Rapper-poet Akala: ‘Slavery was foundation of European capitalism’

[Andrian]

I would like to quote a fragment from an article on RT about the philosophy of the rapper Akala, the entire article could be read on RT by clicking the link below:

Hip-hop, and the entertainment industry in general, is known more for encouraging artists to become one-dimensional caricatures of themselves than for nurturing a culture of political engagement, revolutionary love and serious historical research. But then Akala is not your typical entertainer.
‘Exhibit B’ controversy
No stranger to controversy, Akala last year also became one of the major public faces of the campaign against “Exhibit B,” an “art installation” featuring caged African people in various degrading and submissive positions that had been scheduled to take place at the Barbican. The black community was up in arms – but the artist claimed he was highlighting the barbarism of the “human zoos” that accompanied the late 19th and early 20th century colonialism of Africa.

For Akala, however, it was this attitude itself that was a major part of the problem.
He said: “Any artist empathizing with another group of people’s struggle should be concerned about what that group of people think of what they do. Do you see what I mean? I read the Bhagavad Gita, for example – I’m quite fascinated by Hinduism as a philosophy or the Tao Te Ching from China.

“If I were to be representing any of those cultures, and the people whose culture it was were offended by what I did, I’d want to know why, and I’d want to correct myself. But this kind of arrogance – the idea that this guy is better placed to describe and represent the suffering of black Africans than they themselves are – was what was most telling for me. So I was really pleased with the outcome.”...

...The Haitian revolution
It’s a narrative that is not only promoted through the art and entertainment industry.

Akala has often emphasized how both the mainstream media and the British education system tend to ignore the crucial role of the Haitian revolution in ending the slave trade, for example, preferring to focus on figures such as William Wilberforce.

For him, this imposed ignorance about the significance of Haiti is yet another form of censorship. I ask him why this history has been so “buried.”

Akala said: “Revolutionary history generally gets whitewashed and airbrushed and taken away. But Haiti particularly, just because of the danger it represents to narratives of race, of class, of gender. Thirty percent of all the people who fought in the revolution were women – it was overwhelmingly led by people who were formerly enslaved. On so many levels it violates what’s supposed to happen.”

...Whilst the ruling class don’t want us to remember the Haitian revolution, however, it’s clear they themselves have not forgotten, or forgiven, the momentous changes it brought about.

Akala puts it this way: “In 1825, the French extorted 91 million gold francs as reparations for loss of their property – i.e. ‘their’ Africans – from Haiti, and that money didn’t stop getting paid off until 1947.

“During that time, you had the American invasion of 1915. Since then, you had the installation of the dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier, and you’ve had democratic elections which have, both times, elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and both times he’s been taken out of power. So symbolically, what Haiti represents in the black world is that it has been made to pay for daring to have that revolution over and over again.”

In the article he talks also about half a mellenium of permanent bloodbath caused by the europeans by invading, enslaving, and perpetrating genocide upon the people of the invaded countries... He talks also about how Africa, China, India, Russia and other contries have been marginalized and bullied by the West for hundreds of years and that now he thinks the things may change from a Unipolar world(US empire) to a bipolar or multi-polar world, the second one being the only hope for the well being of the whole planet.
Anyway to me it was an interesting read and I'm glad that in the Today's Entertainment circus there are still people like him(intelligent, conscious, who stand for the truth and justice), who are not soulless machines, full of their BIG EGO and just plain caricatures as the author of the article mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Here is the link to the article on RT

 

[Keyhole]

Yes, hes a very knowledgeable individual indeed. Some of his music is available on this thread if you are interested.

 

[Andrian]

Thank you Keyhole for the suggestion, I've listened to some of his tracks and i liked it a lot, it reminded me about 2PAC(though i didn't like all his tracks, but he had some pretty strong and good tracks, no wonder he was taking care off) which i was a fan a lot time ago, interesting how at the beginning( in the '90s) the Rap singers, at least some of them, were speaking through their music about important issues, about police violence, social injustice, about the gap that becomes wider and wider between the rich and the poor, but then the PTB have made them an offer they couldn't refuse and the Rap music was hijacked, becoming a joke, an insult, another pathological type of music as most of the today's mainstream popular music. Kudos to Akala and other musicians like him, whose songs have a meaningful message to the people.