Hell yeah, everybody gets their eyes wide open when it comes to Hip Hop and its culture. Last week, I had to present a project for my college, “Introduction to Mass-Media” course, and I chose to speak about Hip Hop underneath the title “Hip Hop is NOT a menace to society”. Anyway I was hella nervous because I was the last one who presented his project, and everybody was talking, they were about to leave, they couldn’t wait for the break to go home, so I was kinda upset about that, BUT that didn’t made me fall back a bit. SO, I hit the “stage”, I’m in front of almost 50 people, trying to expose my 1st speech of my life. I started talking about how Hip Hop is being critised for its violence exposure, about how the Media is guilty for promoting the dark side of the game. After that I hit’em with some of Bambaataa’s words “When I first created Hip Hop I made it hoping that it will be about peace, love, unity and fun, so people can forget about the negativity that infect our streets everyday”. After that I already got some eyes pointed at me, even the teacher said sumthin like “Hip Hop is not a bad thing, in France there’s another point of view about Hip Hop, there it is recognized as a culture and as an art”. I said to myself “damn, I never thought she would care about what I say…” Anyways, after that I had to drop some knowledge about the 4 elements of HH. I insisted on Graffiti side, and not so much about MCying and B-boying, but it helped a lot. I wanted to bring arguments to the class, I wanted to make it BIG, so they can see the beautiful part of the game. What I had in my mind was bringing Rakim-The Mistery(Who’s God?) VS 50 Cent-Candy Shop, then Immortal Technique-4th branch VS Ying Yang Twinz-Wait, but it wouldn’t worked, because we weren’t allowed with music or a tape deck. Even though I didn’t had the chance to do that (I’m sure it would’ve knocked them out), I was asked why I don’t speak about the bad side, the violent part of rap game. My reply was “It’s the media who does that, but let me tell you why:” then real quick I introduced them to 1992 when The Chronic was dropping, then I spoke a bit about the major labels and their power to manipulate the artists, why their albums on an individual label are great and the ones released on major labels are wack. Why Hip Hop developed as an art and now is the victim of an indrusty, why it is being exploited. I tried to show them what Underground means, revearse to their thoughts of being a movement of weak artists with shitty lyrics that don’t get a deal. When I dropped the names of Immortal Technique, Talib Kweli, Common, Zion I, Paris, Bizzy Bone they were confused, but when I said “Kanye West”, they were like “OH, that’s cool”. WHY?!? Because of the media, they don’t get to know such artists, but it’s good that one of them made it to their ears, eventhough is not the best…
Now that I got everybody’s attention I had the best material to prove that Hip Hop is about “peace, love, unity, fun, ART”, I brang with me “Lyrical Swords Hip Hop and Politics in the mix” by Adisa Banjoko. Of course I had to praise myself that I got the book with a gorgeus authograph , but after that I told’em about some of the articles you can find there. I didn’t get to talking much about the book because people already raised and were ready to leave (and I was BLACK about it), but my teacher said “let’s try to hear what he got to say till the end”, but I told’em about “Art vs The artist, What’s Love?Everything, Killing our queens”.Now the book is at some girls from my class that hit me after the course and were curious about how did “one like me got to speak with the author”…I guess through God and through Nima from dubcnn, I got the best time of my life. The beautiful thing is I got understood, and I hope they won’t say anymore “this 50, this G unit, this Snoop is real hip hop”, I hope they’ll see from now on who the PIMP is (media) and who has to suffer, that’s us, out girls, our families, our society. Remember :
HIP HOP IS NOT A MENACE TO SOCIETY!!!

If you love Hip Hop as much as I do, check more about its complexity and beauty at
www.lyricalswords.com and www.netweed.com/lyricalswords

Even if I wanted this to be a song, without a mic it will never see the light so here’s some of the lyrics that I wanted to put there as a dedication for The Samurai:

Even though you fight great, he’s a great fighter
Always expect the unexpected, cause swords strikes harder than Tyson
What he dislike is ignorance
Is like you’re holding a child and you let
him fall from a building.
Make love not war, but make a war with yourself to love
You’re the teacher, you hold the mightier pen
We the students we take advice and break the pain.
Holla at a scholla, not holla at a dawg
Round here no crip and no blood
All we share is peace and love.
A black lions heart lays in a mechanical body
Pumping gold fists in my mentality
Making me wondering/ why in the devils eye
It is written “In God we trust”
I think it is our faith that we lost
Just like Sun Tzi, “Victory can be created”
As long as you write about how to love not how to be hated!

The title was/is “Alone in a war” but…without mic it’s just poetry
Thank You, Adisa “The Wise Ronin” Banjoko

One Luv