DOING the right THING

Last year the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy released the critically acclaimed Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury album. On a Hip Hop/Industrial Dance soundscape rode raps which covered a very broad spectrum of political, social and personal subjects. Subjects such as freedom of speech, 'House Niggers', the drug of television, homophobia, the Iraqi War, mixed race, and the personal/emotional costs for the political activist."

It was almost a perfect rap album from a liberal's point of view. There were no drive-by stories, no sexist rants, no sounds of uzis and hand grenades, no 'Cop Killer's or 'Bush Killa's'. But perhaps because of this or perhaps because many of the raps were that bit too dense, that bit too academically framed and industrially tinged, the album didn't make much impact in the home base of rap, the communities of Compton and the Bronx. There, they were listening to Ice Cube, Ice T, Paris and Public Enemy.

A certain division was being created within rap, particularly within the British music press, with the music of hardcore groups such as Public Enemy being increasingly termed "paranoid nightmares," while groups such as Arrested Development, Consolidated and DHOH were being labelled as "Rap's great leap forward." Michael Franti of the latter, is one who feels that the well-deserved praise for their debut was, in certain instances, being used to put down other members of the rap community.

"I do feel that and I'm very upset about that," he says. "It pisses me off a lot because you know, people have used this term 'alternative rap', which I think is a bunch of fucking bullshit! There doesn't need to be an alternative to rap! What people are really saying is that they don't want to deal with Blackness in terms of straight Blackness. They want to deal with it in a way which is convenient for them to understand, or palatable for them to understand. And some of the things that other groups say are things that these people don't want to look at, or that it's too hard for them to understand, or too hard to relate to, or too culturally different from them. So, that's something that does bother me and it's something that I've been speaking out on quite a bit."

Hypocrisy. . . was, for a Black rap group, a very different sound to what the rap community were used to hearing. Because of the involvement in programming and arrangement of fellow San Franciscan Mark Pistel of Consolidated fame, the sound had a strong Industrial Dance flavour. However, the 1993 show-stopping DHOH we saw at Sunstroke in Dublin was an entirely different, blacker, funkier beast. And the up and coming album, as Simone, their drummer, states, "is going to be taking a little bit more of a soulful approach. We're going for a little bit more beat-oriented music."

This new DHOH James Brown/George Clinton groove is in some ways a journey back for them to their rap roots and the community base which feeds those roots, as Michael Franti explains.

"With this record that's what we're trying to do; we're trying to make sure that our communication skills are honed so that we reach out to those people more. And that's important to us. But it's also important to us to be true to what we believe in. And if that means that we miss some people this time around, then we take small steps, you know. We can't reach everybody overnight but the thing is: KRS One reaches his people, Chuck D reaches his people, Ice T reaches his people, we reach our people, Linton Kwesi Johnson reaches his people, and then on the other side, Billy Bragg reaches his people, U2 in some way reach their people. And together it makes a bigger force, than if we say one group has to be the definite answer to everything."

The idea of writing for and about yourself and your

community is an essential aspect of rap, as Rono Tse, who has recently started writing raps, explains.

"As a young kid I was involved in gangs and I was involved in robbing the pizza man and doing a lot of kids stuff, that a lot of people would say was real crazy. But now as I'm getting older and seeing different things, I understand that that was political. The reason why we were robbing the pizza man was because we had no money to buy pizza. And to this day there's still a lot of kids not having any money, and they have to turn to selling drugs. I know a lot of kids who sell drugs. So, what I will be dealing with in my raps is my life. I will be dealing with the people back at home, my friends. An' that to me is for real.

True experience, you can't hide it. My experience is for real. So, I will try and put that in a way that will capture people's attention. And that will also reach the people who I grew up with. 'Cause that's the most important thing for me, is that when my people can say, 'yeah, I understand what you're saying'. And it gives them an idea; I've done my job, you know. People who've went to college, they've got the education. And that's great. I love that. I wanted to be there. But I need to enhance the people who I grew up with. Without the chance that I had I wouldn't be here, and I have to give that back to my people. That's just the bottom line."

The search for roots has an unusual personal angle as far as Michael Franti is concerned.

"My father is Black and my mother is White," he explains. "My mother is of Irish and German and French descent. My father is African American and also Native American. But I didn't grow up knowing either of my parents. I was adopted." (This happened because his mother's father was a racist and refused to allow his daughter to bring up a Black child.) "And then later I went on a search to find my birth parents. It took me about two and a half years but I finally found them. Like I spoke to my mom last week and I was saying 'Yo, Mom, I'll be going to Ireland an' I really want to search out my Irish roots,' but she didn't know that much about it. Which is really a shame. I always have identified with Black culture but I feel that it's important that we understand all aspects of who we are. You know, rather than identifying with one particular thing. It's important to like have a respect for all of the traditional cultures, you know, and indigenous peoples."

DHOH are not just words; they rap with action too. Franti and Tse have for years been involved in social work in their hometown of San Francisco. When not touring they regularly work at a needle-exchange unit for drug addicts. During last year's Presidential election they campaigned vigorously for voter registration. Franti admitted that he would be voting for Clinton, but that was only because as he saw it: "Clinton is slightly to the left of Bush, but then Bush is only slightly to the left of Hitler." So, what does he think now that Clinton has settled in on the job?

"Essentially, Bill Clinton is like a right-wing Democrat. And all it does is that it just makes... it just gives the right-wing fodder. And we're not really getting the things done we needed. The things that Bill Clinton said he was going to fight for when he got into office: like gays in the military, health care reform, solving our budget crisis, civil rights for African Americans; he's totally thrown out these things. And it's just been one crisis after another with him. He's just somebody who never had firm enough convictions. He's just said the things that needed to be said to get elected. And Bush was a lame candidate to begin with.

"So, at the end of the day I think it really hurts our cause because the right-wing is really reacting strongly now and next time a right-wing President gets elected it's going to be even further to the right than where Bush was. When Clinton first got into office everybody, sorta like, felt this sense of relief. And I said, 'No it's not a time of relief, it's a time that we really have to push. This guy is not going to do stuff for us. We really have to push him, to hold him accountable.' And it's not going so great."

We go on to talk about the LA Uprisings and the effects they have had on minority consciousness.

"There's like a lot of frustration that's taking place now," says Franti. "Like when the Uprisings took place in LA, there was a big burst of energy that was released that only happens every now and then; a couple of times a century, maybe. And if you can direct that into a positive focus, you're going to accomplish some things. And if it continues to be something where we're just destroying our own communities, then we're gonna be really fucked up. And, eh, it's impossible to really say what's going to happen because there's so many other factors, like the media and the entertainment industry, and so many other things that side-track people from just dealing with the issues that are at hand. People would rather forget about things than they would really try and deal with things. That goes for myself too."

I asked if we can expect more of what happened in LA, to occur elsewhere in the States.

"Everywhere in America! Miami is a place because there's so much new ethnic build-up there, you know; people from Cuba, people from Haiti. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York. Just about any major city."

Listening to Michael Franti you begin to get this entirely different picture of American society than what the media is paid to portray. I used to think that humanity was slowly but surely advancing towards a better, more decent level. Yet, if Franti's America is anything to go by, then the racists are firmly on the ascendant.

"Definitely," he emphasises. "Racism never goes away. In America . . . our country was founded on the destruction of the native population, and on slavery. And America has refused to acknowledge either of those things. And I feel that until those two things happen, until they begin to pay reparation to Native Peoples, and they begin to give back land that was stolen, and provide support for African Americans, things are basically going to go the same way.

Answers. In 1993 it is no longer enough for the politically

aware rapper to point out the wrong. They also have to point out some sort of way of righting these wrongs. For many of them the answer begins with controlling their own business, as Rono Tse makes clear.

"Recently I started a production company. I've been learning more about the business of the record company. And as an artist it's just great to just do your work, but in this industry, if you don't know the business you're gonna get robbed. If you look at this festival now [Sunstroke], there's so many people working here. But this all takes money. And you have to understand where this money is coming from. And the most important thing is that you gotta be true to who you are and also... there's people out there who will rob you quick, who will steal your money. So, I'm really trying to help younger artists, so that's the reason I started up a production company. Because being an artist I would never fuck over another artist. If rappers can control their business and understand their business, that will gain them ground that they can hold and begin to start putting different types of messages out. Without money we can't go and knock down billboards that are selling cigarette ads and alcohol in the ghettos. So, we have to get money so that one day we can come together and have our own banks and our own community."

Because of this awareness of the necessity of being self-sufficient within the system, many rappers have been attracted to the teachings of the Nation Of Islam. This organisation has been accredited with separatist, racist and anti-Semitic views. However, Michael Franti has another, much less publicised angle on them. "I really don't have a big problem with the Nation Of Islam, because I look at it in terms of what they actually do; not just the rhetoric which is being espoused, which is what most people concentrate on. If you look at what happens in the communities; they get a lot of people off drugs. They get them involved in the businesses they're starting up. In the communities right around the corner from my house, they have a bakery and a fish 'n' chip shop and other shops where they sell all natural foods, and really good foods. The Nation Of Islam is not a terrorist organisation. Like a lot of people think they're espousing all this anger against White people or whatever; like they're going to go out and shoot White people. They don't do that; they're not a terrorist organisation. And if they were a terrorist organisation then I wouldn't feel the same way as I do about them.

Some might see Franti's raps as being slightly naive, in that they can give the impression that the system can be changed peacefully if only its faults are pointed out.

"I don't think that the system can be changed by a peaceful process but I do think that what needs to happen is that like that revolution in Guatemala, say. There, you had the Indians who were being told their whole life that God wanted you to be this way. And it wasn't until Liberation Theology came about, that people began to say: 'Yo, God doesn't want you to be a slave.' Until the people there got that in their mind, and had a revolution of the mind, picking up guns didn't make any sense. So that's why I think in America, picking up guns today would just be a slaughter because people just don't have it in their minds what's going to take place. So, you have to have a revolution within your mind before picking up guns is going to make a difference, you know. Because we have plenty of guns and we have plenty of people in America but we're killing each other, you know so.

But can this very necessary revolution of the mind ever be fully realised? Can any message which espouses the rights of the oppressed ever grow in a society that is so hungry for media bites and the sensation of the moment, that it has even managed to t-shirt and baseball-cap the radical message of Malcolm X? He's not sure, although he is certain about how Malcolm X's life helped change his.

"For me, Malcolm's autobiography was a big sense of strength for me when I was a teenager and trying to figure out who I was in my life. Because of the evolution that took place in his life; from the time he was a youth to the time he went through being a gangster, and going to prison and coming out of prison, and then joining the Nation Of Islam and then going on to speak on the behalf of all oppressed people. That's like the evolution of his life which gives me strength, not just seeing the pictures of him holding a rifle, looking out the window. That's just a symbol of militancy that I think's just being marketed. The same thing with Dr. King's life. If you look at his life, a lot of people just read the 'I have a dream' speech, and think he was a pacifist. But the reason he was murdered was 'cause he was speaking out against the Vietnam War. And not just in terms of it being a passive thing, but in terms of the Vietnam War being wrong because of who was being attacked."

Believing that you can bring about change is a great thing. Because, at the end of the day, even if you haven't beaten the system, you can still hold your head up with pride and say that at least you haven't let the system beat you. That's a small but vital victory, and it's one that Michael Franti and Rono Tse and Simone and the rest of DHOH are winning. They're in for the long haul and despite everything which is so wrong and so unjust in this Western 'civilisation' of ours, they're rapping positive. And as Michael Franti travels the world, spreading his message, he's encouraged.

"One of the things I've been excited about is that when I go around the world, I see different people and different cultures who are rapping. It's not like a Vanilla Ice thing where they're just trying to adopt Black rap techniques, and trying to appropriate that style. They're doin' their own thing, you know. We were in Belgium and we saw rappers from Morocco rapping in Arabic. And we went to New Zealand and we saw Maori rappers. We've seen Aborigine rappers, Japanese rappers. But the thing that I don't like is when people appropriate the Black America style. I like when people say, like: 'Yo, I'm an Aboriginal person and I'm bringing that into rap. And I'm a Maori and I'm bringing that, I'm a Moroccan or I'm Irish and that's what I'm bringing into rap.' That's what I like to see."