3 Dope Songs To Raise Your Consciousness During this Troubling Week

Someone was complaining the other day about lack of consciousness in Hip Hop… He wanted to know where all the good emcees are? I asked him where he was checking? In the age of consolidation, corporate tyranny and a desire to dumb down the masses and make them consummate consumers, did he expect to hear consistent consciousness on ‘pop culture outlets?’.. When you have companies like Viacom and Time Warner holding investments in private prisons why would you expect to hear and see folks telling you to fight the power? Those outlets are in fact the power you should be fighting.

If we are to learn anything from the recent NSA spying drama, is that a whole lot of corporations  are trying to cash in on the multi-billion dollar a year prison-police-security industrial complex.  Much of our corporate media is in the business of serving as a PR Firm vs being an investigative news agency for Draconian policies.

With that in mind, I wanted to alert folks  via our 3 Dope Songs series of some bumping joints that are floating around raising consciousness. The fight for social justice has not gone away..Hip Hop on this level is as it was years ago, its being meticulously created, nurtured and ready to be embraced by all.. Below are 3 songs that fit the bill and will let you know without a shadow of a doubt.. Intelligence is alive and well and fighting the power is daily occurrence..

First up is Hakim Green from the group Channel Live.. This brother stays on the grind, not just as an emcee, but as an activist. He goes directly to the heart of the problem and stays involved. If we have violence in the community, Hakim is there working directly with those causing the chaos. If we say we need political change, Hakim ir right there.. Here’s a video he just put out to a song called Secrets.. enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x-spwOjr5A&feature=youtu.be

Next up is Wise Intelligent from Poor Righteous Teachers.. This cat still has one of the illest flows and ultra sharp lyrics.. I wish more folks would try and include him as a guest on their records.. I also love the concepts that Wise brings to the table.. Peep this video to the song ‘I said It‘ which will make you reflect on the George Zimmerman trial which just started today and the mindset of people who think and act like him and what he did to Trayvon Martin..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw5tIHMhmLs

This next video is from a sister named Narubi Selah.. I first saw this earlier this year and was surprised more folks ain’t hold it up.. She comes with some hard edge lyrics that’ll definitely make you rewind to catch what she just spit… I’m loving this song ‘Hookless‘ and I hope you do as well. Look for her album The Architect: Sacred Geometry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUGjuPQ4A8&feature=youtu.be

Mumu Dosea

I’m gonna leave outta here with a bonus song from this dope emcee from Australia. Her name is Muma Dosea.. If there’s one album I’m serious looking forward to, its her.. I’m literally counting the days for her masterpiece called Ms Fortune.. she has a sampler which is free download.. But the cut for me to get you going is a song called Walk Alone.. I wish she had a video for it.. I think I’ll make a public appeal..Also if you get a chance check out her weekly radio show Hip Sister Hop which airs Mondays from 1-2pm Australian time.. That can be found here…http://www.3cr.org.au/hipsistahop

https://soundcloud.com/muma-doesa/walk-alone-feat-ruth-rogers

 

3 Dope Songs from Aisha Fukushima the Raptavist

Aisha Fukushima is an emcee,  singer, poet and self-proclaimed ‘RAPtivist’ (rap activist) hailing from Seattle, Washington / Yokohama, Japan. Aisha graduated from Whitman College in 2009 with an honors degree in Rhetoric and Film Studies and minors in French and Gender Studies.

Upon graduating, Aisha travelled the world on a Watson Fellow and created an international ‘RAPtivism’ (rap activism) project. Having lived in cities as diverse as Bangalore, Casablanca, London, Dakar, Cape Town and Copenhagen, she is constantly working to expand her knowledge of the intersections between hip hop and social justice around the globe.

Aisha has been writing and performing poetry and original music for over ten years. She has also established several community-based youth programs in Washington including the ‘Turn Off The Stereotypes’ project and the Whitman Institute of Summer Enrichment (WISE).

In addition to working with The Workshop, Aisha teaches middle schoolers in the San Francisco public school district, writes articles for New America Media and is working on a documentary film about her international ‘RAPtivism’ journey. In her free time, she enjoys learning new languages, visiting the farmers market and beatboxing. To learn more about her current work, visit http://raptivism.tumblr.com

Big shout out to Aisha for generously lending her talents for our Beats for the Revolution Mixtapes on Women and the Occupy Movements where she gave she provided us with some incredible drops and speech excerpts.. Also much props to her for providing us with key names for our Ultimate List of Female Emcees which she is a part of..

Here’s a recent Hard Knock Radio Interview we did with Aisha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSRr9Nqxdz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHpO2YSFges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IRMsckH66o

5 Videos that Remind Us Hip Hop is Not Dead #2 From Eternia to Medusa & Beyond

Eternia

Canadian born Eternia has been making a lot of noise lately. Seems like every time she hits the stage she brings high energy and leaves an indelible impression. I love this song ‘Goodbye’ which is off the album ‘At Last‘, but I think she has harder material. For example, I wish she had a video for the remake she, Jean Grae, Rah Digga, Lady of Rage and Tiye Phoenix did of the Main Source classic ‘Live at the BBQ‘. She aslo has a song where she uses the beat from theDr Dre / Snoop Dogg classic ‘Deep Cover’.  For this video Eternia writes its a tale of industry vs. art through the eyes of Eternia, wherein she learns to trust her struggle, backed by MoSS’s post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world sonic imagery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQxKzmi2fHg&ob=av2e

Say what you will about Nicki Minaj, but I love the way she flipped Biggie’s classic Warning. There’s no denying the girl can flow and her lyrics to this song are good as she gave us an insightful female perspective to this tale of grit and grime. Personally I wanna see more remakes of songs, just to hear and see the way folks flip them..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MItv-PTKaE

Pittsburgh artist Kellee Miaze remakes the Mobb Deep classic 'Survival of the Fittest'

Kellee Maize is one of the best kept secrets in Pittsburgh. Not only is she a dope rapper who always pushes the envelop with politicized lyrics, she also is a local promoter. For years she’s been the force behind Nakturnal which was space where female emcees could come through and let loose. Her album Age of Feminine is dope and an underground classic. Her latest one ‘Aligned Archetype‘ has been explosive garnering over 300, 000 downloads.

The video below was inspired by Mobb Deep‘s ‘Survival of the Fittest‘. She said she always loved the group and especially this song. She wanted to experiment and see what it would be like to mimic their flow and add her own lyrical take. The cut is called ‘Revival of the Fifth Sun‘ and according to Maize was hard to do. She noted its easy to write for yourself. Its a challenge to try to go word for word with the same cadence as someone else. She would love to one day redo the song with Mobb Deep on it.. Here’s her version of this classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcMVio4O9-Y

Medusa w/ KRS-One

The Queen of LA Hip Hop is Medusa. She’s the one who gave birth to all these emcees. Her reign dates way back to the Good Life in the early 90s when she used to step to the mic and destroy emcees to now where she still performs to packed houses all over the world.. In this video,she’s still repping as you can see with this live version of Cali Frame taken off her last album ‘Gangsta Goddess’. She is by far one of the most underrated and talented emcees around. She was rocking mics with a band long before the many who have jumped in that lane. Salute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1GrL9TlVQQ

Invincible

There’s not enough words to describe why Invincible is dope and such an important figure in Hip Hop for both women and the city of Detroit. This video captures the essence of who is she is-a community activist who has true love for the young people in her city. She penned this about her latest video;

After several months of anticipation, two of Detroit’s most visionary hip-hop figures, Invincible and Waajeed, are finally releasing their single, “Detroit Summer” b/w “Emergence”. The passionate two-song project is not only being put out digitally and in limited edition 7″ vinyl format but it’s also being launched with a powerful double music video as well.

This stunning visual representation of the songs was shot on-site during the historic Allied Media Conference and United States Social Forum this past June in Detroit. The video also documents the Detroit Summer Live Arts Media Project youth program, in which Invincible is heavily involved

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ6qMU7JbBY

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