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.