Fury Fuel With Sister Souljah & Playlist Gems
6/5/20
Another Friday has barreled in, so here’s the latest playlist with highlights below, followed by a deep dive into the ever relevant voice of activist/femcee, Sister Souljah!
Playlist Highlights
“Run” - Reverie, The Architect
According to Reverie, hip hop saved her life. Growing up, the rapper was raised by a single mother in northeast LA and was involved in graffiti, gangs, and drugs, but also maintained good grades in school and discovered her love for writing and poetry early on. Her poems turned into raps and in 2009 Reverie released her first mixtape, using a $15 karaoke microphone and a clothing hanger as a mic stand. Ten years later, she’s come a long way and now tours regularly around the US and Europe and has released 5 albums and multiple singles along with her collaborator and brother, Louden. Here, Reverie hops on DJ/Producer The Architect’s track “Run’, which features a lot of unique sounding chord changes and instrumentation, and she spits hard and fast with lyrics that feel empowering for these times. Reverie raps: “Sometimes I feel like running in circles/I keep forgetting my purpose/Feel like I’m stuck in this circus/Why gotta feel like I am a burden/When I know that I am special” —a mantra we should all be repeating.
“Shellys (It’s Chill)” - Blimes And Gab
I’ll say it now and say it again, disco is making a comeback and I am so ready for it. And now disco is being infused with female rap? I am sold. The amazing West Coast duo Blimes and Gab dropped their latest single “Shelly’s (It’s Chill)'' from their forthcoming debut album Let’s Talk About It, which pulls heavily from funk influences and disco sounds. Overall, the track is groovy and, well, ‘chill’, and makes for a great feel-good summer anthem. It’s a little bit Michael Jackson, a little bit Bruno Mars, and according to the duo in a press release, “It’s the secret ingredient in the Blimes and Gab sauce. You’re gonna want it on everything.” I can’t wait for the album to drop at the end of this month, but for now I’m content that this track will hold me over ‘til then. If Blimes and Gab don’t blow up this coming year, then something is terribly unjust.
With this new track, I discovered Dizzy Senze for the first time and she’s got my interest piqued. This fiery Bronx-bred emcee is a multi-talented queer creative with incredible lyrical skills and a knack for wordplay. She’s shared the stage with the likes of rap visionaries Kendrick Lamar and Talib Kweli, and you can tell she takes after them with her poetic writing and immense ability to fuse traditional rap with neo-soul sound. “Hybrid” starts out sounding like a traditional classic soul track from the 1950’s, with a fluttery voice singing a hook over some delicate percussion and levitating strings. But seconds later, Dizzy punches in with an exclamatory “Yeah!” before breaking into hard hitting bars, all while the mellow acoustics float persistently in the background. The song continues to vacillate between the light moments from the sweet sounding soul singer and Dizzy’s powerful rap verses, and there are several moments of beautiful overlap where both work over one another in fascinating harmony. It truly is an incredible hybrid track, worth listening to on repeat to let fully sink in.
Throw It Back: Sister Souljah’s Fury Still Rings True
All the way back in 1992, author, activist, recording artist, and film producer Lisa Willamson became probably the first and only rapper to have her name enter the political lexicon. Willamson, who goes by her artist and activist name, Sister Souljah, first gained prominence with her remarks on race in the United States during the presidential campaign Bill Clinton, who would then go on to criticize her comments. This moment led to what is now known in politics as a “Sister Souljah Moment”, which has ever since been used as the term to describe anytime a politician publicly repudiates an extremist person/group/statement/position that is perceived to have some association with his or her political party. In the specific instance of Souljah, she had become vocal about the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and in an interview conducted on May 13th, 1992 was quoted in The Washington Post as saying “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”
This quote was circulated widely across the media, albeit often out of its full context, and Souljah received a lot of criticism for it. In fact, the fuller picture is that Souljah was responding to this question on black-on-white violence: “Even the people themselves who were perpetrating that violence, did they think that was wise? Was that a wise reasoned action?” To which she acutally replied: “Yeah, it was wise. I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?... White people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you're a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person? Do you think that somebody thinks that white people are better, are above and beyond dying, when they would kill their own kind?”
Clinton’s response was harshly criticized, in particular by politician/civil rights activist Jesse Jackson Sr., who claimed Souljah had been misquoted and stated “Sister Souljah represents the feelings and hopes of a whole generation of people.” Souljah also denied that her remarks promoted murder, and accused Clinton of being a racist hypocrite because he had previously played golf at a country club that refused to admit black members. In any case, through this moment and throughout her career, Sister Souljah has been an important and often overlooked but necessary activist presence. I wish I could point out all of her books, essays, poetry, etc. but since this is a female rap newsletter I will highlight her one and only rap album, 1992’s 360 Degrees Of Power, which is full of spoken word tirades and powerful political commentaries and is an incredible and unique piece of political and activist art. I’ll leave with these ever relevant bars from the track “The Hate That Hate Produced”, and then highlight some other tracks above and below! “Souljah was not born to make white people feel comfortable/I am African first, I am black first/I want what's good for me and my people first/And if my survival means your total destruction/Then so be it!/You built this wicked system/They say two wrongs don't make it right/But it damn sure makes it even!”