Why Black August is Hip-Hop?
The month of protest founded from the prison abolition movement holds an important and deeply revered place in Hip-Hop…
The very first time I’d heard the term “Black August” I was living in Brooklyn, having recently moved after receiving my undergraduate degree in literature. I was twenty-two and very much in the prime of my pro-black radical exploration, devouring everything I could read about the Panthers, Angela Davis, M.O.V.E. et al. At the same time, independent Hip-Hop was also in its halcyon days (unbeknownst to me, soon to be swallowed almost whole by the rap industry juggernaut) and right alongside my romanticizing Huey and Stokely, I was bumping Last Emperor, Black Star, and the COUP amongst others. Interestingly enough, it was a flier for a “Black August concert” in support of political prisoners worldwide that would be my first reference point. It was after seeing the advert for Dead Prez, Kweli, and others to rock that I came across mention of the Soledad brothers in the Autobiography of Angela Davis, and slowly, a whole history of the prison riots in the ’70s emerged. Even in that brief clue, a whole history of resistance was revealed to me.
What is Black August? Black August began in 1979 as a commemoration and gathering to honor the deaths of Jonathan and George Jackson (the latter a radical activist imprisoned at Soledad and San Quentin) by The Black Guerilla Family (a prison family in which George was an original member and founder of) at San Quentin Prison. George and Jonathan’s legacy as freedom fighters and advocates against the injustices of the American prison system were well known through George’s writings while in solitary confinement and the martyred sacrifice of his younger brother Jonathan when he attempted to rescue him from being falsely tried for the murder of a corrections officer along with the “Soledad Brothers” (George along with fellow prisoners Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette) at Marin County Courthouse. These actions and the remembrance of their sacrifice has grown to symbolize the continued struggle of all political prisoners worldwide in a month of gathering, reflection, and activism.
But why is this Hip-Hop, or what does Hip-hop have to do with it? Simply, Hip-Hop music has become and is the vehicle for revolutionary voice and thought in popular music. Within the longstanding history of Black music, art, and culture, our creative and intellectual offerings have always served a multi-purpose. Not only to entertain and inspire but to inform and act. When oppressive forces, be that state or otherwise, worked to characterize non-white people and specifically Black and indigenous people as anything other than human, Black music, through its performance and craft, was the counter-narrative and truth to who and what we are. Carrying on that legacy, Hip-Hop has also grown in prominence and importance so much that it is the definitive popular and youth culture around the world. From one of its earliest songs, “The Message,” to some of its most pioneering acts, whether it be KRS-ONE, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, or Queen Latifah to one of the current greats such as Kendrick Lamar, underlying the cool and chronicling the realities of Black and Brown people surviving under racist and oppressive conditions, Hip-Hop has long carried the torch that was passed from its predecessors to speak truth to power and rally others to a cause.
Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Hip-Hop routinely got involved with political movements, not only expressing those realities through the music but activism as well. Stetsasonic’s A.F.R.I.C.A., an amazing single aimed at calling out Apartheid in Africa, became one of the many songs associated with the divestment movement of the mid-eighties. The Stop the Violence Movement, a collective of New York City, emcees who wanted to speak out against violence in the hood, not only created an album speaking about this but also created school curriculums with help from journalist and author Nelson George that were used in some N.Y.C public schools. A similar movement also happened on the West Coast, with “All in the Same Gang” speaking about gang violence. As well, various New York City Hip-Hop artists joined the collective organizing efforts that helped to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws in New York. Currently, as I’ve already written about at the Counterbalance, Jay-Z and Meek Mills right now are lobbying to get Hip-Hop lyrics exempt from being used against artists in court to incriminate them. Hip-Hop directly got involved with Black August, starting with a benefit concert in New York City in 1998, a benefit concert that occurs to this day and was started by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Artists such as Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Dead Prez actively have performed and organized for the event, amongst others. These are just a few quick examples of Hip-Hop’s contribution to political movements, not only in performance but in direct action.
Over the first three decades of Hip-Hop’s existence, it has been a source for the under-documented history of the struggle for Black liberation and human rights. As it’s matured, so has the message and the means to serve that purpose even greater. Just as George Jackson spent his time incarcerated fighting against penning the narratives of injustices that he and others like him endured as a means of both catharsis and a call to action, letters that would later become literature to help rally a movement, Hip-Hop has been the soundtrack, the rally cry and griots for Black and poor people inspiring others, while informing and igniting them to act. It is only fitting that these movements share a birthday month, kindred spirits in the continued fight against oppression.
