From The Ramparts

Listen To Message In The Music

Message In The Music

“The Black broadcast media is a major culprit in mesmerizing the AfriKan American community, particularly its youth, with stupefying, mind numbing retrograde music and DJ claptrap- music created and recorded by the lowest elements of its street culture and sold and distributed by White owned, Japanese owned record companies who have shown nothing but the nastiest contempt for the peoples whose music is the principle source of their fabulous wealth and power. In general, Black electronic media feed the mind destroying, self defeating addiction Blacks have for music, whether rap, jazz, hip hop or gospel. Black celebrity driven electronic and print media saturate their audiences with Black bourgeois political nostrums and palliatives, hokey cliches and hopelessly wrongheaded prescriptions for Black social and economic advancement and liberation.” Amos N Wilson Blueprint For Black Power A Moral Political and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century page 239.

The ruling elites have set up all their institutions to function on behalf of the furtherance of their very selfish and megalomaniacal social political and economic interests. So it is not surprising Fox News, Clear Channel, Viacom the networks and the print media spew the party line of the plutocrats and their New World Order agenda. In order for them to maintain their domination and keep us in a subordinate position they must limit access to information and truth, critical thinking and discourage resistence, enthusiasm, purpose and self-determination. One way they do that is through the media, all media: the Euro-AmeriKKKan corporate, the so called “independent” white media and black owned media. In our community when you turn on the radio even the black owned stations you hear homogenized formatted programming that sounds the same no matter what city or area of the nation you live. In each town there is a Smooth Jazz, Oldies, Hip Hop or R&B station that sounds exactly like the ones in every other city playing the same music, the same commercials at the same times, where the DJs even sound alike. Often the DJs are the same because the shows are syndicated and simulcast via satellite link up around the country. For the most part, the music and programming are designed to appeal to the lowest vibratory levels on the psychological, emotional, intellectual and socio-political levels. the programming promots buffoonery, misogynist lyrics, thuggery, disrespect, gratuitous violence, crass materialism, reckless sexual behavior and at best minimalist socio-political consciousness. The music play lists on the popular stations often feature the raunchiest and degenerate values producing songs the FCC will allow. Listening to these stations you would think there were no conscious Hip Hop artists, singers, rappers and the socio-political conscious legacy of artists like Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott Heron, Nina Simone, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Leon Thomas, Earth Wind and Fire or Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff was extinct.
Even on the oldies stations you don’t hear the politically conscious music of the ‘60's and ‘70. Nor do you hear the underground sounds of the well established or the up and coming new wave consciousness artists like Public Enemy, Paris and Common on the popular commercial stations owned and operated by the giant media conglomerates. If you want to feed your mind and ears with more than bump and grind, sociopathic hoochie momma, gangsta wannabe, nonessential cursing and mind numbing drivel, where do you go? What venues do we have to promote socially and politically redemptive and enlightening music? If you know the call letters of a college FM station or a alternative programming station I n another city you might be able to use satellite radio or the Internet to listen to them. The Internet offers a wider selection of stations both terrestrial (traditional AM and FM radio stations that stream their programming on the Internet) and Internet radio stations and programming to choose from.
The good news is new stations are popping up all the time because the costs to operate one are relatively minimal compared to the huge costs of acquiring an FCC license, purchasing broadcast equipment and paying the staff needed to operate a traditional AM or FM station. Even with the advent of low wattage FM there are delays getting the needed approvals, equipment etc. I’m partial to Internet radio because I am a pioneer in Internet radio programming and Webcasting. I helped start The Black World Today’s talk channel in 2000 and have produced and hosted a series of Internet radio programs over the years. I am still active doing talk radio on the Internet, but recently an opportunity opened to allow me to be a DJ.
Neil Blake the founder of the Blake Radio Network www.Blakeradio.com revived one of his music streaming channels Music Massage which streams R&B, Hip Hop and Old School slow jams. He liked the music I play during the opening of my talk show The Cyberspace Sanctuary which airs on his Rainbow Soul talk channel. He offered me a slot to play music on Music Massage. I agreed to do it only if I could play socially conscious music. So for the past two months I’ve produced a show called Message In The Music which is Webcast daily at 12 Midnight Eastern time. I play socially and politically conscious music by old school artists like Nina Simone, Oscar Brown Jr, Gil Scott Heron, Roberta Flack, Tracy Chapman, Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Public Enemy The O’Jays as well as some new artists ( Hip Hop Spoken Word as well as R&B). I admit I’m partial to the old school material I already have in my collection. So if you are computer savvy and want to hear good music with socially relevant and redemptive lyrics, log onto www.Blakeradio.com enter the site and click on the Music Massage link. When the page comes up click on the Loudcity box and listen. You may have to select the media player you are using; after that sit back, relax and reminisce with Message In The Music.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 5:00 PM