The Sun in the City Slums…EarthGang Presents: Mad Men
Caricature has sought again to spoil the quaint beauty of the music, and has filled the air with many debased melodies which vulgar ears scarce know from the real. But the true Negro folk-song still lives in the hearts of those who have heard them truly sung and in the hearts of the Negro people.
-W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Most people from Atlanta (and even many who aren’t) have lamented that over the past decade, the city has become a caricature of itself. For people like myself who had the pleasure of growing up there, it’s vexing to see ourselves reflected as buffoons in—as Doctor Diego Dot describes in on EarthGang’s (free) new album, Mad Men—“movies, mind-numbing reality shows and chitlin-circuit sitcoms.” And of course, we can add music.
The real issue with these caricatures is not necessarily that they are untrue, but that they are so grossly incomplete. So for every drop of truth they contain, there is an ocean of truth that they obscure or omit. The motive for it is clear: money. Being the buffoon pays. People love the buffoon. He’s entertaining and nonthreatening. He has no conviction and he presents no challenge. He betrays no hidden desire, except to get paid. And you don’t need to look much further than Atlanta’s pop culture image to see that the buffoon gets paid.
But there’s a tragedy in this: that in a city with so much Soul and so much beauty, which rose to national prominence by offering that soul to the world, the best we offer now is a shallow distortion of who we are.
W.E.B. DuBois warned against this at the turn of the 20th century:
Atlanta must not lead the South to dream of material prosperity as the touchstone of all success; already the fatal might of this idea is beginning to spread; it is replacing the finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretense and ostentation.
Enter EarthGang—a Southwest Atlanta rap duo made up of Johnny Venus and Doctor Diego Dot whose debut album seeks to reclaim and reassert what Atlanta is. The album presents the full range of who they are as individuals, and what Atlanta truly is; at times lamenting the effects of “pretense and ostentation” on the city’s image.
The album, Mad Men, blends beats catered to the artists’ unique style with rhymes that flow seamlessly between the personal and the expansive, the spiritual and the carnal. In a session with this album the listener is treated to Venus’ feeling of being “caged up” in college as well as his warning that the powers that be “got the power in they fisticuffs and they ain’t bout to give it up.” Likewise, Diego can be found pondering the beauty of nature and “the creator” in one moment, while later proclaiming himself a member of the “dope dick delivery club.”
Both lyricists weave through these themes with such dexterity that there is no sense of contradiction. Instead they present a rounded picture of who they are as human beings, offering a truth about themselves and the city that produced them that moves beyond one dimensional caricatures; embracing a complex, three-dimensional understanding.
All of this—somehow—delivered while making heads nod.
The album is FREE. And it’s available for secure download:
or Here
Keep up with EarthGang at http://earthganghasa.tumblr.com/
Justice Has Been Done…We Think
Since news of Osama Bin Laden’s death broke on Sunday night, we’ve been treated to slew of new information on its details and a range of prognostication on its meaning and implications. The most fascinating aspect of it all—for me—has been watching Americans’ initial jubilation over the news turn into ambivalence and even self-flagellation at having rejoiced in a man’s death. This was all visible in a matter of only thirty minutes or so on Twitter Sunday night, but it has also repeated itself in news and commentary. In fact it’s even spawned a fake MLK quote made just for the occasion.
That ambivalence is justifiable. There really is a certain creepiness in breaking out your celebratory American flag when a man gets shot in the head; even if that man would’ve liked to murder us all.
For Americans, I think this sense of moral ambivalence is particularly salient because of our collective belief—stated or unspoken—in American Exceptionalism; the sense that we represent John Winthrop’s “city on a hill”—a beacon to the world. Yet the joy we displayed at Osama bin Laden’s death betrayed one of our darker passions: the desire for retribution. Retribution is as much apart of the fabric of American life as our sense of exceptionalism, though. It was evident in our 18th and 19th-century penchant for duels when men slighted each other. It was evident in many historical instances when mobs set off to deliver vigilante justice and—as I mentioned in my last post—our modern justice system is our greatest symbol and arbiter of it.
These contradictions lead us to exactly where we’ve been for the past couple of days: celebrating “justice” that we’re not all that comfortable with; one that feels uncomfortably close to the “justice” bin Laden and his followers sought for the US’ past wrongs—both real and perceived. This flies directly in the face of American Exceptionalism. We can’t consider ourselves more noble than our enemies if our actions resemble theirs. In our own ambivalence we’ve revealed that our conception of justice is as fundamentally flawed as our enemy’s, and because of that it needs to change.
This is not to suggest that bin Laden should not have been killed, or that he didn’t “deserve” it. I emphatically believe his death is good for American and international security. While it wont be equivalent to cutting the head off of the snake, it will likely go along way to degrading his network and its affiliates’ long-term ability to commit mass murder under the guise of Islam. But I do suggest that relieving our cognitive dissonance in this case and others requires re-evaluating our understanding of how to achieve justice and how to dispense it. Because when we seek justice through retribution, we walk away with blood-stained hands as well.
Note: I think this also requires us to make clear distinctions between pursuit of strategic goals and the pursuit of justice. Granted, it’s a colder analysis and it may not be great for building political support, but it also offers us the chance to be much more clear-eyed and forward-thinking about what ought to/are willing to engage in to meet those goals. It has the potential to free us from the grip of emotion as a motivator of public policy, which is a powerful development. Had we not desired retribution, I think we would have thought more about what he was going to cost us.
Man, Killing’s Some Wack Shit
Two months ago I sat waiting at the back of a Savannah courtroom as an accused murderer’s hearing was about to begin.* He was accused of shooting a seventy-year-old man in front of a local food mart (read: hood grocery store) during an attempted robbery. As I knew, the evidence against the defendant was overwhelming. Video outside the store showed him and his friends approaching shortly after the victim arrived, and a camera inside showed him looking over the old man’s shoulder into his wallet as he paid the cashier with a $100 bill. Further, his two friends were prepared to testify that he pulled the trigger and that they acted as lookouts for the robbery.
Based on the description of the crime—its coldness and brazenness—I imagined a fierce, hardened criminal. He was only sixteen years old, but I expected someone with cold, hateful eyes or a stony demeanor. When he was ushered into the courtroom I saw something else altogether: a boy. A small, scared-looking sixteen-year-old boy who had committed murder and was facing prosecution as an adult. I imagined myself just six years ago at age sixteen facing decades—if not life—in prison, and likely unemployment, disenfranchisement and recidivism if I ever walked free again. As I watched that boy stand before the judge in shackles a terrible, heartbreaking realization came to me: when he pulled the trigger on that day, he ended two lives.
As a Christian I choose to believe that for every tragedy there’s a glimmer of hope for redemption—that for every ocean of tragedy there is, at least, a cup of goodness and hope. But when an old man loses his life, a family loses its father and grandfather, a mother loses her son and a child faces the prospect of never living as a free adult, where is the redemption? What good can come of it? Who wins?
Some would answer that the victim’s family “gets justice,” that society benefits through crime deterrence and that, most importantly, the killer “deserves it.” All of these are valid responses, but none of them combat the unyielding gloom of the scene with even the faintest glimmer of hope. None of them redeem the situation or any of its actors.
Redemption, in the Christian sense, must ultimately be an outgrowth of love—the sort of radical love that responds to transgressions by “turning the other cheek.” And as Dr. Cornel West often tells us, “justice is what love looks like in public.” This doesn’t mean that a government’s justice system should reward crime or turn a blind eye to it. Rather, it means that that system should act in the spirit of that love—comforting those who’ve been transgressed against, deterring crime and offering transgressors the opportunity to change. This does not preclude imprisonment, but it necessitates an approach to detention and punishment that awakens the transgressor to his own humanity, rather than declaring that he has forfeited it by acting inhumanely. It considers the action apart from the individual and offers hope through rehabilitation and reconditioning, rather than extinguishing it through draconian sentences.
Naturally, this isn’t easy on the ground. Ethereal talk about radical love and redemption does nothing to address the gravity of crime and the necessity of punishment. In the months I’ve spent working in a District Attorney’s office I’ve listened to more stories of robbery, rape, molestation and murder than I care to remember, and in each case there was ample reason to let the offender rot in prison forever. But a system that takes a single murder and turns it into two cannot be just at its core. It doesn’t ultimately result in a benefit; social or otherwise. Instead it demands that lives are paid for with more lives, and answers tragedy with more tragedy.
*Note: This was not a trial but an initial step that will eventually lead to a trial or a guilty plea.
The Not-Exactly-Post-Employee Economy
Derek Thompson of The Atlantic notes that in 2011 the biggest US companies are worth twice as much as their counterparts were in 1964, yet they employ only a quarter of the workers.
One statistic is a snapshot of the economy, not a complete wall-to-wall portrait. But zooming out reveals a similar picture: America’s largest companies are making much more money with much fewer workers. In the last two years, the Dow has recovered three-quarters of its losses while our employment ratio remains at an historic low. But the profit-hiring gap isn’t a temporary side-effect of the post-recession economy. It’s a function of the economy, period.
Check the charts below. (Note: Market cap=value of the business=[# of shares on the market x value of shares])
Thompson calls it a sign of the post-employee economy, which I’m not sure is altogether accurate. As he points out in his piece, Walmart employs about 2.1 million people, and McDonald’s just hired about 50,000 this week. So it’s only post-employee if you want something like, you know, a good job.
(Note: It’s unclear to me whether this adjusts for inflation. Access the original source of the info here)
We Don’t Need No Drums…
As I told @JohnnyVenus & @DoctorDiegoDot, I have a feeling I’m gonna be listening to this whole album w/ my fist up.
EarthGang Presents: Thump Thump Thump
Download Here
What Does Webster Say About Soul?
Gil Scott Heron asked this question back in 1970, mocking white members of the countercultural movement–especially SDS–who wanted to partner with Black and Latino activists in East Harlem. Whatever the implications of the mockery, it draws on an interesting phenomenon: American conceptions of Soul always refer to people of African descent, as if Black people have exclusive rights to it.
I find that idea sort of odd. Because it seems to me that Soul is not alway necessarily African-inflected. Sure, Black people in America have appropriated it and made it synonymous with our collective struggle and it’s great that we’ve embraced our collective sense of Soul. But the notion that it’s the exclusive province of Black people–especially those of us descended from American slaves–assumes that there’s something about us that’s fundamentally different from other people(s), and of course that’s untrue.
If you pay attention it’s easy to see that Soul is everywhere (and I’m not talking about pretense at black Soul). And it’s displayed in as many varied and beautiful ways as there are people on this Earth.
Trust me, Fleet Foxes told me so.
On Repeat: You Ain’t Gotta Be So Cold
Finally doing On Repeat again, and here’s what I got today
JIDD ft. EarthGang-Bucket Civilian
And by EarthGang I mean @DoctorDiegoDot, but Tomayto, Tomahto
Download Here
