Sujatha Fernandes

My Op-ed on Rap and Revolution in the New York Times

2012-02-15T18:12:00.001-08:00

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

The Mixtape of the Revolution

By SUJATHA FERNANDES

Published: January 29, 2012

DEF JAM will probably never sign them, but Cheikh Oumar Cyrille Touré, from a small town about 100 miles southeast of Dakar, Senegal, and Hamada Ben Amor, a 22-year-old man from a port city 170 miles southeast of Tunis, may be two of the most influential rappers in the history of hip-hop.

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Mark Todd

“Coup 2 Gueule” by the Keurgui Crew (YouTube.com)
“Head of State” by El Général(YouTube.com)
“Masrah Deeb” by Deeb(YouTube.com)

Mr. Touré, a k a Thiat (“Junior”), and Mr. Ben Amor, a k a El Général, both wrote protest songs that led to their arrests and generated powerful political movements. “We are drowning in hunger and unemployment,” spits Thiat on “Coup 2 Gueule” (from a phrase meaning “rant”) with the Keurgui Crew. El Général’s song “Head of State” addresses the now-deposed President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali over a plaintive background beat. “A lot of money was pledged for projects and infrastructure/Schools, hospitals, buildings, houses/but the sons of dogs swallowed it in their big bellies.” Later, he rhymes, “I know people have a lot to say in their hearts, but no way to convey it.” The song acted as sluice gates for the release of anger that until then was being expressed clandestinely, if at all.

During the recent wave of revolutions across the Arab world and the protests against illegitimate presidents in African countries like Guinea and Djibouti, rap music has played a critical role in articulating citizen discontent over poverty, rising food prices, blackouts, unemployment, police repression and political corruption. Rap songs in Arabic in particular — the new lingua franca of the hip-hop world — have spread through YouTube, Facebook, mixtapes, ringtones and MP3s from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya and Algeria, helping to disseminate ideas and anthems as the insurrections progressed. El Général, for example, was featured on a mixtape put out by the dissident group Khalas (Enough) in Libya, which also included songs like “Tripoli Is Calling” and “Dirty Colonel.”

Why has rap — an American music that in its early global spread was associated with thuggery and violence — come to be so highly influential in these regions? After all, rappers are not the only musicians involved in politics. Late last week, protests erupted when Youssou N’Dour, a Senegalese singer of mbalax, a fusion of traditional music with Latin, pop and jazz, was barred by a constitutional court from pursuing a run for president. But mbalax singers are typically seen as older entertainers who often support the government in power. In contrast, rappers, according to the Senegalese rapper Keyti, “are closer to the streets and can bring into their music the general feeling of frustration among people.”

Another reason is the oratorical style rap employs: rappers report in a direct manner that cuts through political subterfuge. Rapping can simulate a political speech or address, rhetorical conventions that are generally inaccessible to the marginal youth who form the base of this movement. And in places like Senegal, rap follows in the oral traditions of West African griots, who often used rhyming verse to evaluate their political leaders. “M.C.’s are the modern griot,” Papa Moussa Lo, a k a Waterflow, told me in an interview a few weeks ago. “They are taking over the role of representing the people.”

Although many of these rappers style themselves as revolutionary upstarts, they are most concerned with protecting a constitutional order that they see as being trampled by unscrupulous politicians. On “Coup 2 Gueule,” Thiat accuses President Abdoulaye Wade of election fraud and of siphoning money from Senegal’s Chemical Industries company (I.C.S.) and the African air traffic management organization (Asecna). He raps in Wolof, the dominant language in Senegal, “Old man, your seven-year presidential reign has been expensive/As if it wasn’t enough that you cheated during the last elections/You ruined the I.C.S. and hijacked Asecna’s money.” (It flows better in Wolof.)

Most of these rappers made music prior to the political events that swept their countries. But by speaking boldly and openly about a political reality that was not being otherwise acknowledged, rappers hit a nerve, and their music served as a call to arms for the budding protest movements. In Egypt, the rapper Mohamed el Deeb told me in a recent interview, “shallow pop music and love songs got heavy airplay on the radio, but when the revolution broke out, people woke up and refused to accept shallow music with no substance.”

As the Arab revolutions and African protests are ousting and discrediting establishment politicians, the young populations of these regions are looking to rappers as voices of clarity and leadership. Waterflow raises money at his shows to support his community because, like many of his fans, he believes that “waiting for our political leaders to give us opportunities is a waste of time.” Other Senegalese rappers helped found the movement Y’en a Marre (“We’re Fed Up”), which has crystallized opposition to President Wade and led a campaign to register young voters for the elections next month. Some are even supporting candidates for president. The rapper Keyti does not back the candidacy of Mr. N’Dour, because he thinks he’s trying to run out of self-interest, but acknowledges that it “was much needed to make people realize how politicians have failed.”

Rappers are hoping to inaugurate a different kind of politics. They would sooner make a pilgrimage to the South Bronx than to the Senegalese, Sufi holy city of Touba; they reject the predefined roles available within the political arena. And we shouldn’t forget that despite being thrust into the spotlight at a historic moment, rappers are also artists who want to make their music. As Deeb raps in his song “Masrah Deeb” (Deeb’s Stage) — written in the early days of the Egyptian revolution to remind people why they were taking to the streets — “I’m not a dictator/Deeb’s a doctor in the beat department.”

Sujatha Fernandes is an associate professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of “Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation.”

My new book on global hip hop is now available

2012-01-30T04:55:00.000-08:00

Close to the Edge

In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation

At its rhythmic, beating heart, this book asks whether hip hop can change the world. Hip hop—rapping, beat-making, b-boying, deejaying, graffiti—captured the imagination of the teenage Sujatha Fernandes in the 1980s, inspiring her and politicizing her along the way. Years later, armed with mc-ing skills and an urge to immerse herself in global hip hop, she embarks on a journey into street culture around the world. From the south side of Chicago to the barrios of Caracas and Havana and the sprawling periphery of Sydney, she grapples with questions of global voices and local critiques, and the rage that underlies both. An engrossing read and an exhilarating travelogue, this punchy book also asks hard questions about dispossession, racism, poverty and the quest for change through a microphone.

Buy the book

My Op-ed on Cuban rap in the New York Times

2011-08-06T17:45:00.001-07:00

OPINION

Straight Outta Havana

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By SUJATHA FERNANDES

Published: August 6, 2011

REPRINTS

Sujatha Fernandes is an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of the forthcoming “Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation.”

Related Videos (YouTube)

ONSTAGE is Instinto, a female trio extraordinaire. It’s my first time seeing them perform in Havana. The divas are wearing shimmering strapless dresses with high heels. As a salsa beat kicks in, they shake and turn, rapping lyrically, then singing in three-part harmony.

This is Cuban rap, where the streets meet highbrow art. It is an American-derived subculture that has flourished on the island despite — and in some ways, because of — the United States’ half-century-long embargo against Cuba.

President Obama has relaxed travel restrictions to Cuba and has begun granting visas for visiting Cuban artists. This month, the Grammy-winning singer Pablo Milanés will tour the United States for the first time since 1979. And on Monday the National Assembly agreed to lift some restrictions on the economy. Many are celebrating these changes as the beginning of the end of the embargo and an opening of Cuban society. But it’s worth remembering that, besides the hardships, there can be benefits to living in a bubble. Islands are hot spots of biodiversity. And out of isolation, Cuban art forms like rap have developed a particular richness and vitality.

Rap was originally an import. In the early ’90s, young Cubans built antennas from wire coat hangers and dangled their radios out of their windows to catch 2 Live Crew and Naughty by Nature on Miami’s 99 Jamz. Aspiring Cuban M.C.’s rapping at house parties and in small local venues crassly mimicked their American counterparts.

“Just like you, just like you, nigger, we wanna be a nigger like you,” Primera Base rapped offensively about their hero, Malcolm X. The group was known to sport thick imitation gold chains and fake diamonds — even though “bling” was a remote concept given Cuba’s endemic scarcities.

But Cuban rap soon took on a life of its own. Unlike other hip-hop fans around the world, young Cubans had little access to the latest trends in American rap, so they had to look inward for inspiration. With only two state-run TV channels, they couldn’t tune in to the globally televised Yo! MTV Raps to see pioneers like Public Enemy or N.W.A., and Havana wasn’t on the touring circuit for De La Soul.

The embargo also kept out the key tools of background beats — samplers, mixers and albums — so Cuban rappers instead drew on a rich heritage of traditional local music, recreating the rhythmic pulse of hip-hop with instruments like the melodic Batá drums, typically used in ceremonies of the Afro-Cuban Santería religion. In the tradition of Cuban a cappella groups like Vocal Sampling — which conjured up full salsa orchestras solely through their voices — Cuban rappers made up for the lack of digital technology by developing the human beat box, mimicking not just drum machines but congas, trumpets and even song samples.

Cuban rap is also special for the caliber of its lyrics. Thanks to the country’s excellent and free schools, rappers — although predominantly black and from poorer neighborhoods — received a high degree of education. Cuba’s most prolific rap producer, Pablo Herrera, was a professor of English at the University of Havana. Rap lyrics mine Cuba’s literature and history in their portrayals of the tribulations of street life.

“I have a race that is dark and discriminated / I have a workday that demands and gives nothing,” rapped Hermanos De Causa in their song “Tengo.” The song reworked a 1964 poem that praised the achievements of the revolution for blacks; a new generation was watching those gains erode.

The increasing innovativeness of Cuban rap stands in stark contrast to American rap, where the diversity of sounds and themes has been eschewed in favor of a catchy pop formula with a focus on consumption. Hip-hop originated in the outdoor jams and battles of the Bronx during the 1970s, and commercial distribution began in 1979, when the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” became a hit. Global entertainment networks have promoted many influential rap artists, like Run-D.M.C. and Salt-n-Pepa, but today there is less and less room for American rappers to experiment with unconventional subjects and styles.

Cuban rappers avoided this fate for a number of reasons. One was government support. Initially, the government criticized the “racially divisive” culture of rap, but seeing how popular it was among the youth, the state soon came around. It began to support the annual rap festivals and now finances a yearly international hip-hop symposium. In Cuba, many musicians are full-time employees of the state, paid a monthly salary for performing, composing and rehearsing. Starting last decade, prominent rappers also entered into this arrangement, freeing them to be creative rather than producing generic salsa-rap fusions to appeal to foreign record labels.

The government’s interest in rap isn’t all positive, however. With state sponsorship comes state censorship: Rappers who criticize the government risk being censored on the radio or barred from performing in prominent venues. But censorship, like seclusion, can foster innovation. Cuban artists perfected techniques of metaphor, allusion and ambiguity to trick the censors. The rapper Magia Lopez of Obsesión defended a song, from her 2002 album, that was about prostitutes in barrios like Central Havana by saying that it was about capitalist countries. But she had never been to a capitalist country when she wrote it. The song takes on a universal appeal because of the artist’s need to dissemble.

This is, of course, not an argument in favor of state censorship or the embargo — which has deprived Cubans of basic necessities like food and medicine. The recent openings initiated by the Obama administration should be celebrated. But we can also recognize that some things, like the distinctiveness of Cuban rap, may be lost as the country opens up to a global market economy. It’s worth remembering that imposed, even self-imposed, isolation can be a crucible for artistic creativity.

Close to the Edge in the Daily News

2011-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ex-Emcee hip hops all over the globe to chronicle worldwide music scene

BY Sam Levin
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Tuesday, July 12th 2011, 4:00 AM

Mariela Lombard for News

Rapper Julio Cardenas (in a hat) and son (l. - r.), Teo Cardenas, Queens College professor Sujatha Fernandes (center) and Cuban DJ artist Ariel Fernandez. Fernandes has a new book on "global hip-hop"

After chasing hip-hop movements from Chicago to Havana, emcee-turned-professor Sujatha Fernandes ultimately found herself most at home in the genre's birthplace - New York City.
Fernandes, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College, recounts her 11-year global journey in a new book to be released in September, titled "Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation."
She traces rapping, b-boying, deejaying and graffiti art in four different countries.
"There is this way that hip hop speaks to people and helps them talk about their local situations," said Fernandes, 37, who was an emcee with a rap group in her native Sydney, when she was a teenager.
The book focuses on street culture in Havana, Chicago, Caracas and Sydney. But Fernandes also writes about how several artists - mirroring her own experience - immigrated to New York City.
The city is a "mecca for young people all over the world who listen to hip hop," said Fernandes, who integrates popular music into her Queens College classes.
As an "Indian-Australian-Portuguese gringa," Fernandes said settling down here felt natural. "In some ways, I was really looking for home."
Ariel Fernandez-Diaz, a well-known deejay and promoter from Cuba featured in the book, also found his hip-hop journey landing him in New York.
"In some ways, I feel closer to New Yorkers who share the same culture and values as me than the Cubans who lived on the same block as me," said Fernandez-Diaz, 35, who wrote the first article in Cuba about hip hop.
Fernandez-Diaz says he was captivated by American hip hop and helped bring it to life in Havana, where he ran a festival and a magazine tied to the movement. But he felt like his voice wasn't being heard in Cuba and grew frustrated, he said.
"I always felt connected with the hip-hop culture of New York," he said of his decision to leave his country in 2005. He now lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
The move from Cuba to New York resonates with Julio Cardenas, a Cuban rapper who came to the city in 2001 and now works at a restaurant in the East Village.
He was immediately inspired by the diversity of local rappers, he said. "I thought everything was going to be commercial, but it wasn't," said Cardenas, 36.
Even though he doesn't rap professionally now, Cardenas said he feels proud to have been part of a Cuban movement that still influences hip hop today.
"We were the first to take the risk," he said.

Sujatha Fernandes

My Op-ed on Rap and Revolution in the New York Times

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

The Mixtape of the Revolution

By SUJATHA FERNANDES

Published: January 29, 2012

Mark Todd

Related

“Coup 2 Gueule” by the Keurgui Crew (YouTube.com)

“Head of State” by El Général(YouTube.com)

“Masrah Deeb” by Deeb(YouTube.com)

My new book on global hip hop is now available

My Op-ed on Cuban rap in the New York Times

OPINION

Straight Outta Havana

By SUJATHA FERNANDES

Published: August 6, 2011

Related Videos (YouTube)

“Se Busca” by Obsesión

“Tengo” by Hermanos de Causa

“Mi Ventana” by Randy Acosta

Close to the Edge in the Daily News

Ex-Emcee hip hops all over the globe to chronicle worldwide music scene