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Inspiring Dialogue: An Interview With Jeff Chang
[by Scott Thill]
"Hip-hop historian" may not roll off the tongue as smooth as the blinged-out rap game's ubiquitous Cristal champagne, but it packs a much harder punch, as well as the benefit of studied cultural experience. Which is another way of saying that Jeff Chang, as well as his new book Can't Stop Won't Stop (out now in paperback), may not have directed 50 Cent's latest video, but he knows more about hip-hop than you probably do. Not only has the journo helped launch the careers of hip-hop heavyweights like Blackalicious and DJ Shadow as a honcho for the legendary indie rap label Solesides, but he's worked with everyone from Russell Simmons to William Upski Wimsatt to take hip-hop legit in the new millennium. And he didn't need a flak jacket to do it either.
Morphizm: How did you first get into hip-hop?
Jeff Chang: I was a wee boy growing up in the suburbs of Honolulu, Hawaii and came to hip-hop the same way time other kids did, when it went mainstream with films like Beat Street, Breakin' and of course Wild Style and Style Wars.
So I got into graffiti, and organized a graffiti art show at my high school; it was a pretty big deal, definitely a first for the islands.
I remember that when I went off to Berkeley for school the next year, my mom -- who worked in the police department -- sent me clippings from the front page of newspapers claiming that graffiti was becoming a social problem, an eyesore and whatnot for the islands. It was hilarious, because all of the people I had organized had taken over the islands. Many of them actually became world famous.
Morphizm: Public Enemy had the ability to amp people up and make them into activists, but I feel that kind of motivation seems to be missing nowadays.
JC: I don't agree. There are cats like William Upski Wimsatt and the League of Pissed-Off Young Voters who are perfect examples of the kinds of activism that hip-hop can still inspire. The interesting thing is that, even though we know the mainstream media is bad enough, much of the leftist media out there is beating up on hip-hop as well. And the left has become increasingly backwards-looking. They are the ones who have moved the country's discourse farther to the middle, while the youth of America became the "Deaniacs," the shock troops that have implemented change. And yet when Bush won, everyone wanted to blame the youth vote. It was either they turn out in big enough numbers or worse, they didn't turn out all, despite the fact that it was they who were once again abandoned by both parties. So I feel there just some analysis we have to have.
Morphizm: At what point did you decide you had to write a book about this?
JC: After the demise of Solesides, I had nothing to do with my life, although I'm a person who wants to create. And I started in hip-hop journalism in 1991, which is the same year Ice Cube's Death Certificate came out, which would go on to have a huge influence on not just me but all of hip-hop. In the traditional sense, it's not a politically correct album, so when it came out, even a huge hip-hop fan like myself had trouble assimilating "Black Korea," for example. Being in what I call the Third World left at the time, I was pissed off. I thought we were all in the same gang! It shook me up, and over the years, I've had a changing relationship to it. So anyway I was writing from 1991 to 1996, and got a Master's in Asian American Studies at UCLA. The week before I was about to start my graduate program in Sociology at Berkeley , I decided not to do it. I couldn't articulate it at the time, but it didn't feel right. So I withdrew and jumped whole hog into Solesides, stopping the writing in order to avoid ethical issues. By 1997, I had run the business into the ground and it came time to end it. All of the other guys got together and kicked me out of the nest and just encouraged me to get out and do my thing. Which is where the idea for the book came about, deciding to summarize everything I had experienced with hip-hop. I was also sick of having conversations with older activists who were nostalgic for their own days, and constantly questioned what our generation was trying to do. I also realized that there was a gap that needed to be filled there, how the culture of hip-hop fit into my generation's experience. So I put together a proposal and shopped it around, and everyone hated it. After a ton of rejection, I put it on the backburner and went to work with Russell Simmons at 360hiphop.com. At this point, Russell was becoming a civic participant -- literally, because he hadn't voted before. At the same time, there was a new surge of activism in New York around 2000, centered around the Diallo and Louima abuse cases, and I was also getting a chance to soak up what happened in the Bronx in the 1968, which was directly connected through Ice Cube's Death Certificate to the problems of 2000. Once I found that arc, I found a home for the book.
Morphizm: How do you feel the book stands as a history of hip-hop compared to others?
JC: I'm a big fan of hip-hop scholarship, although I'm also very critical of it. I wanted to move more sideways when writing this book. When you get down to it, hip-hop is two things: a living local culture and a mediated global culture, and most lean toward the latter.
Morphizm: Do you feel that its appropriation by global culture has made it hard for local movements to use the culture and be taken seriously?
JC: No, I'm not a pessimist. For the last few years, I've been cooped up in a little room writing this book, but it was only weeks ago that I stepped out into the community and found progressive movements cropping up everywhere, whether in Richmond or Oakland or wherever. Because every five years, kids come up on the block and take ownership of hip-hop, before getting older, moving on and making way for the next set.
Morphizm: It's nice to see in your book that you can be critical of hip-hop just as you can of the dominant culture, especially in the Ice Cube section. There is a newer sense that you can call out your own and hold them accountable.
JC: Absolutely. With NWA, Davey D and Kevy Kev launched a nationwide boycott, which was no small thing. There have been points at which voices within hip-hop have mounted internal oppositions to what they feel is bad for the movement as a whole. We do have to be critical of our stuff, and that's where I think much of hip-hop activism has come from. But you are talking about an uneven playing field when you're pitching 50 Cent against Angela Davis. It's hard to compete with all that money.
Morphizm: How did working with Solesides expose you to the business side of hip-hop?
JC: That's a really good question. It was an interesting time to start Solesides, because we were trying to fly the indie flag. I was engaged for about four years in setting up what I had romanticized as an independent structure like those that punk rock had put together at labels like SST, Twin Tone, Matador and so on. I was hoping that, together, we could build it, but it didn't work. We came in too late, during the period where media deregulation kicked in big-time. There were ceaseless mergers creating media monopolies. Solesides was distributed through INDI, which went bankrupt during deregulation, and we lost a lot of money. All of the indie distributors were being eaten alive, and we weren't really thinking too much about it at the time, but it was huge. Epic. And it has a lot to do with what you're hearing on the radio today.
Morphizm: How big an influence do you feel Public Enemy has had on hip-hop?
JC: Their influence has been incalculable. They appealed to street kids, college students and older leftists who longed for the halcyon days of black nationalism. And they redefined the sound of hip-hop along the way, making them the pinnacle of rap's golden age. They moved units and moved the crowd.
Morphizm: How about Cube?
JC: To me, he was the guy who could spit like mad; he had humor, rage, and wit, and could communicate all of it in a few lines. He is endlessly fascinating, because he always finds his way into the middle of where the river is going. Maybe less so musically, but culturally he has an unerring sense of where hip-hop is headed. I grew up with him.
Morphizm: Last question: What do you hope people take away from this book?
JC: For older folks, I hope they realize that hip-hop is larger than the pop music they see on VH1 and the Grammys. It's also a worldview, and it's hard to get that message out sometimes. So I hope that they see it as something other than a narrow music book. I hope it inspires a dialogue over the ways that the generation gap has calcified into bad policy and regressive politics. For the hip-hop generation I describe in the book, I hope they see some of themselves in it.
January 23, 2006
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ANTHRAX
"I Am the Law"
From: Alive 2
See Also:
Public Enemy
QT WMA
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE:
"Soul Meets Body"
From: Plans
AUDIO: WMA REAL
See Also: Transatlanticism
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB:
"Ain't No Easy Way"
From: Howl
AUDIO: MP3 REAL QT WM
See Also:
Black Rebel Motorycle Club
MINUS THE BEAR:
"The Game Needed Me"
From: Menos El Orso
MP3
WOLF PARADE
From: Apologies to the Queen Mary
LISTEN: "Shine a Light"
MP3
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