“Lyrical Swords: Hip Hop and Politics in the Mix vol. I” this is the name of the book written about Adisa Banjoko(The Bishop of Hip Hop for those who don’t know that).The book not only represents a collection of essays and good interviews but it holds also an impulse to open ourselves to Hip Hop culture and to culture in general.
Since the beggining it expose yourself to the power of knowledge that is being held under the name WORD(from here i guess “Lyrical”.
“In my youth I was taught that the pen is mightier than the sword” after reading this sentence i told to myself “What i was taught in my youth and who taught me?” And I knew the answer, I will always know it, my parents, me, hip hop, and again me…From this sentence i started to think about the real power of the word and its impact on pple’s mentalities.
Lyrical Swords touches the aspects of today’s world, our society issues, our path in finding our spirituality and besides, the support that Hip Hop culture should have nowadays.
All that we find in the book should concern us generaly speaking, even if you represent or not the Black comunity, so the book is dedicated to all kind of pple all of ages. Lyrical Swords opens itself with 3 big chapters:
“Hip Hop, Politics and Society”
“The rising Sun:Hip Hop & spirituality”
“Random reflections”
What am i going to do right now is just to show some quotes from the book and try to explain,(as i understood them) and show why is its reading so important. “The myth of the hip hop protest” reveals our(actually it is about American Government, but it’s the same everywhere so…) government intentions to manipulate the society. Check this out:
“These days, we’re being told when we can protest, how long, what penalties we can expect for our misbehaviour”. Isn’t it so? think about it, we should realise that going out in the street for sustain our own opinions and needs is OUR decision for OUR lives, it shouldn’t be taken as a misbehaviour…think about it! Also the mighty swords stands for our women rights, about the inadecvate treatment to them, about the offenses brang to them even on “tell-lievision” way. The books shows the sadly face of the art that has become an industry and the struggle between The art vs The artist. Artists (i mean those who have no intention for doing art in its pure sense) today play a role for their managers just like puppets, the art that falls beneath stupidity and some manager’s wealth. It’s like this “You wanna make music, sell from your trunk, you wanna sell records, be wack!” …anyway this is my opinion but let’s see what’s Bishop has to say:
“Sadly, a lot of today’s artists are just kicking up dust because they have no talent. Pretty soon we’ll be buying records because of their rap sheets, not their ability to rap.” The art regressed in bussiness, the bussiness regressed in industry, and i think it’s already begin to be stupidity. “Hip Hop media is largely to blame for this phenomenon.Today’s journalists either sensationalize rappers’ personal lives or expect artists to be the next political saviors to people.”
And this is not happening only in hip hop, you can say it’s happening on all types of art(music,painting,theathre,film,etc.) The media often tries to expose us only one side of the Moon, you know what i mean? They’re trying to show us what’s good and what’s bad…but there’s nuthing good most of the time. It is very dangerous how the audience raise high in front of bad art and stupidity.
This is something i can’t just pass by, because I’ve confronted myself many times with situations like these, and many of us did being them Black or not as i said.
“A man found that his axe was missing, and suspected his neighbour’s son for having taken it.Observing the youth walking around, the man was convinced that this was the walk of a thief.The youth looked like a thief and talked like a thief, everything he did pointed to his having stolen the axe. Then one day the man happened to find his missing axe. After that, he noticed his neighbour’s son wasn’t behaving like a thief anymore.” We all have confronted with such problems even if we played the neighbour’s son role or the man whose axe was missing, one way or another we felt very bad about it, that’s why we have to read, to know sumthing about before hurting the other.
What many hip hop listeners and fans don’t know is that Hip Hop culture never promoted violence or sustained it, although gangsta rap and rap beefs are on pple minds when you stand for hip hop. On “The rising Sun: hip hop & spirituality” chapter you can find interviews and themes about martial arts (AS A ART FORM) and about our expose to spirituality and philosophies… I have to mention here Russel Simmons’ words after a yoga class: “When you come out of class, until that first car horn blows, your priorities are rearranged. You’re more in touch with your higher self for a few minutes. You feel an allegiance to something much greater. Then the horn blows and you go back to fighting and screaming. But over time, it starts to set in.” Just imagine how great would be if we could give some time to our innerselfs! imagine how would it be if “OVER TIME, IT STARTS TO SET IN.” I must say that this chapter has so many impulses to our souls and our mind reflection that’s why i love it. I have to reveal Willy’s Cahill words from a beautiful interview you can also find in Lyrical Swords:
“It’s gonna take us all to start working together. There is a problem in every phase of the American way. Not only in our sports system, but even in the government. We’re not working together as one unit. We like to get noticed, that we’re the one that did this and we’re the one winning. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. We have to work together to help each other and we have to have our own identity.”
This kind of thinking should spider-web our minds if we want the best for us and our families.(i wanted to keep that quote for ending but i was feeling it now)
The chapter is full of dope interviews with hip hop legends as Q-Tip, Paris, Encore and they all speak about the Islam culture, about what made some turn into and how Islam is helping them. Oh, I almost forgot about the beautiful words of Ben from France: “The world needs to keep on moving and we, the people living on this planet, we got to keep on walking our path and find ways to live in peace and respect searching for real freedom and libertation against oppression…” and what i like the most : “We’ll never agree on everything…but we have work this out and make of our situation over here a better situation cause it looks like the world gone mad.” I really wonder myself what is wrong with humans…really, what’s wrong with us?
I also can’t help my self showing what Amjid Rasool has to say about Hip Hop and what has it becomes :
“We now seem to be moving into a phase where the beauty of hip hop, those that really made it stand out, are slowly being superseded by less productive qualities-e.g. booty, taking your clothes off, guns, bling bling, etc. With such a movement taking place, I fear that it will become harder and harder for the many good, conscious areas of hip hop to come through the masses.” Once again it is the media who takes the fault of not promoting GOOD hip hop.
Last but not least I want to add some words about my opinion in what Paris said in his interview.I’ll quote just some of his words, but my comment will be about his whole interview.
“I especially felt him (Louis Farrakhan) when he spoke of the deities that Christianity embraces as it is practiced here, and the adverse effects that worshipping a White man as a God have on not only Black people, but all people, by making people of color feel inferior and providing Whites with a sense of superiority.”
It is Jesus’ fault that He was created white? (as history and paintings shows Him) God has no color and neither do Jesus. The Bible, The Qu’ran, The Torah, could have been written by regular pple with a big imagination(I just say that to make myself understand). And those who read them, at the begining thought they are prophets, messengers, monks, and those pple(just like us) needed a faith and they started building churches, mosquees, temples, started wars in the name of God (which shouldn’t had place in the 1st place). It could be all just A MAN’S work putted down on paper( It is hard to explain what my thoughts are about but i tried to make myself clear) The thing is God is our NEED FOR EVERYTHING that’s why He exists.
“History can’t be ignored”–exactly. But think about it, there was just SOME white man who rulled the others(white men)…monarchy, remember?
No matter what people had wanted they did their king’s will…so those who enslaved Black pple were the ruthless, greedy ones who wanted nuthin but power and wealth(wealth has always reigned above feelings).
What i mean is in a fight the king(the real “white devil”) sets careful in the back while his(mindless) peasents are fighting for him. At the end he takes the whole glory and the history glorifies his name…Think about it, many of those peasents wouldn’t wanted to be caught in a battle, but if they didn’t they could’ve lost their heads, literally.
(And back then you couldn’t even think about revolution…)
Even I(a white man) think there were white devils, the ones who abused their high places in society, their military power.(We have an example of White Devil right now in 2005, Paris knows better than me)
Another fact I’d like to talk about,is what Paris says about Christianity and White pple (remember i just don’t agree with his words, not that i’m defending all White pple or Christianism generaly, he could’ve said it about Jews or Japanesse, i’d have argued about it anyway. Every night i pray to God, every night, but I pray to God as a man who needs Him, not necessarly as a Christian.)
AB: “Why do you think the N.O.I (Nation of Islam for those who aren’t familiar) is so appealing to Black people and other minorities around the globe?”
P: “Because Whites have used Christianity as a way of controlling and justifying the subjugation of people of color globally. Again the adverse effects that worshipping a White man as a God have on everybody by making people of color feel inferior and providing Whites with a sense of superiority is a very real phenomenon. It is arrogance in its purist form.”
No they didn’t…they used it as a mask to their real intentions of building wealth empires, although Paris makes a lotta sense, but we shouldn’t be called one way or another because of our ancestors bad actions. I always try to put myself in the other’s person situation and try to feel what he’s been going through…everyone should do the same so he can feel what’s all about. I think this is all about, we are predicted to judge an entire race or culture or religion by its bad events, instead of trying to see what’s good about it…
Oh, back then(aprox. 500 years ago) there were FEW leaders(with bad intentions) and MANY followers(today’s regular pple) who had no idea what culture means, who had no revolutionary spirit.
It couldn’t be better for an end than quoting Paris:
“Read and become exposed to different things, don’t buy into the propaganda about Muslims and people of color.Stay strong! Embrace independent thought and look beyond the surface of what you’re given as information everyday. Become Internet savvy and learn the truth about what’s really going on around you. If you get all of your info from TV and the newspaper than you’re ill-informed.Peace!” I really can’t say no more than that is way more to talk about the book and about the facts that appears in it. In contradiction to its author i must say it isn’t “just a chicken scratch”, letting the modesty away it represents a real socio-politic essay filled with Hip Hop culture (remember CULTURE) and spiritualism. I MUST thank this way Adisa Banjoko for being William Forrester to me (i hope you saw “Finding Forrester” the film) and i’m real serious about it when i say he has been more than a teacher to me…all those speaking on the internet wasn’t just chat, it is more like an everyday lesson. I’d love to thank him for giving me the opportunity for reading Lyrical Swords (btw is the 1st book in other language that I’ve read), for making me feel that if i put my mind into I will conquer another level, for all those shoutouts(that means so much to me) for having the patience to talk and play chess with me, for giving me those sites and interviews from where i learned so much…Actually I’ve turned into Hip Hop in the past 8 months that I ever did it in 4 years. Without you Adisa I wouldn’t have heard of Public Enemy(in the way i shoulded), Talib Kweli, Krs One, Immortal Technique, Zion I, Dead Prez, Mad Skillz, Dilated Peoples,etc. I mean I had some of them before…but I was too much concerned about gangsta, about ego and the darkside of Hip Hop. I’d really love to thank you for helping me so much and I hope I didn’t make you feel bad because of this writing.

Big SHOUTOUT to Nima at www.dubcnn.com For real man, even if we didn’t spoke too much you are really a great guy…remember when we talked about Kokane and about dreams come true…well I must say one of mine did come true thanks to you and of course The Bishop.

I will always look forward for swords that are meant to heal, not to kill!

Adisa I will always follow your words on the book.

“Cause i’m a hip hop BBAAAAABBBYYYYYYYY—from the heart i never flipped-out BAAABBBYY”