Omar heads down to ‘Un-convention’, a series of discussions that form part of the Roundhouse Rising lineup, and draws some tidy conclusions..
Political and “conscious” music isn’t new. Think Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Gil Scott-Heron, John Lennon and Public Enemy. These artists, however, represent the past. The mainstream music of the last twenty years has seen a gradual increase in everything materialistic and hedonistic.
Social media sites have played a big part in raising awareness about new sub-genres of music that were not widely known about. They have given a voice to many artists who would otherwise still be “underground” and helped galvanise support for them.
This was one of the subjects of discussion at Un-Convention, a series of music events at The Roundhouse, Camden, on Saturday 11 February.
One of the first talks was on “the politicisation of music” and on the panel were: Dizraeli, a rapper and spoken word artist; Steve Ignorant, founder of the former anarcho-punk group, Crass; Jon Mcclure aka the Reverend, lead singer of Reverend and The Makers; and Sowetu Kinch, jazz musician and rapper.
Much of the discussion centred around what constituted success in music. Is Lil Wayne actually bigger and more successful than the political rapper Immortal Technique, just because “Weezy” has more Youtube views and is endorsed by the mainstream?
For Sowetu Kinch, success isn’t measured on “how many people listen to my music” but that “it is better that five people listen to my music and understand it, than loads of people listening to it and not understanding it”.
Dizraeli thinks one of the reasons why Immortal Technique isn’t as well known in many places across the world is because “he doesn’t have the universality of Lady Gaga” and “he yells in your face and accuses you of things”.
For the Reverend, the best political songs were ones that allowed the listener to dance to it, while “lyrics are going into your head and you don’t know it, all while you’re dancing to it”. In the last five to 10 years, however, there have been no massive political artists, according the Reverend. Furthermore, he believes that musicians should be free to write songs about what they want and not be forced to stay in their box. “Although I feel passionate about Palestine, I still love my bird [girlfriend],” he said.
But what happened to the notorious political bands like Public Enemy, who were, according to Kinch, “physically dragged away by their neck [out of the music scene]”? Was it because they were, in Dizraeli’s words, “considered a threat by the FBI”? This was the discussion of the next talk at The Roundhouse: “Political hip-hop”.
The “Political hip-hop” talk featured panellists Dean Atta, poet and writer; Zia Ahmed, spoken word artist; Bridget Minamore, also a spoken word artist; Sowetu Kinch (yes, again) and Dizraeli (yes, again – although he took the place of rapper, Lowkey, who pulled out of the event last minute, much to the disappointment of a group of girls who came especially to see him).
Strangely, while the talk was on political hip-hop, the word “Palestine” was brought up time and time again. It was almost as if the word, or perhaps the “cause”, has become completely synonymous with political hip-hop. Aren’t there other conflicts around the world apart from that in the Middle East?
One of the main problems facing hip-hop artists, according to Minamore, is that of “censorship”. Why is it, Minamore asks, that she is told not to mention “Palestine” in her spoken word performances to young children, for fear that it will “anger” them, but, as she has experienced, performers can get away with talking about “gang rape” to young children? There seems to be a contradiction if not blatant hypocrisy. What justifies one topic being appropriate and the other not? The problem for Atta is that “artists are used to tick boxes” and this is wrong.
Kinch, who believes the primal message of hip-hop has been “perverted”, maintains that the most important thing for a hip-hop artist is to be “honest” and simply “good at what you do”. Why is it, for example, that the “intellectual” hip-hop artist Common refers to women as “bit****” and black people as “nig***” in his new album? Kinch believes the answer is simple: money.
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@omar_shahid
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