady remarked upon seeing the evacuees in the superdome that they were all poor anyway so “this is working out well for them”, and laughed about it. Thousands of people crowded onto tiny cots in a massive building piled high with garbage and human waste with no light and armed guards at the doors - and she says that this is “working out well”. I’m reminded of a queen from another era who responded to the cries of the poor that they had no bread to eat by saying “then let them eat cake”. In that era – an era before mass media and public education had brainwashed people into believing that they had something in common with the rulers – her remark helped spark a revolution that cost the old bitch her head. I just wish it were that easy now.

This is what I’m talking about when I say we’re living in a class war and that the police and the army are the enemies of poor people. They are not there to fucking protect us, they’re there to protect property – to make sure that people starving to death after a massive natural disaster are unable to obtain the food and water they need to survive because doing so would violate the “property rights” of the capitalists who own the stores. Even though the food is all going to rot if left in the stores, even though the government which takes money out of every paycheck we earn with the promise that it will “protect” us had completely failed to provide anything even remotely resembling security, even though preventing people from getting the food they need to feed their families is an act of murder just as much as it would be to shoot them in the head (the national guard did both). The real looters – Bechtel, Halliburton, etc who are taking literally billions of dollars worth of no-bid government contracts (can you say “corporate welfare”?) are in no danger of being confronted by the national guard, on the contrary they’re the ones giving orders to the national guard. It’s funny how that works now isn’t it?

And please, don’t tell me that having a democrat in office would have made things any better. As they themselves would tell you, the democrats are every bit as dedicated to preserving “sacred” property rights. The party is irrelevant – the issue is power, and the fact that the bastards who have it don’t have to suffer the consequences of the decisions they make. If you have ever had any illusions about the role of the State in our society you had better get that shit straight NOW. The plain fact of the matter is that in America the only rights that the State gives a damn about are property rights, every other “right” we have in this country exists because ordinary people have organized and fought to assert it, and the moment we stop asserting them they will disappear. The constitution and the bill of rights are irrelevant – they are pleasant sounding words designed to lull people into a false sense of security and nothing more. If you seriously believe that the government gives a flying fuck about your “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” go down to New Orleans and ask the National Guard about it. Just be careful you don’t have too much melanin when you go, cuz you might not come back alive.

One of the great “strengths” of representative democracy is that – since the majority can do anything it damn well pleases – a politician who can get 51% of voters to support them can pursue ay policy they want, up to and including genocide, with no fear of reprisals. Anyone who’s studied America’s campaigns of genocide against Native Americans or who remembers that in our “democratic” system Slavery and Jim Crow segregation thrived should know that. But somehow or other, in blind defiance of their own history and all the available data, Americans continue to insist that their “democracy” makes them free and guarantees their human rights. Kayne West – who I find myself having a newfound respect for – got on national TV and said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Which is true. Bush doesn’t give a damn about poor people period – and most black people are poor. And he can get away with his reckless disregard for the wellbeing and safety of poor people – and especially poor people who are members of a racial minority – BECAUSE America is a Democracy and he knows damn well that in a Democracy minorities have no power unless they can get the majority to care about their issues. Anyone who tries to spin it otherwise is deluded, stupid, or lying. The sick reality is that in a segregated society like this one where the only contact that the majority of white people have with black folks is through the Mass media (which, lets face it, doesn’t usually have very nice things to say about black people), it’s a pretty safe bet that the majority of white folks don’t give a damn or are too concerned with their own issues to put a lot of energy into advocating for people they don’t know and who frankly scare them. It’s not so much that white America is even actively hostile at this point – they’re just busy trying to deal with their own issues. And that’s all it takes – the modern system of white supremacy doesn’t even require active hostility, just indifference. And as long as that deadly indifference remains in place George Bush – and every other politician – can continue to not care about black people without fear of reprisals.  I'd like to think that that indifference is cracking and changing, I know there are a whole hell of a lot of white folks that DO give a damn and are working for change and our numbers are growing, but for now at least it's pretty clear that the bulk of white america has "other priorities."

The second thing I want to say about what’s going on down there is that I am tremendously proud of all the people - black, white, and otherwise - who are NOT indifferent and who are working together to build something better and not relying on the State to do it. I’m talking about Food Not Bombs, the Rainbow Family, the Common Ground Collective, and the hundreds of people who’ve gone down to volunteer their time and energy to help meet the basic human needs our government has so consistently ignored. The mainstream media has – as expected – been virtually silent about this, they’ll rant about anarchists when someone smashes a window at a protest but refuses to acknowledge our existence or involvement when we’re feeding hungry people; but it’s happening no less. If any of ya’ll are planning to contribute money to the relief efforts please direct it to those folks. We’ve been saying for a long time that a better world is possible and that if people want peace and freedom it starts by working with your neighbors, and right now you can see that philosophy in action more clearly then ever before. I challenge anyone who still has doubts about the viability and effectiveness of non-hierarchal organizations on a large scale to look at what the US Govt. – with all of its tremendous resources – has done to provide security and safety and compare that with what the our movement – with it’s stunning lack of financial resources – has accomplished. The difference is clear and apparent to anyone with eyes to see. This is how we make revolution, by feeding hungry people, by working to build our communities, and by demonstrating to ourselves and to the world that when “we the people” decide to act we can accomplish anything.

interview with "respuesta urbana"

> Date: Monday, July 25, 2005

> Time: 6:46 AM EST

>

> Email address: xxxxxxxxxx@lycos.es

> Subject: website feedback

>

> visitor_name2: Jose

>

> Comment: Hello my name is Jose and I’d like to interview you, for fanzine “respuesta

> urbana” from spain.

> These are the question.

> Un saludo!!

> Entrevista a emcee lynx

> 1-Presentation (introduction)

check out the “about me” page on my website for that I guess.

> 2-What discs have you edit?

My albums so far are Soundtrack for Insurrection 1 and 2, the Black Dog EP, and The UnAmerican Lp. I'm almost finished with a new album but don't know what it's going to be called and I’m working on a couple of side projects as well... I've averaged an album a year for the last 4 years and I’d like to keep that up if I can.

> 3-What do you think about capitalists rap bands?

Well it's not quite that simple, really. Most hip hop artists are broke, and I can't say that I honestly have a problem with poor people wanting to not be poor any more, so if someone can make a living and get out of a bad situation by selling their music then I can't blame them for wanting to do that.

I do not, however, like bands or musicians in any genre that glorify sexism or commercialism or exploitation; but even some of them occasionally say worthwhile things. Jay Z's song "99 Problems (But a Bitch aint One)" is totally sexist (as you might guess from the name), but he spends close to 1/3 of the song talking about racial profiling by police. So even corporate pop-rap artists occasionally say things that are worthwhile. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna go out and buy his album, but it means I can't just condemn the man as being a bad influence or something.

There's also the matter of underground "conscious" hip hop artists that run their own independent labels and sell their music and market themselves, bands like Spearhead, Blackalicious, Zion I, and others. A lot of those bands put out very positive messages and I really respect and enjoy their music. At the same time, they’re engaging in capitalism by selling their music. I think it would be silly to condemn them for that since they're using their music to put out very positive messages and that's important and worthwhile. At least until the revolution we’ve got to live in the system after all.

So I guess it really depends on what you mean by "capitalist," if you mean the artists that make music about how rich they are and the jewels they wear then generally speaking I'm not interested in listening to or supporting their music. Frankly, I don't think most of it is even hip-hop, it's corporate Pop music in blackface. Occasionally though something worthwhile comes through, even there.

> 4-Is there many anarchists rap band in the USA? Do you know more anarchists rap band around the world?

When I put out my first album back in 2001 I think I was the only self-described anarchist hip hop artist in the U$A, and I have yet to run into anything released by an Anarchist hip hop artist before that. Some people argue that Dead Prez are Anarchists and I have mixed feelings about whether they are or not, but I know that they do not describe themselves as Anarchists.

Since then, there have been a few more folks come out. Entartete Kunst, which is a Oakland California based group that used to do this crazy abstract electronica, has started putting out Hip Hop music lately and their DJ, Dj Malatesta, produced one of the instrumentals for my last album. They're nice folks, and damn talented.

There aren't any other self-proclaimed anarchist hip hop crews or artists with any visibility to speak of that I know of right now, but I do know a bunch of folks that call themselves anarchists and are putting out music. Wwhether that makes their crew or their music “anarchist” though is another story entirely since most people aren’t nearly as overt or as clearly identified with an ideology as I am (probably because they’re trying to sell albums to pay the rent and don’t want to alienate listeners who might not agree with their ideology). Not having to sell my music gives me a bit more freedom that way. Even beyond that, most of the people I know are very reluctant to claim any ideology, they'd rather leave it open; but I know a lot of people who I would describe as Anarchistic if not "anarchists" per se.

As far as the international scene, there are apparently a few anarchist-oriented groups. Looptroop, from Sweden, describe themselves as anarchists (They rap in English for some strange reason, no clue why...some of their stuff is very good and some of it is kinda sexist and lame. Overall I like their music though) and there's apparently a German group called anarchist academy, but I don't speak german so I can't comment on their content. I don't think we have anything even approaching an anarchist hip hop scene in any country, at least I've never encountered or heard of one, but I think there *is* a lot of receptivity and openness to anarchist ideas in hip hop culture as a whole. So there's a lot of room to grow.

> 5-Do you sell your music in capitalists stores or do you sell it in anticapitalist distros?

I don't sell it at all usually. I realized when I was trying to figure out how to release my first album that it would cost me hundreds of dollars I didn't have to get my music printed so I could sell cd's, but I could post it online and give it away for practically free. Since my goal was not to make money but to share my music and communicate with people, I decided I’d be better off just giving it away.

Also, that was right around the time that there was that huge fuss about napster and whether file sharing was a crime or not, and so I thought it would be a good thing for me - as an anarchist who's opposed to private property and intellectual property rights - to take a stand with my music and encourage people to burn copies for people and post it on file sharing networks. While Dr. Dre and other big name corporate rap artists were calling their fans criminals and thieves for sharing music online I made a point of saying that I thought it was the record companies who were thieves and that anyone who wanted my music could get it for free.

I've put out a total of four albums now, like I said, and I've given them all away the same way. All of the mp3's are available for free download from my website and are available on most file-sharing networks, and I haven't made a penny off of that. What I have done, however, is get explicitly anarchist music out to thousands of people all over the world - my last album has had over 100,000 downloads in the last year from my website alone. So now people all over the world can hear my music and I’m doing this interview with you for a 'zine in Spain, and that's everything I could ask for. I'm in this because i want a fucking revolution, not to make money, and I'm not interested in getting rich off my music. I make it cuz I enjoy making it and because it's one of the best ways I know to communicate with people, and I feel like I've been pretty successful with that.

The only place that I DO actually sell cd's is at shows, where I sell burned cd's and put the money from that into covering the costs of equipment, my website, and transportation. At this point I've about broken even, which is fine.

If anarchist distro's want to sell my music their welcome to do so, all they need to do is download the mp3's and print out the covers and they can make their own copies to sell. All I ask is that they let me know so I can post links to them on my website, and if they make any money off it I generally ask them donate it to local organizations. I had my first album reprinted in the Czech republic that way as a benefit for the Anarchist Black Cross and The Black Dog EP and the UnAmerican LP were printed and distributed by a local group in Jakarta, Indonesia, as a benefit for local anarchist groups late last year.

> 6-Are you united with the anarchopunks?

Well... I don't know really. Most rock music makes my head hurt, so I don't go to punk shows as a general rule. I've performed at punk shows before and I have friends in the punk scene, so if that makes me united with them then sure, but generally my focus is on the hip-hop scene. Outside of the context of actual shows, I've worked with a lot of anarchopunks and have generally had good experiences with that, there are lot of good people in the punk scene.

> 7-We have read about a political rap congress in Chicago. Tell us about it.

*shrug* I dunno, there's tons of stuff happening in chicago, and everywhere else for that matter. I don't know what event you're referring to... chicago is a long way from san Francisco and the local scenes in different parts of the us don't keep in contact very well so I really don't know.

> 8-Is the rap a political music?

Everything is political, and music in particular is always political, so yes. Every time someone makes a song about how much cash they stack and how many diamonds they wear their making a political statement - and it's the same political statement made on every television commercial. they're saying "look at me, I've succeeded in the system, if you just buy in and work hard enough you can escape your poverty and oppression and be loved and be sexy and get to be a member of the ruling class." It's a lie, but it's scary how many people believe it without even realizing what it is that their being sold - it's a mind state and an ethos and a social disease.

On the flipside, every hip hop artist - and punk or raver or goth or anyone else - who uses their music to send any OTHER message is also political, simply because their not buying into the programming. Rap and hip hop music is perhaps more overtly political because it has more lyrics so while a rock or pop musician can get away with just humming or repeating the same sentence a dozen times, an emcee has to actually SAY SOMETHING. whether they say something worth while or not is another matter entirely, but that means that for people who WANT to say something and do have something worth saying, hip hop is probably the single-best art form for doing that.

At it's most basic level rap is about telling stories, and some of those stories are beautiful and some of them are fucking stupid; but it gives people the *opportunity* to tell their story in a way that no other music does, so in that way I think it's the most political music there is. whether we like the politics expressed in it or not is another matter entirely.

> 9-Do you participate in other proyects?

Yes. Right now I'm working with the Collaborative Arts Insurgence, a radical poets collective here in San Francisco that hosts an open-mic/free-speech event on the street corner every Thursday night. I'm also working on a couple of concept albums with different people, but I don't want to say any more about those until they're ready to be released.

> 10-Tell us about the anarchist movement in San Francisco: bands, groups,…

there are probably close to a thousand self-described anarchists in San Francisco alone, (though most of them are not particularly involved in any kind of a movement) and even more in the Bay Area (which includes San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Union City, Hayward, Fremont, San Jose, Palo Alto, and several other smaller cities in the area). Unfortunately, having so many anarchists around tends to make people lazy and complacent - a lot of people are more interested in telling everyone else why they're wrong or in arguing about who has the most perfect theory then they are in actually organizing anything.

That said, there are some very dedicated people here doing some absolutely beautiful work. Bound Together Books, a worker-owned anarchist bookstore operates here in San Francisco, and Ak Press, a worker-owned anarchist book distributor, has an office in Oakland. AK Press is also very active tabling at shows and being involved in the community. There are lots of other worker-owned businesses in the area, most of which run along anarchist lines without hierarchy. Recently, there's been an effort to put together a Bay Area Anarchist Council to help coordinate activities throughout the region, and there's also a new group in San Francisco/Palo Alto called Anarchist Action that has thrown several marches and is working on organizing a fare strike to oppose a fare increase on our bus system. There are Reclaim the Streets actions fairly regularly as well, and we had some truly huge anti-war protests here last year. So there are a lot of positive things going on.

> 11-Recomend us a band, book, publication…

Band: I'm listening to a lot of Celtic music lately, and Martyn Bennett in particular, he's a scottish musician that blends traditional instruments and melodies with hip-hop and electronic beats. very invocative stuff... more relevant to this interview I'm really enjoying Shamako Nobles "The Return of the Coming of the Aftermath," Shamako is an old friend of mine and was something of a mentor to me when I first got into the hip hop scene here in the bay area, and he's also one of the most talented emcee's in California. Other local artists that kick ass are Spearhead, Zion I, The Coup, Blackalicious, and Lyrics Born.

the best political book I've read recently is "Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader." Ward Churchill fucking rocks, and he's been a huge influence on my thinking about culture, politics, and resistance.

as far as serial publications, I read 2 or 3 newspapers a day most days, and I try to read ones that I disagree with on purpose, so The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC's website get a lot of action. They're slimy bastards, but they're running the world, so it makes sense to keep an eye on them.

write a book

Date: Sunday, August 21, 2005
Time: 10:30 AM EST

Email address: ------------@hotmail.com
Subject: website feedback

visitor_name2: danai

Comment: hi,

just read thru your blog thing, its great that you're putting your
thoughts out, i think its great you are spreading the wake up call via your
music, but you're also very good at putting your thoughts into words,
it would be great to see a book or something by you, it may widen your
audience. your words are needed to be heard.
i keep recommending you, and the feedback is good. people like you and
there is much thirst at least in the circles of politicaly awake and
aware for what you have to say and for what you do.
keep on going.
hope you do kick your ass to put more music out and more of your
written word. be well approciated.
peace to ya.
danai

------------------------

hey danai,

I’ve actually been thinking about writing a book, probably in the form of a collection of essays.  It’s definitely in the long-term "things i might do eventually" category though, rather then the "shit I’m working on right now" category.  Maybe after I get this next album finished (if and when I get it finished) I'll look at it more seriously.  in the meantime I’m using the blog as a way to organize my writing and give myself a reason to write things outside of school.

anyway, glad you like it, I haven't gotten much feedback on the blog yet so it's nice to hear good things. =)

solid,
emcee lynx

 

we the sheep

i came home from a family dinner at my parents house (after a long day of yet more classes) last night and wrote this, which is no where near a completed essay but may eventually become one.  dunno yet.  tell me what ya think.

--------

In our franctured society, there are (as I said in the essay i posted last week) 3 classes. There are the sheep – domesticated, complacent, scared and begging the wolves for protection, there are the shepherds / sheep-dogs (domesticated wolves) who manage the herds, and decide on a day to day basis who will be sheered and who will be slaughtered, and there are the owners of the fields – wolves in men’s clothing - who are generally only peripherally involved in any of the day to day operations but whose tables are daily stocked with fresh meat and whose bank accounts reap the rewards of a well maintained system. I don’t need to say which role each social class occupies, we all know in our bone marrow which class we belong too.

Every day we stare it blank in the face and try not to see because if we look at it too carefully it scares us shitless. Every day we numb back the pain with endless drugs, endless television, and a vast array of corporate–approved lifestyle identity niches that give us some sense of identity without requiring us to do the unthinkable and identify ourselves as individuals. We don't do it because we want to or because we choose to, we do so because failing to do so would mean rendering ourselves unable to function in the only world we have.  Those who fail to do so are shunned and reviled, and more often then we would care to admit - end up removing themselves from the situation by the only readily available means - suicide.  1997, suicide was the 8th leading cause of death in the U.S and the 3rd leading cause of death in 15 to 24 year olds (who are old enough to see the world as adults but young enough to have not yet gone completely numb to the horror of it).[1] For these people, anything, even the cold dark oblivion of the grave, is better then living like this. For the majority that isn’t willing to consider such a drastic solution, our consumer society offers few good choices and a lot of not so good ones. Television – america’s favorite drug – is chief among these. It is not a means of communication in any meaningful sense since by its very nature it’s broadcasts are unidirectional. Rather, it is a means of propaganda distribution for the ruling class and a way for people to “unplug” – to stop living their life-defeating meaningless lives for a few hours at a time and be caught up in someone else’s dramas, troubles, and victories. The bargain is as simple as it is diabolical - they allow us to forget we are slaves and in return we forget that we are slaves - and thus become incapable of fighting for freedom. Most working class Americans know more about the “lives” of the fictional yuppies, cops, and other parasites that populate these programs then they do about the day to day operations of the government that bellows its claim of democracy so unconvincingly. This is not an accident. One would be hard pressed to think of a better way for the ruling class to make sure that the herd stays complacent then to teach the sheep to identify with the wolves who consume them, and believe that is good for carnivores is good for the herd.

Interspersed in these infusions of synthetic reality we are bombarded with ads reasserting what we already know and secretly fear – that we are worthless, imperfect, un-loveable, ugly and frankly disgusting; and that the only way we can hope to ever fix ourselves is to consume more. Shopping is patriotic, it is recreation, it is identity – but more then any of these things it is ritual. More specifically, it is the ritual by which we assume our identities and assert our place in the world. Any high school freshman in the country can walk onto the campus of a strange high school any where else in the country and tell you within five minutes who are the athletes, who are the artists, who skateboards, who is popular, and within a very narrow margin of error tell you what type of music any and all of them are listening too on their identical ipods. Identity is designed, fabricated, marketed, bought and sold; and our only possible role in the sequence is as consumers of a product. The same is just as true of Americans at any age of life, from the cradle to the grave we spend our entire lives playing roles designed for us, and that is every bit as true of the middle aged executive working 60 hours a week whose marriage is slowly disintegrating and whose children not so secretly loathe him (or her) as it is of the teenage stuck in a dead end job or the elderly person watching the price of their prescription drugs skyrocket even as their fixed income completely fails to keep pace.

All of us are gears in the machine, and all of us know it at the cores of our beings. We are lower then wild animals; we have been broken, domesticated, castrated, and set to graze until we are called in for the slaughter. We beg the wolves for protection and they obligingly promise to protect us from all the other wolf packs, and even while we watch them consuming the live of our friends and neighbors we huddle together and reassure ourselves that if only we’re very good sheep and work very hard we’ll come out all right in the end. Worst of all, when the call to the slaughter comes, we compete with each other over who gets to go first.

We hate ourselves. From before we could talk we have been told that we are not good enough as we are and one of the interesting things about humans is that they will believe anything if they hear it enough. The most powerful weapon of the slave master is the mind of the slave, after all. We know we are stupid, weak, ineffectual, and need strong leaders to keep us safe from each other and from Johnny foreigner because we have been told so since we could remember. And if we think so lowly of ourselves, you can be damn sure we don’t think so highly of our neighbors either. There are few things that are more useful to tyrants then subjects that hate and fear one another; and one of those few is having subjects who believe that, while maybe they and their friends are all right, the vast majority of the country is stupid and couldn’t possibly be trusted with freedom since they’d only mess it up anyway. So it is that rich (mostly Anglo) whites despise poor (mostly non-Anglo) white people, who are taught to fear and hate black people, and black people are forced to compete for scarce jobs and economic resources with Chicano’s or Asians, and so on down the line. We fear each other and we compete with each other, cooperation against common enemies is simply not an option.

Societies with internal cohesion and structure – where things like Families (for instance) are not just empty clichés but actually the basic functional social unit, capable of competing directly with States for the loyalty of the people – are much harder to rule; and have in fact been one of the basic structures of every revolutionary movement in human history. One of the chief aims of the American ruling class for over a century, therefore, has been their destruction. With the exception of unassimilated immigrant minority groups, “family” in america no longer refers to the vast web of social relationships spanning generations and giving meaning and cohesion to all actions, it refers to single generation unit incapable of meeting even basic needs like childcare without the assistance of Capital and the State. Likewise “Community” which for thousands of years has been a more extended version of the extended family – a network of life-long relationships, obligations, and support – has been reduced to functional nonexistence. People use the word today to refer to things as ephemeral as a loose group of people who share a common interest or identity characteristic and forget that it once meant something incomparably larger and more powerful. By breaking down any and all social infrastructure that could provide any meaning, strength, or identity outside of the marketplace, America has created every capitalists wet dream – a nation full of people who don’t know who they are, where they come from, or what they believe; and whose self loathing is only exceeded by their hatred and fear of each other. Not only is each of these things an opportunity to sell a product, but together they virtually guarantee that the sheep will remain sheep since it is impossible for them to see themselves or each other as anything else. And – to add insult to injury – they tell us that the fact that we are deprived of these basic necessary social relationships makes us “individuals” and that the choice of prefabricated lifestyles makes us “free.” This last point is critical because it is the final lock and chain that guarantees our submission - as Harriet Tubman pointed out it is impossible to free someone who refuses to believe that they are not already free. In reality, we are just as free as a cow on a slaughterhouse ranch – we may not have shackles on our feet but that’s only because the farmer knows just how strong the fence is.

We the people – the vast majority who work day to day and whose flesh and bone feeds the machines – have no say in any of this. No one asks cows or sheep what they think of their role in the economy and no one cares. We are resources to be exploited, expended, and disposed of – nothing more or less. There is no social contract between rich and poor and there never has been, and the moment we begin to believe that there is we become like the dog that is beaten every day and still begs for scraps from its masters hand. Freedom would mean an end to crouching and whining submissively – it would require bold action, remembering our instinct to rebel and springing for the throat come hell or high water. That instinct, however, has been bred out of us as thoroughly as it has been bred out of every domesticated animal, and because we are intelligent we remember what happens to those foolish enough to fight back. There are two ways to go, one is the quiet life where you slowly but surely work yourself to death in order to provide for your children who will in turn do the same for your grandchildren and so on; and the other is perhaps more exciting but also much shorter and more brutal. True to our instincts as herd animals, most Americans don’t even have to stop and consider which of these they prefer, and that choice is demonstrated every morning of every day when millions of us wake up to alarm clocks and commute through gridlock to jobs we hate for bosses we despise. Every day all of us – the collective herd of herds that is the global working class – makes a choice, and that choice is to sell another irreplaceable day from the finite collection of days we are all allotted in exchange for the basic necessities we need to repeat that choice again tomorrow. For over 200 years radicals have looked at this daily ritual and screamed out with hearts full of love and rage that it cannot continue, that someday we the people must say enough is enough and put an end to it. And every day they have woken up to see the same ritual repeated.

It is entirely possible that that golden day may never come, that we will all remain sheep until the ranch itself is finally obliterated by ecological, financial, or other collapse - taking us all with it. It is also, theoretically at least, possible that the system will collapse some how and that we may decide to run things a bit differently without ever having had to actively overthrow the current system (most likely though it would just mean a new pack of wolves running things). In the mean time, however, if we the sheep (err people) decide that we’d like to keep our wool (thank you very much) and that we don’t particularly feel like becoming cold cuts, it might be a good idea to at least consider laying aside our sheepishness and reminding the wolves that – all metaphors aside – we the people really are the most powerful force on the planet, and when we stand up together we can accomplish anything. Even freedom. The question is, how the hell do we stand up together when there is no coherent “we” to convince to stand? And the answer is… I have no fucking clue. But maybe it would be a good idea to start looking for a new definition of “we.” Which is a lot easier said then done but really, what the hell we might as well give it a shot, gods know we’ve tried everything else.

---

[1] http://www.mental-health-matters.com/articles/article.php?artID=220

letter from Mexico

> Date: Saturday, July 30, 2005
> Time: 3:09 AM EST
>
> Email address: xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
> Subject: website feedback
>
>
> visitor_name2: Christian
>
> Comment: Hi partner, i hope you can understand me, i
> am not a native english speaker. I live in Mexico
> city.
>
> I just wanna greet you. I really love your music and
> your work, your lyrics are awesome!! I mean it.
>
> And well, i think you really do what you think.
>
> I am glad you help anarchists prisioners.
>
> It is also good that we can download books, music,
> video, etc, from you webside without paying, because
> some people force people to pay them. That is not
> good, they only want profit.
>
> And not all people have a check count or a credit
> card for paying them, especially in countries like
> in Mexico. I donot have any credit card, and i
> wouldnt pay any cent to fake¨"anarchists" who want
> me to pay them money 4 downloading their music.
>
> I am glad you do not do that, you are a real
> anarchist, i admire your work.
>
> Well, here in Mexico i have participated in several
> political actions, such as UNAMs strike in
> 1999-2000. We have to continue till we destroy the
> fucking state and capitalists.
>
> Ok, that is all my friend, keep going, because here
> in mexico we will continue. Just as you say in a
> bullet in a chamber: We need unity of porpouse, no
> more race divisions.
>
> FUCK ANY state.
> FUCK capitalists.
> ¡Muerte al estado, que viva la anarquía!
> ¡Ni dios, ni amo, ni marido ni partido!
>
> Take care brother, see ya!!

christian,

thank you for the letter and for the feedback.
getting letters like yours is what makes me want to
keep making music.

don't ever stop fighting!

solidarity!
lynx