BOOTLEG THIS JOURNAL 1 2 WORDS.BEATS.LIFE From Party Tape to MP3 Download: also in this issue: 8A Cultural History of the Mixtape Mixtape Inc. and the Definitive Incorporation by nick schonberger 14 of Dissent Culture By Jared A. Ball, Ph.D Lights, Camera, Social Action!: 16Ten Media Makers You Should Know Scruples by martha diaz 21 By Joe Young Freemix Radio: True Patroits: Senegal’s Voice of 38The Mixtape as Emancipitory Journalism 22 Dissent By. Jarad A. Ball, Ph.D By Yahsmin Mayaan Binti BoBo The Ellis Report: 58Screw Vs. Clue QD3 Interview By Jason Nichols 30By Nick Schonberger Featured Visual Artist: 60Pen And Pixel The Bootleg Interview By Gary Warnett Introduction By Zach Leffers 48 Art Under Pressure: 62Kid Gets Busy,The Untold Story of DJ OSO FRESH Mixtape and Insurgent Economies: By Cory Stowers 54Piracy and the Struggle Against Urban Dispossession Bumrush The Boards 68 By Mazi Mutafa and Lester Walace By Robert Choflet The Words Beats & Life Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture provides opinions and reference sources for those interested in hip- hop culture and music. While we aim to ensure that all published information is accurate at all times, any individual or organization making use of this content does so at their own risk. The Words Beats & Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture and Words Beats & Life, Incorporated take no responsibility for any actions resulting from use of content in this publication. 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BOOTLEG THIS JOURNAL 3 STAFF DIRECTORY Executive Director- Mazi Muatfa Editor-in-Chief- Jason Nichols Assistant Managing Editor-Nicholas Schonberger Director of Curriculum Development- Karlena Walker Marketing Assistant- Lester “2Tone Jones” Wallace Editor- Jovette Gadson Editor- Yahsmin Mayaan Binti Bobo Editor-at-Large- Jared Ball, Ph.D Copy Editor- Eric Berlin Copy Editor- Luci Murphy Art Director- Cory L. Stowers Graphic Designer- Katrina Paz-Stowers Staff Photographer- Apoxy One Staff Photographer- Terri Memolo Staff Illustrator - Jason Philp Editor-at-Large- Martha Diaz CONTRIBUTORS Jared Ball is a professor of Communication at Morgan State University and an independent journalist. He is the host of a radio program on 89.3 FM WPFW Washington and the creator of Freemix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show. He recently ran to be nominated for president in the Green Party. Martha Diaz is a renown hip-hop educator, organizer, and ambassador of the culture, with over ten years of media production experience. She serves as president of the Hip Hop Association and producer of the H2O International Film Festival and the Hip Hop Education Summit. Bob Choflet is an experienced activist, educator, and scholar. He is currently working towards a Doctorate in American Studies at the University of Maryland, where he also teaches in the African American Studies Department. Eric Berlin has a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in both Sculpture and Creative Writing. He has edited for EditAvenue.com and The WritingDocs.com, as well as taught within the SUNY system. Gary Warnett works for Crooked Tongues and writes on contemporary material culture. He currently resides in London Joe Young is a cartoonist and runs the Hartford Animation Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Hartford. (see article for more information) PATRONS EC Commission on the Arts & Humanities Meyer Foundation DC Children & Youth Investment Trust Corporation Hitachi Foundation Zerodivide Global Fund for Children Scion Executive Office of the Mayor of Washington, DC England Family Foundation Marcus Skelton Mark Lawrence Holly Bass Esther Coleman Patrick Washington 4 WORDS.BEATS.LIFE BOOTLEG THIS JOURNAL 5 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Practitioners of the culture of hip- Martha Diaz, artistic co-editor at We also conducted an informative hop have always found ways to bypass large, also highlights films that fall interview with an admitted and and undermine the accepted means of under the aforementioned resistive unapologetic “bootlegger” who pursuing capital. DJs created mixtapes, framework in “Lights Camera, Social unequivocally disagrees with the very which grew to be amalgamations of Action.” concept of intellectual property. His exclusive songs and freestyles and interview can be juxtaposed with were distributed through hand to True Patriots by Yahsmin Mayaan QD3, an established filmmaker with hand sales and mom & pop stores. Binti Bobo profiles Ben Herson and whom we spoke, who has produced Technology has only assisted efforts his work in Dakar, Senegal. She commercial documentaries and a series to circumvent the record industry’s presents the reader with an alternative, for BET entitled Beef. established infrastructure with the positive view of the result of hip-hop advent of file sharing. In this sense, being globalized, one that greatly The Words Beats & Life Global mixtapes and certainly bootlegging differs from what you may have seen Journal of Hip-Hop Culture has are subversive to a capitalist system. in Hip Hop Colony. In Dakar, hip- always featured some of the strongest To maintain control of the flow of hop is having a major influence over hip-hop related artwork and this issue capital, the recording and film industry electoral politics. Senegalese rappers is no different. Cory Stowers provides has done all within its power to create are patriotic yet see that dissent and a profile of a Washington, D.C. a hegemony surrounding the mixtape, knowledge of the political process are graffiti legend and mixtape pioneer and quell bootlegging and piracy of the strongest expressions of love for DJ Oso Fresh. The photographs that movies. Bootleg This Journal will ones country. accompany this piece tell a story of historicize and contextualize many child with a passion for music and art, aspects of hip-hop’s underground Bob Choflet relates mixtapes and which found hip-hop to be the perfect economy. piracy to the transformation of urban vehicle to carry his expression. spaces in his piece, “Mixtape and Nick Schonberger fills a void in hip- Insurgent Economies”. Focusing The staff of the WBL Journal is proud hop scholarship with “From Party Tape primarily on the fast-changing, of the issue, not only because we have to MP3: A Cultural History of the much maligned community of carried on the tradition of the strong Mixtape.” Schonberger investigates West Baltimore, he shows how as scholarship and artwork, but also primary and secondary documents, communities diversify economically, because we feel that our contributors documentaries, and does interviews they are policed more stringently, and we have broken new ground in with hip-hop’s pioneering DJ. which includes the sale of pirated the intellectual terrain. Never before material. Baltimore’s flea markets has anyone done a more thorough The scholar co-editor at Large for this have seen people lead off in cuffs, while investigation of mixtapes, bootleggin issue, Jared Ball, contributes both an bootlegged merchandise is seized. and piracy, examining the issues from excellent review of the documentary Control over media outlets is essential such diverse angles. A work like this Mixtapes inc. entitled “Mixtape Inc to maintenance of hegemonic control. would be difficult to duplicate, even by and the Definitive Incorporation After reading Ball, Bobo, and Choflet the craftiest bootlegger. of Dissent Culture” and an article in tandem, one can clearly see the explaining the revolutionary potential purpose behind policing underground of the hip-hop mixtape called “Freemix distribution networks, for they can Radio: the Mixtape as Emancipitory spawn powerful political movements. Journalism.” The later piece puts The fact that so many of the pieces African media resistance in historical within this issue are in conversation context and discusses how the hip- and dialogue with one another is one hop mixtape can inform the public and the facets I am most proud of. Bootleg Jason Nichols result in material transformation for This Journal may very well be our Editor-in-Chief oppressed peoples. most consistent issue to date. 66 WORDS.BEATS.LIFE CALL FOR SUBMITTIONS Many have stated that sex sells with regard to commodities, including hip-hop culture. In recent years, however, the sex and hip-hop industries have forged a symbiotic relationship. Rappers have used strip clubs, for instance, to premier records and circumvent mainstream radio payola. Conversely, the porn industry has employed rappers to promote their DVDs and websites. The links between the sex industry and hip-hop can result in both exploitation and fiscal empowerment of the labors of both. Traditionally, hip- hop scholarship and commentary has focused on the misogynist and sexist nature of the cultural product. Debates, ranging from the treatment of the video girl to Nelly’s “Tip Drill,” have characterized the way the community most effectively discusses sex. For the forthcoming issue, “Sex and Hip-Hop Beyond Misogyny,” the Words Beats and Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop invites scholars, students, and practitioners to submit papers related to the above issues and nuanced takes on gender and sexuality within hip-hop culture. Topics may include sex trafficking, sexual education, hip-hop and sex in film and literature, queer hip-hop, boyhood and girlhood, and representations of the body. We hope to push ideas about sex and hip-hop beyond simple investigations of misogyny.