american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

CONTESTATORY URBAN AGENCY 173
greedy rich leaves only crumbs to the race (“La Raza” here is read as
encompassing African Americans, Latinas/os, and the poor in
general). The Coup’s song is a call to action for social change and a
dramatic redistribution of wealth via the land.
Between politically resonant songs such as these during the April
2002 show, Boots Riley assumed the role of a grassroots political
activist. He spoke to the audience about police brutality and inequality
in North Carolina, growing poverty in the United States, the war
on terrorism, and the war in Afghanistan. He carefully oscillated
between stories of police brutality in Durham (ten miles from Cat’s
Cradle) to global issues, continually imploring the audience to fight
against war, inequality, and the conditions that enable terrorism. The
show ended with what amounted to a demand for assent from
the audience. To paraphrase Riley—“You’re not going to go home
and forget about this, are you? It’s up to you all to act.” Crucially,
the reception of such a message is contextualized within the public
space of freedom, where collective agency empowers the audience to
act. Under such auspices, Riley’s message is not unsolicited proselytizing
or a threatening demand, but an interactive exchange with the
audience. Arendt’s desire to remove a means/end vocabulary from
public spaces and the actions contained therein demonstrates that the
audience is not a passive recipient of a performer’s message. If the
audience is not solely a means to an end for the performer’s goals,
the interaction can create a collective political engagement.
On November 17, 2003, the Minneapolis-based hip-hop group
Atmosphere performed at Cat’s Cradle. Though Atmosphere’s songs
are generally not overtly political, this particular show had an overtly
political ambience, immediately visible upon entering the club. In
the small booth where artists sell CDs, t-shirts, and other products,
there were anti-George Bush t-shirts for sale. During the last section
of the show Atmosphere MC Slug derided the policies of the president
and implored all audience members to take but one message home—
to go to the polls and vote. During the processes of direct address and
call-and-response he urged everyone in the audience to look around at
the other audience members, saying—and I paraphrase—this is your
community, one created through hip-hop music; you all must look out
for each other and help each other, so get together, vote, and create
change. Miriam Hansen notes that “the language of community provides
a powerful matrix of identification and thus may function as a
mobilizing force for transformative politics,” a possibility I saw at work
in this Atmosphere show. However, this language must also
“admit difference and differentiation within its own borders” (xxxvi),