My Philosophy

So 2009 is here. RIP to 29-E, and my thoughts and prayers to
1st Black Prez aka Prezwell Jackson and Trama of
Black Senate.

Okay—if you somehow haven’t heard—a few days ago there
was a shooting at Chop Suey. During a local hiphop show, someone
knocked on Chop’s side door, and when the show’s host, Prez, opened the
door, someone opened fire into the hallway behind the stage.
When the smoke and confusion cleared, one man lay dead, two
wounded.

What’s ringing in my head is the same thing that resonates in the
heads of so many others I know right now: It could have been me. I’ve
stood in that hallway more times than I could possibly count and
answered dozens upon dozens of knocks at that side door—I can
literally hear the sound in my head right now.

What in the world is there possibly to say? I hope that the
police catch the idiot responsible. And it’ll be that same old
song—a lot of people in this town will try to use this tragedy as
an excuse to shut down everything hiphop in Seattle. But we can’t be
hung up on their lack of “big picture,” because there’s work to do.
Some of my colleagues, fellow members of the Seattle hiphop community,
and I met up last Sunday night to talk about where to go from here.
To honor the fallen and injured. And to anticipate the
backlash.

Wherever we go from here, we have to be honest. Our love for our
culture, the teeth and nails we’ve ground down fighting to maintain it,
makes us defensive of it—makes us want to point fingers back

at our inevitable accusers. But we have to be clear, this year and
every year to follow—we can’t shirk our responsibility. Not the
responsibility for taking a life
that night—that rests
with the sorry individual who pulled the trigger. No, we have
a responsibility to ourselves, to the fans, and to this music to be

accountable for our actions, and to be willing to hold others
accountable—even if we live in a system comfortable with zero
accountability. We can’t let dumb shit fly at our events, we
can’t half-ass security when it’s called for, and we
have to be
100 percent real with our
fellow artists/promoters/bookers. There
are artists, sometimes with ties to the streets, who choose to focus on
their art and music. And there are some that are tied (as in chained)
to the streets, who choose to focus on it and all its extracurriculars.
Which, let’s not be disingenuous, attracts those who feel the
same
way and ups the bullshit quotient. DJ Quik said it perhaps
the best—verse three, “You’z a Ganxta,” from the Book
of
Rhythm-al-Ism:

See, some don’t realize the power of lyrics

’cause when you rap about death, you talkin’ to spirits.

Look, we are very much anointed. Let’s not waste that.