Hip Hop Colonialism versus Emancipatory (Mixtape) Journalism a Review by Lawrence Grandpre

… Morgan State University professor Jared Ball in his new book I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto. Ball’s book is a penetrating look at the way Black culture has become a commodity to be exploited for profit and a tool for the control of the brown masses, as corporate interest promote the vapid and tacitly racist “bling bling” archetype as the “proper” and “authentic” form of blackness while ignoring and actively suppressing hip hop artists who would use the medium for its original purpose, as a tool for consciousness raising and “emancipatory journalism”. His book reflects many of the characteristics of the music he is analyzing; powerfully emotional, politically revolutionary, intentionally disparate, occasionally discombobulating and often brilliant.

Young Black men are notorious for having the unrealistic expectation that they will make it out the hood by becoming rap superstars. The ubiquitous images of rappers with Benzes and Bling funneled through BET and the adulation heaped upon these rappers by many radio stations creates an environment where young people see these rappers as the epitome of what it means to “make it” in America. Unfortunately most don’t manage to fulfill this lofty ambition, and often more “realistic” (violent) alternatives become the only ways in which these kids can survive, either on the streets or through joining some armed wing of the state like the military or the police. While those from a city like Baltimore will likely have spent much time ponder this dynamic, its two components, the hip hop fantasy and the violent reality, are often theorized as separate, unrelated concepts. But what if these two mechanisms, the corporate hip-hop machine and the state’s mechanisms of control and repression, are not separate, but mutually co-constituting forces that have helped shape the modern (white supremacist) world? This is one of many tough questions tackled by Morgan State University professor Jared Ball in his new book I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto. Ball’s book is a penetrating look at the way Black culture has become a commodity to be exploited for profit and a tool for the control of the brown masses, as corporate interest promote the vapid and tacitly racist “bling bling” archetype as the “proper” and “authentic” form of blackness while ignoring and actively suppressing hip hop artists who would use the medium for its original purpose, as a tool for consciousness raising and “emancipatory journalism”. His book reflects many of the characteristics of the music he is analyzing; powerfully emotional, politically revolutionary, intentionally disparate, occasionally discombobulating and often brilliant.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE!