Boots Riley interview

[RGacky3]

Great interview, and I love his analogy about MCdonalds, its right on, it does'nt matter how nice the maneger is, you still gotta work hard for low pay.

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He's not the most artful of speakers, but he's right on.

When your done with the interview, maybe your gonna wanna boogie down (apart from being a socialist, they guy does great funky hip hop)

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[Jimmie Higgins]

I saw him perform on New Years Eve/Morning here in Oakland. It was a lot of fun, and the first time I've seen him perform - he has this funny smirk when he performs and it seemed like him and Pam and the band were all having a really good time.

I actually sold him a radical newspaper at an event before and saw him at a number of protests for Oscar Grant - no entourage, just a short guy with big hair in the crowd - he was very nice and I'm sure he just buy a paper when people offer them to him because he knows his position among radicals in the Bay Area.

I love how he has always tried to integrate his politics into "party" music or visa-versa. Too often in the music industry, political music is segregated - it becomes "Anarcho-punk" rather than just "Punk" like it was always supposed to, "Consious Rap" rather than just "hip hop". Really when politics were cooking, there was no artificial separation in music: groups like Jefferson Airplane or even Bob Dylan would have a political song and then a relationship song or a drug song all on the same album. In golden-age hip-hop, there was no difference between political and non-political rap. When I was buying NWA records, I never thought they were a-political whereas only Public Enemy was political - it was the (mostly black) youth experience at that time - which means politics and gangster are all connected and not distinct categories. Of course Public Enemy was coming from a more explicitly political issue songwriting style whereas early "gangster" was often still political but less explisit and more from a story-telling form of songwriting. Anyway, I like how the Coup goes from Party-Rap to Funk to G-funk while Street-Sweeper-Social Scene (I don't really like them because it's not really my style despite the politics of the music) does Party-Rock Warped-Tour type music... I think it shows how Boots and people like him are trying to break down the "political ghetto" walls and reintegrate youth culture.

http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr32/rudemech/Concerts/CoupNewYears2011/P1010833.jpg
http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr32/rudemech/Concerts/CoupNewYears2011/P1010874.jpg

He moves around on stage too much to photo in low lighting though.

[Tablo]

Saw the interview and I love Boots. He has a great voice and The Coup is my favorite hip-hop group. Pretty sure he is a member of the Progressive Labor Party if that is of any interest.