Gun Music article 0059 added 16.01.03 words Shook-Yaa "(Hiphop) created a culture where killing is almost a fashion accessory." Dr Kim Howells MP. Once again the perpetrators blame the scapegoats and the Daily Mail readers lap it all up. The tragic deaths of Charlene Ellis and Laetitia Shakespeare have served as propaganda for the far right to attack the soul of British youth by blaming music for violence and death. Blaming music for bullets. Blaming music for social decay. This is gun music, this is fight music. No, this is the spirit of youth. Hiphop was created as a state of mind, a statement of intent and like the ethos of punk, rebellion against the establishment. Only this time the rebellion was by the inner-cities and the estates and the ghettoes caused by government neglect. From the call and response in the cornfields of the South to the rhythmic intensities of the South Bronx. So who’s to blame for the tragic deaths of Charlene and Laetitia. My guess is the person who pulled the trigger. Not the social commentary of rappers like Nas and Jay-Z. But it’s so easy to blame them for (government-sponsored) arms trade and gang culture. Their influence and their glamorisation put guns in people’s hands. Just like watching 'Friends' influences me to want to go out and have a repetitive middle-class life with nothing to say. The person who pulled the trigger was not driven by a subconscious urge to shoot and kill after listening to a hiphop song. It doesn’t work that way. I recently watched “Bowling for Columbine” and the documentary-maker; Michael Moore raised a good point about gun deaths vs. media propaganda and saw a definite correlation. It was this that seeped into the collective paranoia of a nation arming them and encouraging their trigger-happy ways. America alone stands above the rest of the world in violent gun deaths: 11,127 deaths was the figure quoted in the film whilst in Canada, where there are just as many handguns: 60-70. This disparity astounds me, shocks me and makes me want to know why. Moore says, “look to the media”, look to their scare-mongering, look to their propaganda machines and look to their selective reporting on black crimes. This is what builds paranoia in the US, Moore says, and this coupled with easy access to guns and ammunition (which can be bought at the local supermarket) causes death. When the violent shootings at Columbine happened, music was blamed again. This time, shock-metal star Marilyn Manson was the one under the scrutiny and the spotlight. Again, music and music’s potential and music’s supposed “aggression” was singled out. Manson was the one person who said the single most intelligent thing in the entire film. When asked what he would like to say to the victims of Columbine and those affected by the tragedy, he simply said: “I wouldn’t say anything. I would listen to them. Because that’s what no one else did.” If people like David Blunkett and the bigoted “Dr” Kim Howells were to listen, simply listen to the youth today, the youth who are out there, with guns and lead violent lives in Britain’s inner-cities, maybe they could start to get to the root of the social problems in this country. Instead they rely on hype and sound bite fury to rile up the readers of the far right papers that report hate and oppression to millions of readers a day. This feels like the magician’s ultimate trick of misdirection: make them look one way while you’re screwing them the other way. What is the cause of inner-city decay, social apathy and violence? Poverty. Poverty is the number one cause of all these things. Poverty drives these people to necessity. Now, I know CDs are expensive, but music did not cause poverty on this scale. Poverty is caused by a corporate government hell-bent on profit margins and quick bucks. Poverty, and its offshoots, ignorance and drugs all lead to gun violence, borne out of necessity. The government suddenly claims it knows what’s best for our youth? Give me a fucking break. You, Mr Blunkett are the fucking cause. You oppress us, contain us in the estates, keep us poor and leading dead end jobs with no future, ransoming our education with no funding, making sure we’re too in debt to even think of paying for a house or a car. Your Criminal Justice Bill. Your Terrorism Act. Your Welfare Bill. Your statutes. Your laws. Not ours. Hip Hop is the spirit of the youth. It’s steeped in our culture and is voiced by the fire in our bellies. When people say, “Keep it Real”, it may sound like a cliché, but it’s never been more true than today. And realness is the underlying theme of many of today’s songs. Realness talks about violent lives and drugs and inner-city gangs. A real realness caused by government-assisted poverty. So, to keep it real, tell it like it is, gives the youth and hiphop a spirit of truth that is ignored in today’s world of pop idols and party-rock ‘revolutions.’ Sure there are some rappers who do tread over the line of relating your hard life through grimy realistic story telling and do glamorise the gunman’s life. But think of all the positivity, the love, the consciousness in hiphop. Make Blunkett listen to “Sound of da Police” by KRS-ONE or even PE’s“Fight the Power” and they will know the true meaning of hiphop, it’s spirit of rebellion, the passion, the conviction. Songs that fill with the spirit of life and the passion to stand up and be counted. Songs that account for life’s struggles but portray them in a constructive activist’s perspective. Songs that step forward and claim their rightful place in our minds. Remember the conscious artists: Nas; KRS-ONE; Talib; Mos; Common; Roots; DPz; Manuva; PE; Coup; Rebel Uprising; Phi Life. They combine history and truth and politics and consciousness to represent the true meanings of hiphop and it’s power. How dare Blunkett try and take the spirit of the youth away from us. Keep us docile, pump morphine into the air conditioning to keep us suppressed; teach us only Christian values; hate the turban; watch “Friends” feed off its middle-class homely values; eat our greens and have the same opinion? No. Storm the House of Parliament. With your guns. Say you heard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” and were inspired. See the ban on classical music. It’s time to take the power back. Seize our music back from the tentacles of government suppression. Fight the Power. Love and respect Shook-Yaa

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