by James Bernard

Progressive political activists have carried a torch for hip-hop since its earliest days in the 1970s. The voiceless had pushed their way onto the world’s stage, rapping about their experiences. The most significant (and most popular) records of rap’s so-called “Golden Age” of the late 80s and early 90s were some of the most explicitly politically charged music of all time. Artists like Public Enemy and KRS-One put millions of young people through a profound paradigm shift: exposing everything they had been told about the way America works as a lie. Hip-hop promised to be the biggest radicalization tool of all-time.

Longing for a hip-hop revolution intensified, as hip-hop got bigger than anyone dared dream that it would. In 1998, USA Today (12/30, B1) reported that hip-hop was the fastest growing music genre in the US, accounting for more than 10 percent of the $12.3 billion music sales that year. It’s easily pop culture’s most compelling art form–our stars shine the brightest, our tragedies have been woven into the American psyche. Hip-hop makes cash registers ring all over the world. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, rap and hip-hop music sales in 2005 were second only to rock, edging out country and pop music sales.

Unfortunately, hip-hop has failed at its central challenge—to become a force for social change, not merely a cacophony of merchandising and promotion. Hip-hop culture and popularity exploded, with some artists peddling products like Sprite or creating fashion lines.

To be fair, being a standard bearer for real change was always a tall order. Nobody has gotten this right, so why hold hip-hop up to a higher standard? Because we could be different. Because we owe it to our communities. Because we owe it to our grandparents and great-grandparents. Because we owe it to ourselves to become greater than the sum of our parts. Did we miss our moment? Perhaps. Did we even have a moment? Yes. Can we create another opportunity to become greater than we are? Not looking good.
I admit that I am a fan of the bling bling. I am a fan of the videos. However, our generation should be thinking about how to smash capitalism, as we know it, to make our economy work for poor and urban communities. We can’t expect to put our stamp on history if we can’t even put our stamp on the music industry. We have allowed hip-hop to become a cog in the machine rather than changing how the machine works for the good of our music.

The hip-hop industry has taken on the worst aspects of monopoly capitalism. Only a few artists get rich. The others struggle and get ripped off, if they are even lucky enough to get in (and out) the door. Many talented artists can’t even find the door, and nobody’s trying to help them find it.

We haven’t put together an apparatus that allows risk-taking artists who might not sell five million records to make a decent living. And everything we signal to the kids is that rappers aren’t even legit if they aren’t wearing the down payment on a house on their wrist. The term “independent label” is starting to sound like the term “typewriter.” In the early ’90s, it seemed like everyone had a label. Now you can take all the people who decide what you hear on the radio and see on TV to the beach in your car. And you wonder why everything sounds the same.

Hip-hop was never innocent—one of its best qualities—so we had no innocence to lose. But have we lost our militancy, if we ever really had it? We talked loud but were we saying anything? Hip-hop has grown, but it hasn’t developed. We’ve aged, but we’re not wise. We burned down L.A. and sent a million brothers to Washington, but we failed to set any serious agenda. Hip-hop sparked an unprecedented furor of grassroots entrepreneurialism, but we are giving hip-hop away to the same machine that makes money off everything.

Hip-hop activism has existed for years at the grassroots level. In the late 90s, the Active Element Foundation compiled the Future 500—profiles of 500 grassroots organizations led by hip-hop generation activists. Most of these organizations could charitably be described as struggling. However, their very existence belied the notion that hip-hop politics was all bluster and no elbow grease.
When Russell Simmons started the Hip-Hop Action Network, things seemed to get turned up a notch. When he brought together thousands of young people to protest education policy in New York City, hopes were high that our community could translate the ability to mobilize into real political power. As powerful as that day was, the dirty secret is that putting Jay-Z or LL Cool J or 50 Cent at a podium anywhere in the country would draw thousands of young people regardless of the political call.

The 2004 election was supposed to be a watershed time for hip-hop activists. They would finally get to show and prove that they move people to action, even if it’s only to pull a lever. Liberals who write big checks salivated. They correctly saw the hip-hop vote as America’s true sleeping giant. Unfortunately, they were also star struck. These funders took a long time before they realized that the Hip-Hop Action Network had no field operation and that P-Diddy’s Vote or Die campaign revolved around selling t-shirts.

One glimmer of hope was the Hip-Hop Political Convention. In June 2004, seven thousand (according to the police) politically minded hip-hoppers converged on Newark. They attended panels on issues like criminal justice and skill-development workshops on fundraising. Together we also ratified a progressive program that called for universal healthcare and cost-free access to college education. The question is whether or not this is going to be a one-shot deal. By the time you read this, we’ll know: the follow-up is scheduled for the end of July in Chicago. We don’t need this year’s convention to be as big or as headline-grabbing as 2004. We need an event to demonstrate that we are on the road to creating a permanent space for gathering, reflection, learning and planning.

To move forward, hip-hop activists face several challenges.

First, we need to bring networks together. The Future 500 editors surveyed young activists about their needs. On top of their list was the ability to meet each other and compare notes. Right now, activists work in isolation. We need to build a clearinghouse that can hook folks up with each other on an ongoing basis.
Next, we need to institutionalize our power. During the last election cycle, I founded and ran the Hip-Hop Civic Engagement Project, the third largest nonpartisan voter registration campaign ever. We successfully registered over 300,000 voters, both on the ground and online. However, our funder did not deliver any actual money until June—too late to build a proper infrastructure to deliver greater numbers. As a result, we were forced to run a seat-of-the-pants operation. Although we surpassed our numerical goals, we had nothing left for the future to build on. Post-election, the Engagement Project didn’t have the support to keep the young activists we coaxed into the effort engaged—much less provide an opportunity to support themselves by doing political work. Now, this program does not exist. The lessons we learned won’t be passed down, and the next group to attempt a similar effort.

A third and crucial piece of the process is leadership development. Leaders aren’t born; they are trained. Focusing resources here will have a greater impact on this movement’s growth than stumbling from mass mobilization to another.

And finally, we must challenge foundations and mainstream progressive donors to fund hip-hop activist work in ways that speaks to our needs and not the narrow way in which they define their own programs. Many organizations tailor their work in order to get certain grants. We need to set our own agenda. At the same time, we need to challenge the wealthy artists, athletes and entrepreneurs in the hip-hop community to get politically active and financially involved. Such requests are not a substitute for devising ways for our work to be self-sustaining through the development of ancillary for-profit enterprises.

We are not without hope. The League of Young Voters was the only organization to come out of 2004 with a plan to move forward. They continue to register voters, write and distribute voter guides and lobby elected officials. They have built an organization with an active board of directors and a carefully recruited and nurtured staff. The question is how the progressive hip-hop community will build on what they are accomplishing.

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James Bernard is a founder of the Hip-Hop Political Convention and hip-hop magazines The Source and XXL. He is currently leading a campaign to organize security officers for the Service Employees International Union in Northern California.