A Tree Never Grown

By zach • December 8, 2006 • Words is Like Ziti

Following the murder of Amadou Diallo, more than 30 artists, including Mos Def, Pharaohe Monch, De La Soul and Kool G Rap, came together to make a response EP with 4 songs dedicated to Diallo’s murder, and police brutality and its affect on Black and Hip-Hop people. Following the murder of Sean Bell, only one song has been released in response! (“50 shots” by Papoose- respect to Nas for offering to chip in for the funeral expenses). In a time when mix tapes are released hours after shootings, arrests, and altercations, the explanation could hardly be concern over biding time for proper context. This lack of response by the Hip-Hop community led me to think about how the police have been emphasized in ’06 Hip-Hop through the “Stop Snitchin” campaign. Hip-Hop has revised its disgust for the police. KRS and PE labeled the police, as did the Panthers or the Chicago 7, as an occupying army state that serves in the interest of punishment rather than justice. Today much of Hip-Hop simply demonizes Police as a roadblock for illegal activity.

Within the snitching craze it is members of one’s own community who have been demonized by being connected to the most powerful and dangerous gang of all – the police. It is much like the informants who infiltrated organizations during the COINTELPRO period. However, there is a big difference between ranting to J. Edgar Hoover about the Panthers and talking to the police about getting a drug dealer off the block where your children play! What has been altered is the solidarity that a community can find through the necessary protection from the police.

Things have changed. Patrolling social groups and armed resistance are less plausible in a society whose enforcers have learned how to avoid serious social outcry. Sixty years ago this murder would not have made the news; today it is handled with the careful hands of invested media and politically correct politicians. This context creates a need for combatence, which couples structural change with a moral awakening. The power structure has figured out how to make traditional American rebellion (protests, marches) nearly obsolete in its effect on governing bodies, as well as its relevance in the public eye. Fear of a potential of civilian rebellion has led to a limiting of significant spheres in which one can speak openly. However, one of the most genuinely grass roots movements of today is Hip-Hop radio and mix tape circuits, which serve as a direct line to the people.

Hip-Hop is in the midst of an age where cause and art are married by money. To utilize the pipeline of a voice created by mix tapes and other new forms of Hip-Hop industry we must support a cause and utilize influence for something bigger. If artists who don’t even go gold can use their underground voice to have every kid in the country wearing stop signs and snowmen on their tees, the potential obviously exists. The question is- where is the response? If it is simply a wailing of pain and outrage I want to know that an event like the death of Sean Bell affects Hip-Hop.

*late editors note:
funds and letters to support the family of Sean Bell (who had no life insurance at the time of his death) can be sent in name of his fiance, Nicole Paultre to the following address

Attn: Bishop Lester Williams
Community Church of Christ
167-04 108th Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11433-2431

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