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An excerpt of this piece was originally posted on TSS–I think this was my first post for them–but the blog that housed the entire piece disappeared. I’m posting this here so the full text still exists somewhere online.
T.I. vs Michael Eric Dyson
originally posted 7/3/08
“The last great debate I had was with Michael Eric Dyson”-Killer Mike, That’s Life
“I know you’re going through it, know I’m going through it too”-T.I., A Better Day
Last weekend I was lucky enough to witness, in the span of about 20 hours, two of Black America’s foremost public leaders address their constituents live and in person.
Friday night, at the University of Missouri-St Louis, Michael Eric Dyson spoke at the Black Radical Congress’ 10th Anniversary opening ceremony, to a crowd, presumably mostly Black radicals or at least inclined towards Dyson’s way of thinking, who had paid to see him speak. He addressed Barack Obama’s candidacy and its effects with eloquence, charisma, and an excellent balance of academic and street talk.
The next day, karma paid off nicely: as a result of my volunteering at the Circuit Court 22 Juvenile Detention Center, I was lucky enough to be one of the few non-”residents” to hear Clifford Harris, better known as T.I., address a sea of red, blue, green, yellow and orange sweatsuits there. While he was there to fulfill his community service requirement as part of his sentencing on gun charges, his 45 minute speech had every bit of the swagger, intelligence, heart and wittiness (not to mention his unbelievably thick-in-person accent) he displays in his music.
His influence and impact on the kids was evident from before he even arrived. While waiting for him to traverse security and make his way to the cafeteria, the incarcerated youth sat more quietly and appropriately than I have ever seen them before—and any door creak or footstep in the hallway was greeted by 70 heads quickly swiveling towards the door.
Both men spoke of being realistic when choosing your methods in life. Dyson discussed the practicality of Obama’s potential presidency as well as the role from which Black radicals can affect the most change, while T.I. questioned how likely it was for the young men in the room to actually make a living (and a life) out of doing the wrong thing.
“Most cats that’s livin like that is rottin in prison and those not locked wish they made better decisions”-NYOil, F***ing Dumba**
He started by making it very clear that he wanted the youth to differentiate between real life and entertainment—and the difference between the messages in his records, and what he was about to say. Whether speaking as T.I., T.I.P., or Cliff Harris, his authority in the room was unquestioned. The youth knew that T.I. grew up similar to them, and that he had been locked up many times–that he could relate to them in a way that many of the speakers who visit them never could.
“There ain’t probably nothing that any of you in this room have done that I ain’t did. Well, it might be a few of you who mighta done one or two things I ain’t done, but it’s not much.”-T.I.
His focus for much of his time was instructing the youth on how to “get money”, but along the way he slipped in diverse lessons on listening to your elders, on weighing risk and reward, on hope, hard work and on the power we all possess over our destinies.
It was an ingenious way to draw in an audience weaned on the flashy opulence of Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and …T.I…. keeping their attention while imparting some of his accumulated wisdom along the way. Speaking in terms that every one of the youth could relate to, he equated the power structure’s unwillingness to help them succeed to their own admission that in a dice game, they wouldn’t offer money to an inexperienced player who hadn’t claimed money he’d won—shades of The Wire’s Mr. Prezbelewski.
He made very clear that noone should expect success and money to come strictly by doing what one wants to do all the time—the key is to “do what you don’t want to do so well that noone can tell you don’t want to do it”. His example—acting on rollerskates in ATL: “Do I look like a skater to you? Okay then. When you saw the movie I sure looked like I was having fun, right?”
“I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them, so I got rich and gave back, to me that’s the win win”-Jay-Z, Moment of Clarity
In the JC Penney auditorium, Dyson was heard by a quarter-capacity crowd that paid rapt attention to every word. He also recognized the need to step out of one’s comfort zone in order to make meaningful change, but focused more on the end result than the methods, allowing that was okay to “Do what you gotta do to get where you gotta get but don’t forget to do what you came to do when you get there.”
He expressed little faith that Obama would do so, but at the same time recognizes and appreciates the effects of his candidacy—specifically opening doors for other Black politicians and providing a role model for Black youth. He believes Obama as President will be able to do very little to change things at the federal level, but thinks that as a result of his success meaningful gains can be made locally by politicians who gain legitimacy through an elected Black president. Just as significantly, he articulated excitement about the fundamental change in Black children’s psyches, just knowing that a Black man had been elected President of the United States.
“If you say something I can’t understand, it is a failure of your education, not mine.”-Jesse Jackson
Dyson expressed himself sometimes with strings of higher-education vocabulary, and sometimes in slang that would seem more at place on a street corner or in a barbershop. The juxtaposition of his styles speaks to his attempt to reach a wider audience than your average academic, and would have boded well had he switched roles with T.I.—speaking to seventy incarcerated Black youth with no idea of who Dyson was instead of a similar number of paid attendees who were there to hear what one of America’s foremost Black social commentators had to say—that is to say, they were already “on the team”.
It raises an interesting point that Tef Poe and I were discussing earlier about the effectiveness of the activist hip hop community—so often “conscious” rappers and events speak only to the relatively small number of fans of “conscious rap” and, though their music may in many ways educate and motivate, this “preaching to the choir” effect leaves the masses, necessary to any revolution, untouched. To this end, we decided that despite Dyson’s great speech, his credentials, and his reputation as a radical, it was Cliff Harris who had the more revolutionary effect on his audience.
I swear the third week in March is probably my favorite week of the year. Professionally as a DJ, and just as the rap nerd I am, it doesn’t get a whole lot better than South by Southwest. This year I was a little worried how I’d hold up, my knees and back being another year older and my schedule having me on 10 different shows in three days, plus a underground-rap-pseudo-celebrity 3-on-3 basketball tournament on Saturday.
Well, I survived and had an even more fruitful time than I expected. Shouts out to TSS, Knuckle Rumbler and The Force among many other powerful entities at work, and especially the lady Peace who toughed out all 3 days and took dope photos at damn near every gig I had…I’d love to mention more of the folks I kicked it with in Austin but I guarantee I’d miss about a dozen good people so I’ll leave it at that.
After landing Wednesday, we gathered our rental car, dropped our bags at the hotel and headed straight downtown. Of course we ran directly into the STL crew in front of the Vibe House. We shared daps, pounds and jokes, and headed back to the telly to rest up.
First thing Thursday was the annual Nahright/TSS GOP Party at Peckerhead’s. STL was deeeeep, and Vandalyzm set off the show with an entertaining-as-always set.
Check out the homie Weiss’ recap of the rest of the show here.
Peace and I spent the rest of Thursday checking out shows, walking 6th street and running into people as it was basically my only free time during the weekend lol…
We ended up at Suite 101 for OnSmash’s Slaughterhouse show. You already know I’m a fan of the Slaughter so it was good times despite the sound system being utter garbage.
Friday began at Scoot Inn for the first of four shows with Killer Mike. We had an early set, but the crowd was still thick and Mike killed it as always. Odd Future was slated to play later on that stage, but I had to go.
We headed directly to SXMW, the St Louis-centric showcase at Dirty Bill’s. I really wish I could have spent more time there, since it was packed thick with my STL family, but unfortunately it was pretty much walk-in-hit-the-stage-walk-out like so many other shows. I manned the turntables (more specifically and unfortunately, CDJs) for Stalley, Tef Poe, Rockwell Knuckles, Skipp Coon, and Gotta Be Karim before rushing out to head to TSS’ other major showcase, Perfect Attendance.
When I got to Perfect Attendance it was a madhouse, packed with rappers and fans. It turned out they did not need my services right at that moment, so I roamed around with the homie DJ Lowkey, with whom I was the co-house DJ for the Vibe House event in a few hours starring Slaughterhouse, DJ Quik and EPMD.
Dee-1 was the first act, and his show was impressive. If you’ve seen the Jay, 50 and Weezy video you already know. After Blu and Los Rakas, I rocked with The Kid Daytona and a drummer, a very dope set. I took over the turntables following a long Collie Buddz performance, warming the crowd up for Slaughterhouse with classics from the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s.
I cut into “What We Do” by Freeway, and was scrolling through my crate for the next track when a voice over my shoulder said “We might as well do this shxt right, run that back”…I turn around and…Freeway is standing over my shoulder. I stopped the record, started it over, and Philly Freezer grabbed the mic and rocked his verse. Awesome moment. Slaughter then did their thing, followed by an impressive performance from Quik…we dipped out before EPMD got onstage but I hear they murdered it as well.
Saturday brought about the HoopxHang tournament presented by TSS and Hardknock TV. VERY dope event. Meka from 2dopeboyz DJed while DJs, MCs, bloggers and the like sweated it out trying to take the first annual title. I’ve been saying I’m not too interested in becoming truly famous, except that I want to be able to play in celebrity basketball games–I finally got my wish.
Team Force lost in the 1st round (shouts to my dudes at SMKA (Mike & Blake) and Skyzoo)…and then again in the consolation bracket (shouts to Hustle Simmons, YP and Smoke Dza), but it was all just for fun so no big deal…I’m lying, I hate to lose and I was mad as hell lol. It could have been worse though–we got free shoes and it was honestly an incredible time.
After hooping I headed back to Vibe House for another show with Killer Mike at the AllHipHop showcase. It was crazy hectic in there–Friday night there was a rope keeping the backstage clear for the performers to move around and get to the stage, but Saturday afternoon it was a free for all, packed shoulder-to-shoulder…not fun to navigate with a 30 lb backpack on. Regardless, we got onstage, rocked a crowd of great hip hop fans, and headed to Fader Fort.
Fader Fort was absolutely unreal. Probably the biggest crowd I’ve taken the stage in front of ever, we took over after Machine Gun Kelly tore the roof off with an incredibly high energy set where he ended up at one point rapping while hanging upside down from a light fixture about 30 feet above the crowd. STL was repping DEEP at this show as well…to the point that when I walked onstage to set up for Mike’s set, I heard chants of “Trackstar”…absolutely unreal. I still can’t process that, I appreciate the homies more than they know. Mike tore it down as always.
Then we walk offstage and who’s standing there but P frickin Diddy. Apparently he was there to introduce and rock with Lil B and Odd Future (weird). Anyways, Ms. Peace and I took off to get to Nuvola in time for Rockwell Knuckles’ official set there.
Always fun to perform with Rocky…especially because he pretty much lets me surprise him with whatever songs I’d like to hear him rap. Good times, and the crowd loved it.
After a quick stop at Red 7 to see Rocky perform with Tony Williams, one of Kanye’s main singer friends, we made our way to the Blind Pig for the last show with Mike…no photos or video from this one yet but it was another dope Mike show.
The real highlight for me was afterwards when I was standing onstage chopping it up with the host Dres the Beatnik (good dude). Mike jumped back onstage, grabbed the mic and announced to the crowd that I was officially part of his Grind Time Rap Gang crew and named me his official tour DJ….I had no idea this was coming. I felt like Kanye getting his Roc chain lol. The moral of the story is that you can hopefully look for me coming to a city near you with Mike this summer.
At this point it was around 1:30am and we contemplated trying to catch the late night Kanye performance (he brought out Jay as I suspected, would have been quite a show), but decided to leave well enough alone and headed to the car, wrapping up the best SXSW yet…already can’t wait for next year. For a rabid hip hop fan such as myself, I couldn’t ask for a better experience…
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Wednesday, March 16th
Homebase in Austin @ Loft 718 12pm-7pm: DJing for Gotta Be Karim
Thursday, March 17th
Grand Ole Party @ Peckerheads Noon-?: house DJ, DJing for Vandalyzm (12:15)
Friday, March 18th
SXMW @ Dirty Bill’s 2pm-6pm: DJ for Rockwell Knuckles, Tef Poe, Nato Caliph, Skipp Coon, Gotta Be Karim
Perfect Attendance @ Light Bar 1pm-7pm: house DJ (5-7)
Vibe House @ Venue 222 8pm-2am: house DJ w/ DJ Lowkey
Saturday, March 19th
HoopxHang 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament TBA: Playing alongside Vandalyzm & Tech Supreme
AllHiphop Breeding Ground Showcase @ Venue 222 1pm-6pm: DJing for Killer Mike (4:45)
Fader Fort: DJing for Killer Mike (6:45)
Rockwell Knuckles Official Showcase @ Nuvola 8pm
Fuggin Awesome @ Blind Pig 9pm-2am: DJing for Killer Mike
Hit me up for interviews, etc…
-Started the year living in San Diego and ended it in Los Angeles. Repped St Louis in and from both cities. Shouts out to all the nice folks who welcomed myself and Peace Images to California with open arms.
-I built this damn website from scratch. Shouts to A-Bex and Rolando for the assists.
-Released 14 mixtapes (little bit slow this year). Some of my favorites: From Marcy to Madison St, PRESSURE, Still Dreamin 6.
-Dropped a handful of tapes with The Force, and the crew reached new heights in St Louis and beyond. Meanwhile, my other musical family TSS hit 20 million visitors and the boss got some well-deserved Respect.
-Good times at SXSW (The Force had our own SXSTL stage, I was the house DJ at the TSS/Nahright stage again, was introduced by 8Ball & MJG, & DJed sets for Killer Mike, Pill, & Skyzoo) and A3C (spoke on the Mixtape panel w/ Statik Selektah, Evil Dee, Burn One and others in addition to various sets with MCs as well as rocking with ALIen again). I highly recommend attending both festivals if you love hip hop.
-Got back into working with the youth through hip hop after a brief hiatus–shouts to DJ Phatrick & the whole team at SIPA.
-Interviewed DJ Premier.
Full list of my 2010 mixtapes:
Vandalyzm-Is Not the Father
RMF Radio January 2010
#jewishrapnames
Still Dreamin 6 hosted by Mystic
Tef Poe-Money Never Sleeps
Rockwell Knuckles-Choose Your Own Adventure
From Marcy to Madison St: Jay-Z vs Lupe Fiasco
Boogie Bang 23 hosted by Tef Poe
DU2010
Boogie Bang 24 hosted by Skyzoo
Black Spade-Build & Destroy
Boogie Bang 24.5
Wafeek-Monster Mixtape
PRESSURE
Year-End lists:
1. The titles of these lists say FAVORITE, not BEST or TOP or GREATEST.
2. Each list is in alphabetical order, not order of preference. I tried, and it takes more thought than I’m willing to put in. Also, I didn’t include any mixtapes I was involved in on the Favorite Albums list.
3. I did a little writeup for almost everything on this list, but decided to scrap them all last minute. If you want to read my comments e-mail me and I’ll send em to you.
Seven Favorite Albums:
Curren$y-Pilot Talk 1/Pilot Talk 2
Joe Budden-Mood Muzik 4
Kanye West-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Rick Ross-Teflon Don
The Roots-How I Got Over
Skipp Coon & Mr Nick-Sophomore Slump EP/Women, Revolution & Tennis Shoes
Yelawolf-Trunk Muzik
Honorable Mention: Black Milk-Album of the Year, Joell Ortiz-Farewell Summer EP, Big Boi-Sir Luscious Leftfoot, Vandalyzm-Megatron Majorz Redux, Pac Div-Don’t Mention It, Gotta Be Karim-Bullets & Books, Nato Caliph-Reach EP, B.o.B.-The Adventures of Bobby Ray
Fifteen Favorite Songs:
Black Milk/Royce da 5’9″/Elzhi-Deadly Medley
Black Spade/Coultrain-Runnin Gunnin
J. Cole-Blow Up
Joe Budden/Fabolous/Lloyd Banks/Royce da 5’9″-Remember the Titans
Kanye West-Dark Fantasy
Nato Caliph/Black Spade-Revel
Paul Wall/Jay Electronica/Raekwon/Yelawolf-Live It
Rick Ross/Jay-Z/John Legend-Free Mason
Rockwell Knuckles/Family Affair-Center of Attention
The Roots/Blu/P.O.R.N./Dice Raw-Radio Daze
Skipp Coon/Mr Nick-It Is What It Is
Tef Poe-Everybody Strapped
Vandalyzm-Click Clack
Wafeek-Meaning of Life
Yelawolf-Trunk Muzik
Honorable Mention: Big Sean/Drake-Made, Madd Rapper-Dear Hip Hop, Eminem/Royce da 5’9″-Living Proof, TiRon-For Your Smile, Kanye West/Jay-Z/Pete Rock-The Joy, Killer Mike/T.I.-Ready Set Go, Rick Ross/TI-Pledge Allegiance to the Swag, Lupe Fiasco-SLR, Ras Kass-I Am Legend, Drake/Jay-Z-Light Up, Gotta Be Karim/QB/Vandalyzm/Black Spade-Harmonica
Jacking for Beats:
Crooked I-Hip Hop Weekly Reloaded series
Grafh-Willy Wonker freestyle
Lupe Fiasco-Building Minds Faster
Royce da 5’9″-Bar Exam 3 (NO DJ Version)(<–this part is very important lol)
Yelawolf-I Need a Dollar/Lemonade freestyles
Not hip hop OR not just hip hop:
Bilal-Airtight’s Revenge
B.o.B.-”Ghost in the Machine”
Coultrain-Godmustbeaboogieman
Erykah Badu-New Amerykah 2: Return of the Ankh
Foreign Exchange-Authenticity
Janelle Monae-”Neon Valley Street”
Jimetta Rose-The Barber’s Daughter
Nodzilla/Black Spade/Coultrain/Phillipe-”A Place Called Forever”
Outasight-Never Say Never
Teresa Jenee-”Paint the Roses”
People can complain all day about hip hop being dead if they like, but I find dope artists who are new to me every year. Just a few of the artists whose music I enjoyed this year but I hadn’t heard of and/or listened to much before 2010 started: Yelawolf, Skipp Coon & Mr Nick, Vic Mensa, Tiron, Tyler the Creator, Ill Camille, Bambu, Vic Spenser & Sulaiman.
A few things I’ll be doing in 2011:
-Dropping some mixtapes I’ve been working on for a minute–early in the year you can look forward to an official collaboration with Camp Lo featuring exclusive tracks, blends and snippets off of their upcoming album which is entirely produced by Pete Rock, as well as Out of the Darkness: The Best of Organized Noize, hosted by Big Rube. I’ve got a few other mixes up my sleeve but you’ll hear about those when it’s time, including a new Still Dreamin before too long.
-Helping Peace Images take over the fashion world and marrying the founder.
-Looking forward to seeing some progress with the Shady/Slaughterhouse marriage. And by progress I mean rap songs.
-Writing/blogging more.
-Watching to see what J. Cole, Big Sean and Yelawolf will do as they (hopefully) maneuver their way into the mainstream.
-Continuing to build with my Smoking Section and Force fam, grinding towards our dreams and having a damn good time on the way.
