Jeff Chang

Chang pulls from anecdotes based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members. "I'm a storyteller by trade," he says. "I wanted to find a bunch of stories that would be emblematic of the development of the hip-hop generation." This storyteller knew that in order to tell the story correctly, however, there was only one way to begin the story-with DJ Kool Herc.

You gotta start the story at the beginning, with the father of hip-hop. A lot of stories don't emphasize his immigration experience. And we as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders can really relate to that. It's something that I specifically wanted to get deep with him about…this whole idea of him coming from another country and getting called a hick and getting threatened that they're throwing Jamaicans in trash cans. At the same time it's really funny to listen to how he used to listen to Jim Reeves records…and he would sing along to these songs…and this is how he lost his accent.

So it's really poignant that when he becomes a DJ, a lot of that is about becoming an American. It's about making his name as a person in the Bronx…it's about being an immigrant and then saying, 'Now I belong here.' And that was a lot of the impetus for him to make his name as Kool Herc. It's just something that's really moving. There are stories like that throughout the book and I try to select different stories that would speak to different periods of time and also the range of experiences that we've got in the hip-hop generation as well.

Your book was four years in the making. What experience stuck out the most in this project?
Everything that I thought I knew, I really didn't. You're humbled by the size and the scope of what hip-hop has done to the world and to folks our age and the depth and the kinds of stories that are out there. There are a lot of debates about who was the first b-boy and who invented the term hip-hop and who was the first to spin with two turntables. There's a lot of stuff out there. There are a million stories to be told out there and that was the most moving thing to understand. It keeps on going and every time you turn around, somebody somewhere is remaking it.

In his intro, DJ Kool Herc speaks emphatically about how powerful hip-hop is, yet how the hip-hop generation is not fully harnessing this power for positive purposes. Do you agree?
To a certain extent, what we have is an imbalance in hip-hop now. There's a lot of money involved in the equation now, and money distorts the equation…a lot of the money gets behind things that might not represent the most progressive aspects of our generation and our culture. We have this saying "keep it real," which is basically trying to defend who we are; like, "I keep it real, this is how I am. You're gonna have to deal with me how I am." No, you have to keep it right too. You have to look at it from how you would like to be and how you would like the world to be, and when you look at it that way, it's about keeping it right.

Do you feel that the recent role that the hip-hop community took in the past election is testament toward "keeping it right," as Herc said?
I think that it's a part of our generation maturing and saying, "We have some power in the marketplace now. How do we translate that into political power in order to make policies that help us?" I was involved in the National Political Hip-Hop Convention last year and the League of Young Voters, and these are two efforts from a grassroots level to do a lot of the same types of things that P. Diddy and Russell were trying to do on a celebrity level. The League of Young Voters was able to get out in 70 cities… they provided the margin of victory for Kerry in Wisconsin. We're out there and we're doing our thing. I feel the more we can get it together, the more impact we're going to be able to have over the years.

Now, you know that I have to address the tsunami song incident. Despite Hot 97's actions, you ultimately point the finger at the Bush-Cheney economy, which you say is raising racial tensions and diverting us from dealing with the real problem: "…A racist, imperialist agenda to redistribute the wealth of the world to America's richest, and create more insecurity for everyone else." Can you elaborate on this?
It's that, and it's also their agenda to continue to consolidate the media and reduce their voices. If you look at the way that urban radio has gone in the last decade or so, it's gone in the direction of being completely dumbed down. And at the same time, you've got fewer and fewer corporations that actually control radio out there. Really when you get down to it, it's two or three that really shape everything you hear. The Bush-Cheney agenda is to let these corporations grow. They've silenced a lot of community voices. So you have to look at the bigger picture of things. I want to make sure that folks are cognizant of that. You can make Miss Jones and Todd Lynn your enemies, but they are just symptoms of the larger problem.

You say that we are in need of media justice, that we need to demand diversity and balance and intelligence. How can we make this happen?
The first thing is to force stations to re-establish community affairs departments. You gotta have somebody inside that's gonna be able to pull in the reins if the horse is going a little wild. You want it to come from a community voice within the station. That's the first thing.
The second thing is to force the folks to take a good, hard look at the programming that they do. Where are the women's voices? Where are the progressive voices? Look at the music that you're playing. Where's the progressive music? Where's the cutting edge stuff? Where's the stuff that speaks to what's happening on the streets? Expand your play list beyond six songs. All this needs to be done from the inside.
And that's not something that takes a million dollars to do. That's something that takes political pressure to do. If they know they're going to lose listeners, that they're going to get a bad rep if they don't represent the community, then they're going to establish that. And that's what happened in San Francisco with ClearChannel, with KMEL. Now, you've got this whole new Bay scene that's represented on the radio. So, it works. I've seen it work. And it's powerful.

Where does the hip-hop generation fit in the fight for full representation of media diversity?
If you're a hip-hop generation head, then this is your cause. You don't like what you're hearing on the radio? Well, this is your chance to do something about it. It reaches across racial and cultural lines to everyone that loves hip-hop and what hip-hop represents.

Jeanette Eng has written for The News Transcript and The Daily Targum.

www.cantstopwontstop.com

*The opinions and viewpoints in this article do not necessarily reflect those of iaLink or ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc.

what's happenin' : the gallery : be famous : public eye : speakerbox : on point : be heard : take it or leave it :

by Jeanette Eng contributing writer A sk him if he ever tried his hand at graffiti and he'll tell you straight up that he was wack. Ask him about his experience with b-boying and he'll laugh at his prospect of such bodily contortions. Ask him about his history with DJing and he will actually admit that he wasn't bad at it. But simply skim through a few pages of his book, Can't Stop Won't Stop, and you'll discover one man's love for hip-hop that requires no further validation. Fourteen years of hip-hop journalism have earned Jeff Chang a rap sheet that spans the likes of the Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, and the Washington Post. He's also left his editorial footprints on Colorlines magazine, where he was founding editor, and 360hiphop.com, as well as helping to launch the careers of such hip-hop luminaries as DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, and Lyrics Born through his influential indie label, SoleSides (now Quannum Projects). But this Hawaii-born journalist of Chinese and Native Hawaiian ancestry has also proven himself a potent activist for political change, as an organizer of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and a board member for several youth and community organizing organizations. Now the worlds of hip-hop, sociopolitical history, and Chang's vibrant and engaging writing style all come together in his new book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (St. Martin's Press). Chang has packed 546 pages with a detailed account of the hip-hop generation's existence, from the gang-banging streets of the Bronx to its recent influence on the political arena.
Chang pulls from anecdotes based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members. "I'm a storyteller by trade," he says. "I wanted to find a bunch of stories that would be emblematic of the development of the hip-hop generation." This storyteller knew that in order to tell the story correctly, however, there was only one way to begin the story-with DJ Kool Herc. You gotta start the story at the beginning, with the father of hip-hop. A lot of stories don't emphasize his immigration experience. And we as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders can really relate to that. It's something that I specifically wanted to get deep with him about…this whole idea of him coming from another country and getting called a hick and getting threatened that they're throwing Jamaicans in trash cans. At the same time it's really funny to listen to how he used to listen to Jim Reeves records…and he would sing along to these songs…and this is how he lost his accent. So it's really poignant that when he becomes a DJ, a lot of that is about becoming an American. It's about making his name as a person in the Bronx…it's about being an immigrant and then saying, 'Now I belong here.' And that was a lot of the impetus for him to make his name as Kool Herc. It's just something that's really moving. There are stories like that throughout the book and I try to select different stories that would speak to different periods of time and also the range of experiences that we've got in the hip-hop generation as well. Your book was four years in the making. What experience stuck out the most in this project? Everything that I thought I knew, I really didn't. You're humbled by the size and the scope of what hip-hop has done to the world and to folks our age and the depth and the kinds of stories that are out there. There are a lot of debates about who was the first b-boy and who invented the term hip-hop and who was the first to spin with two turntables. There's a lot of stuff out there. There are a million stories to be told out there and that was the most moving thing to understand. It keeps on going and every time you turn around, somebody somewhere is remaking it. In his intro, DJ Kool Herc speaks emphatically about how powerful hip-hop is, yet how the hip-hop generation is not fully harnessing this power for positive purposes. Do you agree? To a certain extent, what we have is an imbalance in hip-hop now. There's a lot of money involved in the equation now, and money distorts the equation…a lot of the money gets behind things that might not represent the most progressive aspects of our generation and our culture. We have this saying "keep it real," which is basically trying to defend who we are; like, "I keep it real, this is how I am. You're gonna have to deal with me how I am." No, you have to keep it right too. You have to look at it from how you would like to be and how you would like the world to be, and when you look at it that way, it's about keeping it right. Do you feel that the recent role that the hip-hop community took in the past election is testament toward "keeping it right," as Herc said? I think that it's a part of our generation maturing and saying, "We have some power in the marketplace now. How do we translate that into political power in order to make policies that help us?" I was involved in the National Political Hip-Hop Convention last year and the League of Young Voters, and these are two efforts from a grassroots level to do a lot of the same types of things that P. Diddy and Russell were trying to do on a celebrity level. The League of Young Voters was able to get out in 70 cities… they provided the margin of victory for Kerry in Wisconsin. We're out there and we're doing our thing. I feel the more we can get it together, the more impact we're going to be able to have over the years. Now, you know that I have to address the tsunami song incident. Despite Hot 97's actions, you ultimately point the finger at the Bush-Cheney economy, which you say is raising racial tensions and diverting us from dealing with the real problem: "…A racist, imperialist agenda to redistribute the wealth of the world to America's richest, and create more insecurity for everyone else." Can you elaborate on this? It's that, and it's also their agenda to continue to consolidate the media and reduce their voices. If you look at the way that urban radio has gone in the last decade or so, it's gone in the direction of being completely dumbed down. And at the same time, you've got fewer and fewer corporations that actually control radio out there. Really when you get down to it, it's two or three that really shape everything you hear. The Bush-Cheney agenda is to let these corporations grow. They've silenced a lot of community voices. So you have to look at the bigger picture of things. I want to make sure that folks are cognizant of that. You can make Miss Jones and Todd Lynn your enemies, but they are just symptoms of the larger problem. You say that we are in need of media justice, that we need to demand diversity and balance and intelligence. How can we make this happen? The first thing is to force stations to re-establish community affairs departments. You gotta have somebody inside that's gonna be able to pull in the reins if the horse is going a little wild. You want it to come from a community voice within the station. That's the first thing. The second thing is to force the folks to take a good, hard look at the programming that they do. Where are the women's voices? Where are the progressive voices? Look at the music that you're playing. Where's the progressive music? Where's the cutting edge stuff? Where's the stuff that speaks to what's happening on the streets? Expand your play list beyond six songs. All this needs to be done from the inside. And that's not something that takes a million dollars to do. That's something that takes political pressure to do. If they know they're going to lose listeners, that they're going to get a bad rep if they don't represent the community, then they're going to establish that. And that's what happened in San Francisco with ClearChannel, with KMEL. Now, you've got this whole new Bay scene that's represented on the radio. So, it works. I've seen it work. And it's powerful. Where does the hip-hop generation fit in the fight for full representation of media diversity? If you're a hip-hop generation head, then this is your cause. You don't like what you're hearing on the radio? Well, this is your chance to do something about it. It reaches across racial and cultural lines to everyone that loves hip-hop and what hip-hop represents. Jeanette Eng has written for The News Transcript and The Daily Targum. www.cantstopwontstop.com *The opinions and viewpoints in this article do not necessarily reflect those of iaLink or ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc.