Watch and Discuss #1 – What Happened to Hip Hop?

Below is a video from the 2009 Hip Hop Summit that the Nation of Islam leads every year to try and influence rappers to have more positive messages in the music.  Wise Intelligent, formerly of 1990′s hip hop group Poor Righteous Teachers, eloquently explains, as an industry insider, what he saw as the deliberate manipulation of the hip hop industry away from political rap to the hyper-sexualized, materialistic music topping the charts today.

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Use the comments to state your position.

 

Random Sexiness #4 – “Thieves In The Night” by Mattahan

Just surfing my follow list and came across this artist.  I love this picture.

 

ProtestWatch: Occupy Wall Street – September 17th Noon

Who represents you? You do! Occupy Wall Street September 17, 2011 12pm

A number of organizations have gotten together and decided that it was time to send a really powerful message a la Arab Spring.  They want corporate money out of government and they want to stop preferential treatment of corporations and the rich at the expense of every other American.  So they are hoping to get 20,000 people to camp out on Wall Street for at least 2 months.  Rapper Lupe Fiasco has even donated 50 tents toward the cause.  Please visit www.occupywallst.org to get the full story and find out ways you can help even if you can’t participate.  Since I’m not working, I really want to participate in this but sleeping on the streets of New York really gets in the way of dialysis 3x/week.  So I’m using this post to get the word out.

Now that I think about it, I don’t want to stop with just this action.  Mainstream media routinely ignored direct actions and protests that have happened all over the country this past year including the Keystone Protests in DC where 1200 people were arrested (including the head of NASA and actress Darryl Hannah).  If you are planning direct actions and protests anywhere in the country and would like to get the word out, please email me at swan_diver@hotmail.com and I will post it on my blog.  My hope is that those posts would serve as a resource for both activists looking for ways to make a difference and journalists who are looking for protests to cover.  I feel really excited about this.

EDIT September 18, 2011 – Just saw on TruthOut that the protests are being Livestreamed.  Will try to embed it below.  If it doesn’t work, you can watch it here.