Hip-hop nation

Do you think we'll see this presence at the next election?

Absolutely. Every day we're getting a step further. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is important because they stepped out there. Criticism from people like me is pushing them to go further. Before the criticism, they did not support Ras Baraka [son of playwright Amiri Baraka and a city council candidate in Newark], they did not talk about reparations. They're becoming more radical because the conversation is becoming more radical. And you're going to see more.

One of the things about hip-hop is the desire to be authentic. And they know it. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network knows they need to be authentic. Their days are numbered if they're not. Don't get me wrong, Russell should be applauded -- he has the resources and he stepped out there and a lot of people who have those kinds of resources have not done the same. But we need to do more.

The problem is that the local and student activists can't come in as cheerleaders. They have to come in in a serious leadership capacity. This is going to mean shaking things up. And it might mean that Ben Muhammad won't be the leader.

Do you think that race is downplayed in politics now?

The conversation about race has gotten redundant. Definitely, there's a tendency to shy away. There's no better indication than the platforms of the political parties for the last three or four elections. Race is just a nonissue. Some folks feel that having blacks visible makes it easier to not make it a conversation.

We haven't had a giant step forward in race relations in this country since the '60s. The conversation in the '80s and '90s got to be redundant. There was Studs Terkel's "Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession" and Cornel West's "Race Matters" -- I don't think that the conversation has shifted much since then. Partly it is a problem of the mainstream not wanting to deal with race when issues like reparations come up. But the civil rights leadership, the old-guard black leadership, is to blame because they haven't been effective at making the younger generation's agenda part of their agenda. That would get more young people involved and create more energy and excitement around politics. Until that happens, we're going to continue to have this bland discussion.

That's one of the most interesting things about your book -- the relationship between the old guard and the hip-hop generation. Who dropped the ball? Where did they miss making this transition? Was it the '70s or '80s?

As we came into the '80s, few people in the African-American community paid enough attention to globalization and its negative effects. If you're working class and you have a job, that job isn't able to afford you the ability to buy a home or to take your family on vacation or even to buy a car. Many people in our generation, if they're working class and have a job, are probably living with their parents. That is a dramatic difference between this generation and the previous generation.

The older generation has not taken enough time to try to understand what's unique about the hip-hop generation. In the process, the older generation thinks that we're slackers, that we're not go-getters like they were, that we use racism as an excuse. There's a lack of understanding of the ways in which issues of institutional racism have been compounded for this generation who have come of age in a post-segregation society. The older generation just continues to look at race and race relations in a way in which they were affected.

What's the main difference that you're talking about?

They came of age in a society that was not integrated, and so for them, it's a giant leap forward to live in the society that we have now. Our generation hasn't experienced any dramatic shift like that where we can point and say, "Oh, race relations have gotten so much better."

You say that hip-hop is the most significant achievement of this generation. How would the old guard respond to that?

They would think it's crazy. Most often hip-hop, as a cultural movement, is equated with something negative such as anti-black images. "The new black minstrelsy" as Stanley Crouch calls it. If you don't make a distinction between hip-hop culture as a subculture of what I call the new black youth culture, then you'll make that mistake.

But hip-hop as a cultural movement is definitely one of the most significant achievements of this generation. When you look at hip-hop as a cultural movement, you're talking about an emerging student activist movement, you're talking about an emerging politics that's manifested in things like the recent Cory Booker and Sharpe James race in Newark.

When people say hip-hop is a culture, they generally mean the four elements of hip-hop: graffiti, break dancing, rapping and DJ-ing. But I'm talking about something more than that. Hip-hop as a cultural movement created a national infrastructure whereby many young blacks around the country are on the same page, are tuned in to the same thing, are getting together -- in the name of hip-hop. And that force can be effective in terms of disseminating information and bringing about social change. It's already going on at the local level. What I see missing is something happening at a national level with the assistance of national organizations that can make the strategies and impact at the local level be seen in a larger context.

Do you think that if the NAACP grasped the power of this generation and linked up with them that they would help build a viable political movement?

Absolutely. If you look at the '60s generation, young national political groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers were helped in some way in terms of getting resources in order to create those organizations. Whether it was entertainment figures financing those groups or the older generation groups. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for example, was very effective in helping to get SNCC off the ground.

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