THE LEGENDARY K.O. / “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People”

Cry 4 Us by Big Sty

This one is jive. The faux-classical piano lines, the stale-ass beat, the cheesy-sounding female repeating the hook over and over, the MC using the same style Biggie started 10 years ago. It sounds exactly like 50 other songs on the radio right now, except he’s
talking about Katrina. Also, there’s no depth to his ‘insights.’ Wack.

New Orleans by Jahi

OK. Right away the beat is at least interesting. The style is a little different. The lyrics are wack though. The stuff he’s saying is identical to everything we’ve heard from everyone else who’s had a microphone stuck in their face since the hurricane. Wack.

Guilty by Woo Child

Those fake-ass strings. AAAAGGGGGHHHH!!! Why are today’s hip-hop producers determined to put 'strings’ and ‘classical piano’ on every damn track? Other than that, the track itself is OK. It’s also kinda funny that he’s talking in the first person as George himself. That’s humourous, I guess. But the sped-up female vox are trash. And the lyrics, once again, are the same ol’ shit. Wack!

Hell No, We Ain't All Right by Public Enemy

As a self-confessed and unabashed Chuck D fanatic, this is the most disappointing entry. The track is lacking energy. The vocal delivery, while above average, certainly isn't up to Chuck's usual standards. Most disappointing, given Chuck's body of work, the lyrics are the same stuff everyone else came up with. Blah.

Katrina Klap by Mos Def

This is the best one, by far. (Which, unfortunately, isn't saying much.) The 'Nolia Clap track is nice, so that's working for it already. Plus, Mos' style is unique, so that's cool. But Mos' lyrics aren't so much typical as much as they're not well thought through. It sounds like he actually freestyled the whole thing. I doubt if he spent much time on composition. Too bad, it could’ve been good. This one’s not wack. Not that it’s good. I’d call it OK. Actually, you know what? I take it back. I have no desire to hear it again, ever. So it's wack.

K-Otix is probably the best one. It made me hum the hook out loud for a couple of days. I don’t remember the verses, but I’m assuming it was the same ol’, same ol’. I do like how he got the 'George Bush don't like black people' to work as a hook. Still, it's nothing I desire to hear repeatedly.

The Davey D is cool, but it doesn’t really qualify as a ‘song,’ per se.

—Mtume ya Salaam

          Socially conscious art         

While I agree that none of these are songs I will want to listen to ten years or twenty years from now—nor even next year, for that matter—they do point out that producing socially conscious music takes for more than a good beat and topical content.

I don’t believe it is possible to instantly produce any art that is great. Why? Because analysis and understanding, just like craft, does not just happen, you have to work at developing those qualities. It takes a commitment of time and major effort.

Although it is certainly not true of all of them, we can safely say that most of today’s popular entertainers do not evidence that they have done any in depth study of political issues, and thus, at best what we generally get is heartfelt statements which are shallow if not downright wrong from an analytical and/or contextual standpoint.

On the other hand, I do believe it is important to encourage the making of socially conscious literature and therefore, we are sharing these tracks both to encourage these artists, as well as other artists, but also to encourage our listeners to begin to demand more of ourselves and of each other. We need to understand that successful social conscious art needs to be successful both in its social content and as an artistic statement.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

          America is engaged in class warfare         

OK, a few of disclaimers. First, I initially made these comments not for 'publication', but as part of a private conversation between Kalamu and I. Later, Kalamu wanted to post all the Katrina songs and asked me if it was OK to post my comments. At first I said no because my attitude was cavalier and even condescending at times. I'd also heard the songs only once or twice each. Eventually I decided to let Kalamu run my initial reactions as they were, primarily because, after listening to all the songs again, I could only conclude that, musically, they're just plain bad. I'm not paid to do this. I'm not in the music business anymore. One of the benefits of spending your time writing for free is you get to say whatever you want. What I want to say is: THESE SONGS, AS A GROUP, SUCK!

Disclaimer #2. These songs were obviously recorded very quickly and inexpensively. During one of our conversations, Kalamu mentioned musicians of the Sixties and Seventies, artists like Marvin and Stevie and Marley, who were able to make powerful political statements via popular songs. The comparison is patently unfair. Marvin wasn't singing on a Thursday about a natural disaster that occured on the previous Monday. By the time he cut "What's Going On," Marvin had the benefit of years of political comment, social unrest and the simple passage of time to help him create a cogent and powerful statement about the war and the times. By contrast, all of these Katrina songs were created virtually spur-of-the-moment. I'm not making excuses for these cats; I'm just saying that, given a week to write and record something, I doubt that Marvin himself would've done any better.

Disclaimer #3. Who else in the public eye is saying something intelligent about what's going on? These cats are giving it a shot and although they're failing, they're at least trying.  

Now, with the disclaimers in mind, the biggest problem I have with all these songs is they all seem to miss the larger point about the U.S.A.'s political, economic, education and legal systems and how those systems practically ensure that poor folk will not and can not cope with large-scale disasters.

Nearly all of these songs say something to the effect of: "If the people who needed help were white, help would've gotten there sooner." I neither agree with, nor disagree with that statement. I do think it's beside the point though.

I'm black. My entire extended family is black, and there's lots of us. Of the maybe 70 or so people in my extended family that I personally checked on, only four of us ended up stuck in either the city or in an emergency shelter. Three of the four could've left but chose to stay for personal (meaning, not financial) reasons. The fourth was in a mental health facility and got 'lost' due to miscommunication and red tape. Is my family special? Are we rich? Were we lucky? None of the above. What we are is gainfully employed and in ownership of a vehicle that runs well enough to drive a few hundred miles. That doesn't sound like much, but in New Orleans, it's saying a lot.

My point is, in these songs, way too much focus is being put on skin color and far too little on the real problem: that poor people in America (of any and all skin colors) are routinely deprived of the opportunities the rest of us take for granted.

Katrina The Disaster wasn't the result of Katrina The Hurricane. Katrina The Disaster happened because Welfare To Work doesn't work. Katrina happened because inner-city public schools are horrible. Katrina happened because the minimum wage in this country hasn't been raised for over seven years, the longest period without an increase since the minimum wage was created back in 1937. Katrina happened because the gap between the richest Americans and the poorest Americans continues to increase year-by-year. Katrina happened because the Army Corps of Engineers has had to make do with budget cuts for four years running.

My brother works for the Army Corps of Engineers in a building in uptown New Orleans, right by the Mississippi River. We evacuated together. One of the things he told me while we watched our city drown was that the Army Corps had been working on the levee project for years. He himself had recently worked on the new flood map for the city. But, he told me, the project had been hampered and slowed by continuous budget cuts. It simply wasn't a priority. What was the priority? The so-called Global War on Terror and tax cuts for rich people. The war has created record profits for large oil and reconstruction corporations. The tax cuts have inequitably benefited the richest 3% of Americans.

(Let me get a brief rant in here. It amazes me that middle-class Republicans are willing to applaud their pitiful little $600 tax rebate checks while rich folk like Bush got a savings of $31,000 and Cheney got $39,000. Cheney, in fact, would've saved a lot more except that he used so many frickin tax right-offs and shelters that he had to pay the AMT, the Alternative Minimum Tax, which made his effective percentage-of-gross a sky-high 12%. My percentage-of-gross was in the low 20s, if I remember correctly. That means a single truck driver who doesn't own a home and grossed $45,000 a year paid a significantly higher percentage of his income in taxes than did some married rich guy who made almost $2,000,000. There's obviously something very, very wrong with that. Keep this in mind the next time one of your Republican pals is complaining about how much taxes the rich pay. And by the way, don't you love it when ordinary working people argue on behalf of rich people? What a joke. Anyhow, the tax bracket is irrelevant. The percentage-of-gross is the number that counts. You'd best believe very few of these rich cats are paying 35% of their taxable income to anyone. Also remember that we've only talked about Federal taxes so far. What about consumption taxes like the taxes on gas, food, essential items, utilities, etc. Those inequitably effect the poor as well. When $15 can change your life, every nickel counts. When $15 can't even pay for your appetizer at lunch, consumption taxes are virtually irrelevant. Rant over.)

To ask, Does George Bush care about Black people?, is to miss the point. It actually obscures the point by forcing us to engage in yet another fruitless argument about race. I want us to start talking about class. I want us to start talking about redistribution of wealth. I want us to start asking why is it even legal for one individual to control a fortune of $50 billion dollars. I want us to start asking why so many of the biggest companies in America pay little or no taxes. I want us to start asking why America still has what amounts to 'separate but equal' public education some 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education overruled Plessy v. Ferguson. I want us to start asking why MSNBC.com is running stories like "Oil Industry Awash in Record Levels of Cash" while some New Orleanians have reported that they didn't evacuate because they couldn't afford the gas.

The truth is, America is engaged in class warfare against their own poor. Katrina didn't devasate New Orleans. Poor people in New Orleans were already devastated. All Katrina did was expose it.

          That's my son         

that's my son, rising to the ocassion & dropping science abt the nature of class warfare waged by the reptiles (coldblooded!) masquerading as republican politicians. just cause we black (and proud) don't mean we swallow the bullshit that everything can be reduced to race... the real deal was that whole towns of white folks also got wiped out—they just didn't live in new orleans city limits. don't let the limited lens of the camera pointers mislead you (did they show you the 12,000 vietnamese who were out there in new orleans east?).

cnn couldn't show you the whole enchillada because: 1. they didn't know what was going on, and 2. if they knew, what makes you think they would tell you? you want to understand something, show me the bodies and identies of the five (or was it six) people who were killed in the shootout with the new orleans police department out by the bridge by the industrial canal levee.

in terms of analysis, the main thing wrong with most of the songs is that they are soundtracks for what folks saw on television, and therefore the debate, the discussion, the point of view was established by someone other than us.

i'm not saying what was shown was not real. i'm saying what was shown was selective. very selective. very limited. why didn't them cats ride uptown and show you all the big houses of the rich folks on dry land. why didn't they show you all the small towns and fishing villages that were flooded out? show us all the poor (black, white, brown & yellow) who were effectively flooded out.

they don't have to rebuild new orleans because the new orleans they really care about (i.e. the french quarter, the cbd, the garden district, the university area—tulane & loyola) were not flooded out. all of that is going to be fully functional by christmas, but you see, where most of the poor lived, all that is gone. over 150,000 housing units will be destroyed and won't be rebuilt no time soon.

of course there were some rich folks whose property was affected, but by and large, the flood did class damage precisely because of the class structure of residency in new orleans.

i understand that there is a racial dimension to the class issue, but that racial dimension does not erase the underlying class structure. so what the hell does all of this have to do with music? right now, nothing, because most of the singers are not yet class conscious. and that in a nutshell is what mtume was critiquing and what i am amen-ing. we figuratively miss the boat when we reduce it all to race and overlook class. yes, even when we're talking about music, or should i say, especially when we're talking about music.

—Kalamu ya Salaam