Akala

So this class assignment actually really got me into Akala! I hadn't listened before and have been wowed. For this I chose to pick two songs (I listened to whole albums haha). I chose these two songs as I felt they could almost directly connect to specific themes in the readings.

Song 1- Murder Runs the World https://youtu.be/00Aho9vpqLo

This song was a great transition from my reflection on City of God. I feel like it hit on a few of the themes I mentioned in the movie as well.

The song opens Verse 1 with the following lines
"Every shot that thunders
Through the nighttime don't you wonder
What potential was extinguished
To keep the flames burning under?
Through the underworld and over world
Principles are so the same
Though we pretend they're not as if they do not control cocaine"

Here he is conveying the realities of what actually happens when the shots ring out and murder happens. What potential is extinguished, what is lost? What role does the larger system have to be in the flames of potential being extinguished? The over world and under world share the same principles, and the overworld colonizes and controls the other. The overworld is in control of it all (police, government, etc) and the cycle continues because we allow it to. Similar here to my previous discussion on city of god. The underworld is dehumanized and made less than. Any potential created is extinguished through murder and crime, or is colonized in some other way. The overworld vs underworld also made me think of Chapter three of DF and the discussion of traveling across worlds to identify and resist with others. Of course the author was not using this language but here I find a great metaphor and language from Akala that can be used in the same way. Our engagement and travel from overworld to the underworld for understanding and resistance. Further this made me think of prison work here in my own community, where we meet with folks incarcerated, what they always share is that we need to reach "them" in their younger years, before it is too late, before they are placed in the system. How important dissident friendships can be in engaging across these two worlds.

The hook follows with
"Who said money makes the world go 'round?
They just didn't know
Murder runs the globe
M-m-murder runs the globe"

Within each hook Akala repeats this mantra to drill home his main point. While money and capitalism are argued to fuel the world, murder and violence are inextricably linked to money and capitalism. Without the murder in our cities, or in our wars, the colonization, imperialism and spread of neoliberal values may not exist. Much of this "murder" is painting as something else, something more beneficial or simply swept under the rug like the Bangladeshi women discussed in chapter 4 of DF. Take for example the "war on terror". The murder of millions of people has been sold and a protection of our freedom, when instead it can be viewed as a colonialist and imperialist attack on the middle east. Akala alludes to this in Verse 2 below.

The main section to highlight in Verse 2 is

"Because any nation or races
That prove themselves incapable
Of matching modern murder machines
Make themselves enslavable
It is murder not money we desire insatiable
The thrilling of the killing it's million dollars sensational, YES!
What you can't do with a bribe
Can be achieved in a breeze with a gun and a knife
Because only murder further agendas that money couldn't grind
Nothing like a couple dead kids to change a parents' mind

The first line alludes to what I just discussed above. We have perfect "modern murdering machines" in the name of freedom and democracy. The groups and nations couldn't be bought, so instead murder is called in to finish the deal. Overall to me this speaks to the power behind violence and murder transnational and furthering neoliberal values. Without murder to further agendas how many of these "agendas" may have been stopped?

Song 2- Find No Enemy https://youtu.be/LjvUMr1-AAU

This song is structured non traditionally with it all being one verse, which to me makes it more powerful. There are direct hints to Jimmy Hendrix influences in the guitar track as he mentions him later in the song.

"Apparently I'm second generation black Caribbean
And half white Scottish whatever that means
See lately I feel confused with the boxes
Cause to me all they do is breed conflict
It's not that I've lost touch with the reality
Racism, sexism and nationality
Just to me it all seems like insanity
Why must I rob you of your humanity
To feel good about mine?
It's all about crime
Dehumanizing is how I justify it
So I must keep on lying about the history of Africa
So I can live the with massacres
And repeat my mantra of Muslim and terrorist
So I can sleep at night as bombs take flight"

The first section I separated above speaks to the dehumanization of all sides of an argument. We forget histories of groups and places we identify with even when they may be problematic (as he suggests with the history of Africa). It is a further call to look in to the deep colonialist assumptions of our own past, and better understand the history of nations and locales. It should be incredibly difficult for us to sleep at night knowing that foreign countries are being bombed in our name with innocent individuals dying. Yet our media in some ways desensitizes us to this. We are fed what fits our national narrative. This section is also a call to dissident friendship for me. To not dehumanize in how we work with or speak with other people.

"Eyes wide but I'm blind to the sight
Too busy chasing the perfect life
And the working class keep them uneducated
Truly educated men could never be racist
To educate is to draw out what is within
Are we not all not the same under the skin?
I got a heart like yours that pumps blood and oxygen
And insecurities are a whole lot of them I'm scared like you deep down
I really do care that world is not fair like you
But I don't even believe my own prayers like you
Chasing career going nowhere like you
Lost in a fog of my own insecurities
I hold myself up as a image of purity
And I judge everybody else
By the color of their skin or the size of their wealth
But it's not good for my health
As the only one I ever really judge is myself
The oppressor must suffer like the oppressed
Though I pretend I'm in control of this mess
By inflating my ego, puffing my chest
I see my weakness, and need to show strength
Or what we think strong is because if we're honest?
True strength is the strength to be honest
And if I'm honest I am just tired
If I'm honest I am just tired
Tired of everyday filling up my car and knowing that
I'm paying for the bombs in Iraq
Tired of pretending like it don't hurt my heart
Of wanting change but not knowing where to start
Tired of listening to all the conditioning
And all the forms they have me filling in
Next time you see what is a thug and despise him
Please know I was just like him
Cause I was like eight the first time I saw crack
Same time I first smoked weed choking on blowbacks
First time I saw knifes penetrate flesh
It was meat cleavers to the back of the head
As I grew and teenage years passed
Many more knifes pierced and the shots blast
And I not saying I had the worst upbringing
But there's a million young men just like me in prison
We complain about racism and elevate clowns
With their trousers down swinging their dicks round
Maybe that is not quite literal
But everything they do is just as stereotypical
To my real fans I feel your pain
And I get the messages, but don't complain
That we ain't got more fame for paying our part
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
Calling it black radio, don't make laugh
So is black music all about tits and arse?
You don't represent nothing, you're just pretending
When was the last time you ever played Hendrix?
Or Miles Davis or John Coltrane?
Or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday?
We can call it urban to me that's cool
If urban means street, that includes jazz too
And rock for that matter
Go ask Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page what they were listening to - the blues
Not discrediting, love Zeppelin too, just giving credit where credit is due
That blood soaked word rappers still use
All it really shows is that we still self abuse
That was the word that was used to kill Kelso Cochrane and Emmett Till
That was the word that the conscience eased
And made people pleased to hung you from trees
That was the word that let the whips crack
No matter what you say you can't take it back
And I can say their black so I feel their pain easier
But 1915 look at Armenia
If the whole world is human stupidity
Though we choke ourselves to death quite literally
And I can talk with my comfortable mouth
With my comfortable clothes and my comfortable house
The tables will turn, we can but stall them
Every empire on this earth has fallen
So unless we can find another way
Maybe not today, but it will come one day
It may sound like I'm bitter but in fact truth be told I am quite the opposite
I wake everyday and am overwhelmed
Just to be alive and be like no one else
And the sheer weight of the thought of space
Is enough to keep my little ego in place
All that we chase and try to replace all along it was right in our face
The only way we can ever change anything
Is to look in the mirror and find no enemy
The only way we can ever change anything
Look in the mirror and find no enemy"

Again the whole last section I have separated of this song is a powerful call to me for dissident friendships. Friendships that "bridge the divide" as chapter 3 of DF discusses. Dai writes that ""world"- traveling is an active subjectivity which presupposes collective intentionality" (pg. 79) An intentionality that can come when we "look in the mirrror and find no enemy". It also takes folks in the media to somewhat denounce the neoliberal values they continue to uphold. When Akala repeats purposefully "they can keep the charts all I want is your hearts", he speaks to the need to win hearts and minds in the battle for justice. The only issue is that without the charts there are a limited amount of hearts to win. However; we have seen those at the top of the "charts" in the celebrity world, have often furthered their agendas in problematic ways. Every little bit counts, and Akala calls me to further pursue dissident and transnational friendships to other "worlds".

My overall takeaway from listening to Akala was how good his music was, while preaching great truths about the world. While his music was good, he has an extremely small following. He weaves historical folks of color throughout his music with hints of Hendrix and Miles Davis throughout the sounds of his music. Yet he is Cut out from the mainstream (which he raps about in one of his most recent "Fire in the Booth video). It is just incredible to see folks among the neoliberal elite such as Angelina Jolie or Ceca from earlier readings have such popularity yet Akala is virtually unheard of in comparison. His art form should be easy to harness for the masses as a sort of musical activism yet the following is small. Mainstream music is filled with a select few "political" songs, while the most popular sing about nonsense. It reminded me of the discussion in Chapter 6 of CV about Sex Trafficking. The author writes on page 119, “while we are called into action as concerned patriots and nationals, we must be ever more alert to the misleading force of the media in pitching the problem, its scope, and its solution within neoliberal values that may function to enact even more widespread violence against the masses of exploited laborers who do not fit the “exceptional” category of the “innocent victim.” Akala is rapping about the widespread violence and inequality among wide ranges of people, yet his solution does not seem to fit the neoliberal values. He is not in this game to make money, and therefore may stay in somewhat obscurity.

Now clearly he has thousands of followers and international tours, but he just won't reach the level of artists within his genre. A quick twitter glance at Akala shows that he uses his twitter to promote different activist platforms, most recently a go fund me for homeless folks in the city of Birminham England after a man froze to death there. While we have some artists in the United States that use there fame for a platform, we have critiqued through this course how that platform may actually be used to partially promote neoliberal values and further colonize groups of "other" (example: Angelina)

Chowdhury, E. and Philipose, L. (Eds.). (2016). Dissident friendships: Feminism, imperialism and transnational solidarity. IL: University of Illinois Press. (DF)

Hegde, R., S. (Ed.). (2011). Circuits of visibility: Gender and transnational media cultures. NY: New York University Press. (CV)