Liner Notes| January 2016

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap radius”]I[/dropcap]t’s been an awesome month for politically conscious hip-hop. KILLER MIKE, half of Run the Jewels, interviewed Democratic Candidate for President Bernie Sanders. They’ve been spotted together talking in Killer Mike’s barbershop and getting lunch together. But now, the pair announced a six-part conversation in which they talked about politics, religion, the drug war, minority voters and much more.

In Atlanta, at a rally for Sanders, in front of a crowd of thousands, Killer Mike voiced his wariness to support any political candidate. He added, however, “after spending five hours with someone who has spent the last 50 years radically fighting for your rights and mine, I can tell you that I am very proud tonight to announce the next president of the United States, Senator Bernie Sanders.”

Sanders is still trailing Senator Hillary Clinton by quite a significant margin with black voters in the southern states. He has acknowledged this in several interviews, including the one he had with Killer Mike. The Atlanta rally was, among other things, an attempt at rallying the southern minority base around him and to show his political record as one that would help give their struggles voice better than his opponent.

K’NAAN, the Somali-Canadian rapper, has also been making moves and partnerships in unlikely political waters. He’s teaming up with Kathryn Bigelow, the director behind Zero Dark Thirty, Point Break and The Hurt Locker, to make a new HBO drama about radical Islam. The series “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment,” HBO said in a press release.

K’naan has posted calls for audition in the Minnesota Twin Cities area for Somali-born actors. There’s no word yet on how long the show will run or how involved Bigelow will be beyond producing and possibly directing a few episodes, but the series is already generating significant buzz online and in the trades.

NICKI MINAJ has also shown her political side recently, speaking in interviews about social injustices from sexism to the War on Drugs. “When I see how many people are in jail,” Minaj said, “I feel like, ‘Wait a minute. Our government is aware of these statistics and thinks it’s okay?’ The sentences are inhumane.” She continued, “what it has become is not a war on drugs. It has become slavery. Or something crazier.”

Minaj is not the only rapper to speak out against the War on Drugs, especially the mandatory minimums that drug possession charges often carry. These regulations, as well as police tactics, lead to significantly more drug arrests and harsh sentencing in neighborhoods primarily inhabited by people of color. Minaj is referring to the staggering number of black men, specifically, who are incarnated in the United States now which, according to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, exceeds the number of people held in slavery in the United States. I predict, with the critical election a year away, these issues will continue to take center stage not just in political realms, but also in musical and creative realms.

In lighter news, WILL SMITH announced his first tour in decades, saying that he and Jazzy Jeff will be going out on the road for several dates in 2016. The rapper-turned-movie star also hinted that new music might be in the works. He’s not the only huge name heading out on tour next year: ADELE also booked over 50 dates for 2016 North American tour, expected to sell out in something approaching instantaneousness.