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Should convicted child rapists be eligible for the death penalty? YES. NO. vote view_results SUNDAY SPECIAL - The sounds of violence; gang members turn to web to vent their rage

DATE: May 6, 09:47 AM

“In the game I got to survive F—- the pain, I’m glad I’m alive, Going insane living in this world There’s nothing but pain in this world.” — When I Die (still i rise)

By Bruce Owen Winnipeg Free Press

The lighting is bad and the editing shaky, but the beat is tight and the lyrics crystal clear.

So is the anger and the hate.

It’s the Indian Posse’s Code Red, a thugged-out hip-hop homage to gang life in Winnipeg’s North End. The Indian Posse, the first aboriginal street gang in Canada to do this, posted its song and accompanying video on YouTube March 20.

Rival gang Native Syndicate followed suit, posting its own less-polished gang anthem on YouTube April 12, a rap song Four Twenty Five.

Both are laced with profanity and violence. Both provide a rare glimpse into the two aboriginal gangs and their members’ unapologetic commitment to them.

What the two videos also signify is that these gang members, kids mostly, have embraced the Internet and the computer software to make and share their music with the rest of the world.

Call it gang-tagging on the Net. They don’t have to spray paint their call signs on garbage dumpsters and vacant houses anymore. They rap.

Code Red was recorded by Thunder Bay, Ont. rap group 12 Block. Its spokesman, 18-year-old Vince Amini, is a member of the Indian Posse. According to Amini, the YouTube video was recorded in Winnipeg earlier in the year, with local Indian Posse members lip-synching to the song audio.

“It’s kind of crazy watching it,” Amini said in a telephone interview. “Nobody’s seen a Canadian set dropping it like that before.”

“We’re not glorifying the gang. We’re not condoning violence. It’s just a song that represents who we are and how we feel right now, straight up. We could’ve gone out and made a video doing stupid s—-, but we didn’t.”

More of 12 Block’s music is found on its myspace.com site.

What Code Red also demonstrates, Amini said, is that Indian kids from the rez have a voice and a podium.

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“We’re mostly about the music,” he says of 12 Block’s aspiration to land a recording deal. “When you grow up poor, it’s what you want to do. We’re just rhyming about our life and what goes on. We wouldn’t be able to do it without the Internet. “If it wasn’t there, no one would know who we are.”

Native Syndicate’s YouTube rap video has had fewer views and comments. It was produced by Syndicate Records, which has its own site on Bebo.com. Four Twenty Five and Syndicate Records are the brainchild of gang associate Cody Knife, 16, of Saskatchewan. (He didn’t want to identify the city).

Knife said he does not want people to see his and his friends’ music as glorifying the Native Syndicate.

“I’d like people to look up to my music, not to what we did,” he said. “I’m writing about this because I don’t want to be getting into trouble anymore.”

Knife said the music — some of his tracks feature friends rapping over the phone from jail — should be seen as a stepping stone out of gang life, not into it.

“I’d like to get better, get known and maybe do a show,” he said. “Maybe get a record deal.”

Knife also said the Internet has given him a spotlight for his work. “Now I can do something,” he said.

Knife and Syndicate Records have also put gang-themed rap songs on their websites, including Syndicate Records’ When I Die (still i rise).

These self-produced songs not only offer a peek inside the gang mentality, but also of life on the fringe from the perspective of young aboriginal people living in cities and remote communities. Poverty, abuse, racism and suicide are underlying themes. What they also demonstrate is the heavy influence of African-American gangster culture on some native youth, particularly the music of Tupac Shakur, who was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996, and 50 Cent, who was shot nine times in 2000 and lived to tell the tale.

The aboriginal gang members are also following in the footsteps of Chuckie Akenz, a Vietnamese-Canadian “gangsta” rapper from Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood. Akenz got his break in the rap business in 2004 with the release of You Got Beef?, which can also be seen on YouTube.

Toronto gang researcher and author Michael Chettleburgh said no one should be surprised kids in gangs have turned to the Internet.

Chettleburgh, author of Young Thugs, said many of these kids use their gang ties to sell their music and get a shot at fame much like their American idols.

“To them it’s like a tournament that you can’t win unless you enter,” Chettleburgh said.

Amini agreed.

“We have a dream to get signed,” he said. “The world is full of money. You’ve got to be smarter than others in how you get it.”

Where this stuff may cause problems for school officials and police is when kids, hiding behind the cloak of anonymous user-names, start “dissing” each other’s gang and music in online comments and messages.

“Ultimately, that can spill over to the street,” Chettleburgh says. He also said the gang videos don’t entice kids to join.

“It is only symptomatic of a larger problem,” Chettleburgh said. “There are other factors far more serious why kids join.” They include poverty, discrimination, peer pressure and the allure of quick money by selling drugs.

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Gang investigators with Winnipeg police and RCMP are aware of the videos, but are not commenting.

“Police use these sites to build intelligence,” Chettleburgh said. “They know they can’t control it.”

The ones who can control it are parents, by spending more time with their children, he said.

Straight up.

*****

Should we name gangs? Police, corrections officials and educators in Winnipeg and across Canada have long held the belief that identifying gangs only gives them credibility.

Only in the courtroom do public officials — prosecutors — mention gang names, usually to tell a judge about the facts about a particular crime.

That’s pretty much the only time the public learns about a particular gang. The other way is through word-of- mouth, like kids talking to parents. There’s also gang graffiti tags, like “Central,” which is spray-painted on garages and fences throughout the inner-city neighbourhood west of Princess Street to Isabel Street where the gang is active.

Does the policy on not naming gangs work?

Not if the experience in Winnipeg and the rest of the province over the past two decades is any indication.

Gangs like the Hells Angels, Zig Zag Crew, Manitoba Warriors, Indian Posse and Native Syndicate haven’t gone anywhere. Over the years they’ve changed in membership and affiliation, but they’ve far from disappeared.

There are a number of other gangs, like Central, active in the city. The smaller ones don’t really come and go; they just evolve into something else. For example, the Mad Cowz beget the African Mafia after the latter split from the Mad Cowz over an internal power struggle following the 2004 shooting death of 14-year-old gang member Sirak Okbazion by B-Side, a rival gang.

The most recent gang-related murder happened March 26 when two 15-year-old boys allegedly gunned down Thomas Roy Phillips on Magnus Avenue. One of the boys remains at large. Sources have said the boys are associated with a relatively new gang, Notorious.

Recently, public officials in Los Angeles reversed their policy on not naming gangs.

In a media event, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police Chief William Bratton identified 11 of the most violent street gangs in the city in response to a sharp rise in gang-related violence.

“We’ve had that policy (non-disclosure) in effect for three or four decades, and we are the gang capital of the United States of America,” Villaraigosa said in announcing more police resources to target gangs.

It’s estimated Los Angeles has some 400 gangs with about 39,000 members.

In Manitoba, police have identified 25 street gangs and estimate there are about 1,500 members and associates, doubling what it was a decade ago, according to police and the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada 2006 Annual Report On Organized Crime In Canada.

*****

Comments posted on YouTube about Indian Posse’s Code Red and Native Syndicate’s Four Twenty Five:

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“OK, For every hater out there!!! IF YOU DONT LIKE THE SONG/VIDEO THEN DONT WATCH IT. We do not care to hear your whining or your negative remarks. This song was done for ourselves our homies and anyone else who feels like we feel. We never claimed to be “role models” so please just drop the s—-. Enjoy the track or shut the f—- up. Also, wassup to all the peoples and homies that been supportin’ the track/Vid. pz!” — IndianPosseRider

“i guess getting a job and taking care of your children is totally out of the question? wouldn’t that be great if everyone acted like an animal. what a wonderful world it would be…. all that nice killing and mmmm mmmm drug use. we could save that for the kids and expecting mothers.” — nospinzzone

“nice…. another 8 steps backwards for a people struggling to move forward. can someone please give an example of a positive role model that comes from this f——— garbage.” — hoojoo

“Okay… what is with people and these gangs?? It isn’t making you more powerful. It wouldn’t get you anywhere besides it isn’t showing true pride for being a native. whatever… when it’s gone… what would u have?” — udontneed2knowBOB

*****

This is an online poem found on a website belonging to a Native Syndicate associate:

ITS CALLED CUT...

There is a lot of violence,

As i sit and suffer in silence.

One cut leads to many more,

And soon my skin becomes all torn.

I watch my blood drip-

Then I put my hand to my lip,

Just to make sure I don’t scream-

Wondering if this is all just a dream.

But I realize it’s not,

As this battle inside is fought.

This pain is so real,

And as sad as I feel,

I wish my heart would just heal.

But it won’t…

Just too many damn times it’s been broke.

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So the consequence is this,

And that is…

The cut of my wrist.

— 20-year-old woman, a Native Syndicate associate

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