What does the future of North America look like? Is it a mash up of clashing races or a cohesive enterprise spanning all peoples. What about the issues of native lands, and of native self determination? This overarching question is one that rarely gets asked, but it forms the backbone of the denial which is our cultural memory. Its difficult to envision the future in a post petroleum economy, just as it is difficult to translate the words spoken in a future time, but one thing is sure, the questions that underlie our supposed social cohesion will rise to the surface, they are karmically impossible to avoid. These questions rot and fester in the human psyche, unbeknownst to most, even though they carry a power of change that is so great that governments worldwide fear its presence.
The most recent James Cameron film "Avatar" speaks to the very heart of this issue, and expresses the yearned for release of closure and healing, by means of heroic change in the face of formidable odds. The success of this film does not rely only on the merits of its graphic appeal, no spectacle can survive long on visuals alone, its success is an exact mirroring of the collective yearning for a remembrance of a slower time, where observing was a process of awareness and not merely a function of mental construction. Where consideration of the natural world was not arbitrary but real and engaging.
The voice of the modern dispossessed in North America is the voice of the inner city, where a cultural trap weighs like a graviton ball around the ankles of the youth, where the freedom of opportunity is limited by the economic equation that has been placed around the necks of the people. Amidst the confusion and apathy of the inner cities lies a human element, I know, because I've seen it, and it often finds expression through music and dance, those outlets least apt to be shut out of the human experience no matter how atrocious the living conditions. Flowers blossom in the strangest of places sometimes, and God smiles down in those moments of ecstatic relationship with the body whose resonance, when in alignment with the higher element of our being, rings like a crystal charm causing ripples in time and space.
Everyone has their own song, and few are they that actually find that song and have the courage and fortitude to sing it, and keep on singing it, in the face of oppositionary chords. Hip-hop came from that tension of social opposition and lyrical poetry which embodied a voice that spoke of the injustices of the people. Many great orators grew up among the music of the oppressed, and it coloured the language and tonality of the message they carried such that it spoke directly to the people. This 'voice' is a phenomena of nature/spirit and is a connective channel between the peoples as it harmonizes the emotional environment. An example of such a voice is that of Bob Marley, or Michael Jackson, whose mass appeal could not simply be a matter of marketing - the magnetic attraction was so great that no advertising campaign could cause it. There was something in the vibe, something not quite of this world alone, but something reflective of a superior realm.
In hip-hop the tension of injustice and the need for expression has given rise to a fascinating combination of self awareness - self thought - and aggressive vocalization that properly captures the suffering behind the words. The voice of the inner city self aware:
