Hip-Hop and Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy: Blue Scholarship to Challenge "The Miseducation of the Filipino"

Michael Viola

Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies
Volume 4, Number 2 (November 2006)

Abstract

This paper problematizes education policy in the Philippines and United States through a comparative analysis of the No Child Left Behind legislation (United States) and the Education Act of 1982 (Philippines). I demonstrate how systems of education in these two countries are employed to serve the hegemonic interests of a small group of elites who control the means of production. I make the case that hip-hop that appropriately names the world holds the emancipatory potential to demystify the naturalized social relations of a capitalist society. Utilizing the music of Seattle-based artists Blue Scholars as a case study, I show that hip-hop can assist in developing a revolutionary critical pedagogy that functions to not only understand the world but more importantly to recreate it.

Keywords: ip-Hop, Critical Pedagogy, Education Policy, Philippines, No Child Left Behind

full text here

Boots Speaks Out About 9-11
by Davey D-9/20/02

Last week Boots Riley and his Oakland based rap group The Coup found themselves embroiled in a controversy that was unintended. Their new album 'Party Music' was scheduled to be released. There wasn't expected to be a whole lot of fanfare. While, Boots and The Coup have a strong fan base, they are no where on the level of national popularity like Jay-Z or P-Diddy. In other words the group wasn't expected to appear on MTV 's TRL or even DFX for that matter. The Coup wasn't expected to be played on a whole lot of Top 40 commercial stations anytime soon. Boots is on 75 Ark, a small label and his politically laced lyrics and Cali style funk beats were in sharp contrast to much of the subject materialistic subject matter being embraced and promoted by mainstream outlets.

The problem that Boots ran into had to do with the front album cover which depicted Boots holding a detonator blowing up the now destroyed World Trade Center. The cover was shot several months ago and was in line with Boot's philosophy of not liking capitalism. The World Trade Towers have been viewed as a symbol of capitalism all over the world. Boot's depiction was designed to symbolize a concept, little did he know that his picture would be eerily prophetic. Shortly after the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center, Warner Brothers which distributes the album decided to wisely pull the album. All images of the World Trade being blown up were removed from websites and distributed material. However, the word had gotten out and days later The Coup's album cover was being discussed all over the country.

Talk show pundits said it was just another example of the horrors 'gangsta rap'. Others said it was nothing but tasteless, cheap exploitation. Still others felt The Coup themselves needed to be investigated to see if they had any ties to subversive forces within the US. Boots rolled through our Hard Knock Radio show the other day and talked with us and our audience about the controversial album cover. He explained why it was pulled and offered his insights to the horrific tragedies that occurred just a week ago.

Davey D: Boots how are you?

Boots: What's going on? I got a bit of a coldÉ

Davey D: I sat on this story for a bit because I didn't wanna bring any undue tension to you in lieu of Tuesday's tragedy. But the story is now out thereÉ I read about it on various newswires and it was being talked about last night on local news talk stationsÉI'm talking about your album coverÉ It's an eerie album cover that depicts you holding a detonator blowing up the World Trade building. Now of course this picture was taken several months ago, but its being talked about now with your album about to drop. I'm hearing people accusing The Coup of being irresponsible and unpatriotic. Others are saying you guys are trying to capitalize and exploit a horrific tragedy. I wanted to get your viewpoint on all this before it gets totally twisted. Talk about this.

Boots: Well, first the album got pulled. Second, people seem to be talking about this because the blast shown in the picture is on the same level and general area of where the planes crashed. When we originally made that picture it was in May and June. It was supposed to be a metaphor to symbolize us destroying 'capitalism'.

What The Coup talks about is what I think it takes to make a revolution. If anybody has ever listened to our music. I definitely espouse revolution and overthrowing the system. My way in which I think this has to happen is through hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people moving, organizing and making something happen. I do think in the end it will be a violent revolution, but I don't think it's something that will happen by the act of a few people. I wanna say that off that bat, that last Tuesday's tragic act is not something that The Coup endorses.

What happened the other day was a tragedy but the media wants to make us think that this happened in a vacuum. They don't tell us about the fact that the US ordered a hundred thousand people killed in East Timor a few years ago. We funded the operation, brought the guns and as a matter of fact had US Generals as consultants who let them do the firing.

They don't talk about the fact that the US constantly creates terrorists groups to work against other countries such as FRAPH in Haiti run by Emanuel Constant who still lives in New York. And is protected by the CIA. They went and killed thousands of people in Haiti to overthrow Aristide using the same type of terrorist tactics that the US claims to be so shocked about.

Osama bin Laden himself was a CIA operative. He was a CIA operative working for the US against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Not only was he an operative, they [the CIA] trained him on his tactics which is one of the reasons they are probably so sure its him. They know because he is using their tactics. What I'm saying is this type of stuff is the modus operandi on a yearly basis for the United States government and the corporations that back them.

Davey D: I remember when I was younger and President Regan got shot, there was a college next to my school-Lehmen college that started a club called 'The Club to Assassinate Regan'. About a week after they started the club, Regan actually got shot and everyone who was in that club got questioned by the Secret Service even though the club was formed as a joke.With this album cover and the terrorist events having transpired, have you been questioned or do you think you will be questioned by law enforcement officials? Are you concerned about your safety considering how upset and angry people are about these terrorist attacks? Do you think people will see you as unpatriotic and take their anger out on you?

Boots: I'm not concerned. I realized that anything can happen but I'm putting my political viewpoint out there. Once again my political viewpoint is what happen on Tuesday should not happened. Those attacks are not at all in line with what I'm talking about and my sympathies go out to the families and friends of all those killed. As a matter of fact, I just found out an hour ago a friend of mine was on the plane from Newark-Flight 93.
The reason why Warner Brothers pulled this album cover doesn't have anything to do with sympathy for the people because you know as well as I do that right now they are trying to buy the movie rights to what happened last Tuesday. So to them, it's not about nobody should mention this subject. It's about the fact that I might have a political viewpoint and was in a position to give my spin as to why and what happened.
If you notice, all the media outlets on television have the exact same line. There's no variation in the editorials of what should happen. Everything is about; 'spend more money on the military', and 'people should join the military'. For the first time in my life and I didn't expect to see this... Black people standing on the overpass on one of the freeways in Oakland waving the American flag. It's because of all of this hype. This is why I wanted to keep the album cover. Originally the album cover had some humor which was lost with what happened on Tuesday. But I wanted to keep the cover so I could have a platform..

Davey D: Now I was going to ask you whether or not it was your decision to pull the album. I have been getting emails from people saying that if Boots was a true revolutionary, he would've never pull the album cover. So what your saying is the final decision was out of your control?

Boots: The decision came a couple of hours into the day after the second plane crash. Warner Brothers pulled the album.

Davey D: Now we should remind people that this isn't the first time Warner Brothers has been embroiled in controversy with rap artists. They had a major problem with Ice T after he did his song 'Cop Killer'.

Boots: They also had problems with Paris and his album 'Sleeping With The Enemy'.

Davey D: That's rightÉ For folks who don't know Warner Brothers was the distribution company for Paris back in '92 when he released a song called Bush Killer. The inside cover had a picture of him standing behind a tree ready to assassinate then President Bush sr. Warner Brothers made him release the record after the 92 election... Lets take some phone calls..

Caller #1 [Kim]: Should the United States be partially accountable if bin Laden was a CIA operative that was trained by the US?

Boots: We don't know why the US is saying he did it. It could be for other reasons. The main point is the US trains terrorists. We're only up in arms now because this hit us here at home. Millions of people all over the world live in fear everydayÉ

Caller#2 [Kwame]: You know Saddam Hussein was on the CIA payroll. A lot of people don't know that Kuwait used to belong to Iraq and it was America and Britain that separated them. That's where you get BP gas stations which is British Petroleum Gas... Also your boy Noreaga in Panama. He was part of the CIA.

Boots: In Panama, they killed mad amounts of people.

Caller#2 [Kwame]: There were mass grave sites after they did those bombings.

Boots: That's what gets me so upset. Now people are up in arms about last Tuesday as if life inside the US borders are somehow make you more of a human being. We dehumanize everyone else.

Caller#2 [Kwame]: They say there are 5000 thousands kids who die everyday in Iraq because of our sanctions. In fact the US just did a bombing raid in Iraq this past Sunday just before the World Trade attacks.

Davey D: Let me ask both of you guys this.. Someone listening to this conversation may conclude that you are not patriotic and you don't love this country. If you think America is so bad, why not leave and go to another place? If you don't like the way the game is played you are free to leaveÉ How do you respond to that?

Boots: The thing about moving to another country is that the US is running the whole wide world. Like I said earlier, people are living in fear all over the world. They are living in fear of the United States military and the military operations which are on the United States' payroll. It would not help me at all to move anywhere else. The only thing that would help me is to be where I am and where I know people so we can organize to overthrow this country.

Caller#2 [Kwame] When people say you aren't patriotic, its usually white or European Americans.Now this next point applies to them as well as many of us [African Americans]. We deny history and we are ignorant of history. This is really a colony. It's not that I'm not patriotic. I'm patriotic to truth, righteousness and justice. I appreciate this guy I heard on the radio the other day. [The Dogg House] where he said 'truth is truth'. He said we should get the people who committed these acts, but we should also tell the truth about what this government doesÉ The freedoms we have here are part of the deceptions of them [the gov't] doing all this other stuff. The CIA is training people in Central and South America to kill their own people. They set up puppet governmentsÉ A lot of people just don't know this. Some people are more political than others I'm just fighting for righteousness.

Davey D: Boots someone just sent us an email asking whether or not we should have a military? And if so what should be the purpose of the military?

Boots: The purpose of the military is to protect corporate interestsÉ Any military for any government is gonna serve whoever runs that system. Here in the US, it's the capitalist, the ruling class and the multinational corporations.

To answer the question of how the military could be run differently? That will come only when there is a drastic change to the system. The military are the guns that allow these companies to keep making their money. For example, the FRAPH organization and Emanuel Constant in Haiti was funded by Nestles and the Spaulding baseball company. That was them protecting their profits in Haiti. They didn't want Aristide to raise the minimum wage up from 10 cents an hour.

The terrorism that the US perpetrates all over the world has to do with profitsÉ

Caller#3 [Stacey]É I wanna talk a little bit about tactics. ABC News says 90% of our country supports war, but when you scroll down and look at their website you see that only 432 people were polled. I just want to encourage everyone to go into the community and share this information and hold teach ins and talk to people who may not know these things. We can counter these big media conglomerations with one on one conversations with people.

Davey D: I would just add that anyone who has what we may consider an informed perspective step it up a notch and involve themselves in these on going discussions by writing letters to the editors, calling up local radio talk shows and tv stations and basically do whatever it takes to keep these perspectives out there so people don't fall prey to only what is being handed down by mass mediaÉ We can't allow corporations to define our conversations and agenda.... Boots any last comments.

Boots: I've gotten emails from people who were mad that we would put out such a cover with or without the tragedy. People should be mad that the US is gonna use the death of these people at the World Trade Center to beef up police and to further oppress people not only here but all around the world. They are going to get the green light to basically do whatever they want. Like the last caller pointed out. They said there is 90% support from the American people, but they only polled 432 people. That's so they can have an excuse to do whatever the hell they want.

(I made some changes to the version posted here; I’m still not sure about a couple things – let me know if I made any mistakes)

By the way, check out what seems to be their first video, for another, slower and more personal anti-war song, “Back Home,” from their new album Bayani (I haven’t found any lyrics for this). Reviewer Nate Patrin comments: “Similar to the wave of protest music that emerged during the Vietnam War, Bayani is a statement record stamped with the anger, depression and the slowly emerging hope of these uncertain times. […]”

“Blink” lyrics

Verse 1

With war rising over the horizon
It’s hard to start writin’
Been fightin’ it in the belly of the titan
My tourniquets tighten around the livin’ but dyin’
My pen floods the pages while the children are cryin’
I want to put on an iron shirt, chase the devil out o’ earth
Spit until my tongue and saliva glands burst
But first I invoke the spirit of the long gone and
Coming back through the song
I am one with that all-seein’ being, but
It seems as if we’re being tricked into believing that
Which we think we believe in
Even if we disagree on who the best MC is
We bob to the beat as if we’re nodding in agreement
I write to free-da-dom [?], though freedom hasn’t come
I let it ring to leave a message on my answering machine
I see a movement has begun
As soon as we become the true truth seekers
Down with this Babylon regime

Hook

To think you can die in the blink of an eye
I bid you to try, to test I & I
Been destined to fly, but I’m resting tonight
And one bright morning I will take flight
But until then, I’ll be rockin’ on the M
I see the future drippin’ out of a pen, and
If sleep be the cousin of death
Then every time I blink’s one step closer to my last breath

Verse 2

They say talk is cheap, but war is expensive
I speak 'cause it’s free and these words are my weapon
Don’t think for a second I will not question
US foreign policy, imperial aggression
Inventing war for he quenching of the thirst for the oil
 'Cause money don’t trickle down to workers who toil, you see
Blood trickle down from the wound to the soil
And broken antennas with aluminum foil be
Standing on televisions, transmitting propaganda of millionaire senators
And your so-called commander in chief, B
I’m telling you the man is a thief
In his hand he holds a plan to ban your freedom of speech
To build a pipeline, put Afghanistan on a leash
When it bites back, blame the Taliban for the breach
Of security in each and every first world country
Where life more dissin' [?] if you’re thirsty or hungry

Hook

To think you can die in the blink of an eye
I bid you to try, to test I & I
Been destined to fly, but I’m resting tonight
And one bright morning I will take flight
But until then, I’ll be rockin’ on the M
I see the future drippin’ out of a pen, and
If sleep be the cousin of death
Then every time I blink’s one step closer to my last breath

Verse 3

America romanticizes the old war story
Heroes, ammos, guns, blood, guts and glory, and
No wonder the majority wants a war with Iraq
Even if only 15% know where it’s at on a map
With our backs against a stockpile of weaponry
Enough to turn the earth into a memory, ‘cept there’ll be
No one to remember this planet
If it happens, God damn it, if I get drafted today
I swear to God, Jah, Allah and Yahweh
I’ll toss the letter away and I’ll pull a Cassius Clay
In the military, minorities comprise the majority
Surprised? Are you kidding me?
The lies rely on brown bodies to fight for white puppet masters
I cannot fathom how the caged bird drinks
Until he thinks he is free
A critical mass between the heavenly future,
And a hell of a past, now

Hook

To think you can die in the blink of an eye
I bid you to try, to test I & I
Been destined to fly, but I’m resting tonight
And one bright morning I will take flight
But until then, I’ll be rockin’ on the M
I see the future drippin’ out of a pen, and
If sleep be the cousin of death
Then every time I blink’s one step closer to my last breath

(Or, my new slew of obsessions...)

Strange that it's whenever i spend some time in China that I become obsessed with certain Western things & spend hours online looking them up - anything to keep me from my work. (Sorry WH, you're translation is coming along slowly but surely - i'll definitely have it by the first of next month - only a month late...) In this case it also has something to do w/ having my own computer for the first time & learning to download music, & then all of the cans of worms that opens up when one starts looking up the bands and things on wikipedia. I guess what started it all was meeting an intriguing person here who told me about certain musicians - so, I guess it started with a combination of curiosity & the desire to appear interesting or knowledgeable about these things to her, & then the curiosity & the compulsive act of searching (both a flight from something and a compulsion towards something else - something that I'm sure doesn't exist) took on a life of its own. Of course this expanded far beyond the initial curiosities (the history of Bluegrass in relation to Country, Old Timey, etc.; pacific northwest garage rock from the 50s to the present; musicians influenced by the Situationist International...) - for instance, i've been surprised to find myself moved almost to tears by bands that were completely uninteresting a couple years ago - like Modest Mouse or The Arcade Fire (i'm sure it has something to do w/ memories associated w/ this music, or the strange feelings evoked by things i've never heard before, like The Rakes, or Bjork's early jazz work - they will always be deeply intertwined w/ the strange memory-experience of August 2006 in Chengdu - stormy nights eating dumplings & all (it's already turned into a memory even as i supposedly experience it now in the present - is it possible to experience the present as such? need to go back to Heidegger on this. Seems like the present is always experienced as nostalgia, regret, or anticipation, depending on the mood).

So, after all this, before I go back to work (actually I'm meeting a Rajasthani woman for dinner - should be interesting, she's got experience in rural social development work, has been to Kerala, & is curious about Chinese comrades; plus it will be nice to have some Indian food for a change, though not sure if stomach can handle it - point being, i won't get much done tonight, but tomorrow - yes, everything can be accomplished tomorrow! Afraid I'll have to miss the reggae party to get something done before my friend comes on Sunday & travels w/ me for a week - so I probably won't post much for the next week or so - maybe an excerpt from the translation in case anyone's curious...), here I just want to share one of the fruits of all my procrastinating: four (anti)political, Situationist-influenced bands from the UK post-punk scene of the late 70s - early 80s: The Fall, The Mekons, Wire, and the Gang of Four. Why is it that crappy bands from this scene like Crass are so much more well known? All four of these bands are much more interesting and innovative musically, & probably had a huge subterranean influence on pop and anti-pop music in general. But what especially interests me is their lyrics. Ultimately I think they fail - just as Debord's films failed, as have recent attempts to revive this style of propaganda (I'm thinking especially of the Refused here) - for some reason it seems to work much better with hiphop style rhyming than w/ any rock derived form - at least w/ hiphop the audience sometimes learns something, although most of the time you're just chilling out to the beat and enjoying the clever rhymes. The point of punk, post-punk, hardcore, noise, etc., as with Brechtian drama, is to keep you from falling into any relaxing rhythm, to keep you from slipping back into the comfortable role of spectator. And I think think these bands get as close to that ideal as possible. More than punk proper, which was never discordant enough, too simple and ugly to keep you interested, & the lyrics were usually too adolescent to stimulate the intellectual work necessary to crack the shell - they usually ended up, like Crass & the many American anarchist bands, like Dead Kennedys & Minor Threat, as whiny moralistic denunciations of tyranny and appeals to be nice. Wire, The Fall, & Gang of Four, both in their lyrics and music, tried to make their audiences go deeper into the texture of life under capital - into our everyday desires, for instance. Love, & the desire for an ideal loving relationship as proffered by mainstream pop music (as well as some punk), was a major theme of inquiry (see GoF's "Anthrax" for instance). I won't go on about this - i'm sure you're getting bored. My point is just that I think these guys take the original anti-spectacular impulses of punk as far as they could go, and yet they still fail. Because, as with Brecht's efforts, you're trying to walk a line that's impossibly thin. On the one side, the music becomes too ugly & no one wants to hear it, or, lyrically, you try to spell things out too prosaically or jargonistically, so that it sounds like you're preaching. On the other side, when the music sounds good enough for people to like, & the lyrics poetic enough for people to not dismiss them, the audience falls back into the role of passive spectator & the critical activity dissolves. I don't know what the solution is to this - that's where I'm at. I think there's more to this, but let's leave it here.

Probably my favorite of these four bands is Gang of Four, both in their theory & their sound. Often they're weaker poetically, so they end up sounding preachy or jargony. From what i've heard so far, their second full album, Solid Gold (1981), is the best both musically and lyrically. Unfortunately, the lyrics to only a couple other albums are online, at the fan site Not Great Men (see an example from their third album below). The first album  Entertainment! (1979) is also really worth a listen. These and most of their other collections can be found on Soul Seek. There are also a couple sound files linked to their Wikipedia and Myspace pages, & you can sample most of their songs on Amazon. Allmusic has this to say about them:

Formed in 1977 by Leeds University students Jon King (vocals), Andy Gill (guitar), Dave Allen (bass), and Hugo Burnham (drums), Gang of Four (along with the Fall, Mekons, and Liliput) produced some of the most exhilarating and lasting music of the early English post-punk era of 1978-1983. Fueled by the fury of punk rock and radical political theory, Gang of Four successfully welded the two in an inspired display of polemics and music that addressed the vagaries of life in the modern world (including love and romance) as matters of political inquiry. Despite the fact that this sounds rife with the potential for being long on rhetoric and short on groove, such was not the case. What made Gang of Four's polemical clang'n'roll so compelling was that it worked as harsh, bracing, and ultimately liberating rock & roll. With Allen and Burnham combining as a formidable and frequently very funky rhythm section, Gill didn't play guitar as much as emit thick wads of semi-tuneful distortion, while King "sang" in a dry, declamatory fashion similar to that of the Fall's Mark E. Smith. The rhythms were stripped down and jagged; at times Gill would dispense with guitar solos entirely and "play" non-solos, which were (surprise!) silence. Song titles sounded like the titles of radical political essays: "At Home He's a Tourist," "Damaged Goods," "It's Her Factory," "Love Like Anthrax," "To Hell With Poverty," all of it openly challenging the audience's preconceived notions about rock music, performance, the cult of celebrity, and the nature of politics. And in doing so, GOF conveyed rage, confusion, and loss of identity as well as any band of its time.

We Live As We Dream, Alone
(from the album Songs of the Free)

Everybody is in too many pieces
No-man's-land surrounds our desires
To crack the shell we mix with others
Some lie in the arms of lovers

The city is the place to be
With no money you go crazy
I need an occupation!
You have to pay for satisfaction

We live as we dream, alone
To crack the shell we mix with the others
Some flirt with fascism
Some lie in the arms of lovers

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone

Everybody is in too many pieces
No-man's-land surrounds me!
With no money we'll all go crazy
(we apologize)

Man and woman need to work
It helps us define ourselves
We were not born in isolation
But sometimes it seems that way

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone

We live as we dream, alone
The space between our work and its product
Some fall into fatalism
As if it started this way

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone

We live as we dream, alone
(We live as we dream, alone)
We live as we dream, alone
(We were not born in isolation)
We live as we dream, alone
(But sometimes it seems that way)

(The space between our work and its product)

We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
(As if it always must be this way)
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
We live as we dream, alone
(With no money we'll all go crazy)

Interesting name, especially when (mis)translated into English. Sort of a Freudian slip about how the West defines the conditions of Chinese cultural production (only more explicitly when it comes to undeground, i.e. "counter-cultural" forms like rock & roll)? Western Power = phallus. Really the term 西部 refers to Western China (The West is called 西方), and 力量 is something like "forces" - the idea, I think, is something like a "battle of the bands" or uniting of forces, and maybe regional pride. In any case, should be fun. Will be held in Hua Yang (华阳) township. For details in Chinese see announcement on Little Bar Forum. "Mixed-blood" （混血儿）hippie band Proximity Buttefly will be the opening act on Sept 8 - see their English announcement.

Dammit, I missed the experimental night w/ Bai Tian, Bai Xiaomo and Wang Rui! Someone (not naming any names here - I should have double checked, & should have known in the first place b/c Bai Tian told me the correct date himself a few weeks ago) told me it was tomorrow. At least they will be performing again soon, as will White (w/ Shen Jing from Hang on the Box, who has recently been experimenting w/ some fancy synthesizer with the guidance of Blixa Bargeld). And there are still two more sessions of the festival - next week will be reggae. For details see the Little Bar forum.

The good news is that the last part of my human subjects application is not due for three more days, instead of tomorrow as i thought, which means i can go to bed now!