“I find it distressing, there’s never no in-between, we either niggas or kings, we either bitches of queens”—Mos Def. In this verse, Mos Def is talking about balance. Talk to anyone who loves hip-hop, the issue is not “this” vs. “that”; it’s almost always too much of “this” and not enough of “that.” Hip-hop non-profits in many instances are the new champions of Balance. This takes the form of work life balance, in the case of some organization, such as Yo! The Movement in Minnesota, which allows its ED to take an annual sabbatical to tour, so he will maintain a good work life balance. Many hip-hop non-profits are some of our fields greatest proponents of telecommuting, cyber work spaces and flex time like the Hip-Hop Association.
We also see this fight for balance in the numerous youth development programs throughout the country that work to promote multi media literacy, media justice and community ownership of media. Organizations like Youth Movement Records and BUMP Records work with youth to create music, tour and distribute their own music. This is especially important as members of the field attempt to impact the payola systems that has for decades locked out local artists from commercial airwave. We see organization like Prometheus radio promoting low power FM, community radio or innovators like Dr Jared Ball and Freemix radio, the official mixtape radio show taking the music off the airwaves and freely distributing radio formatted talk shows via CD and web based downloads. We continue to see a struggle for balance in groups like the Hip-Hop Congress who work with university based artists on issues of social justice and access to the resources to promote their art in communities and colleges across the country.
Balance is what all these groups and the many yet to be named are actively working for. It’s for that reason that I am working to co-author a report called The Counter Balance. In a technical sense, the counter balance is a weight on the arm of a turntable. This weight can be adjusted to make sure the need on a record being played is just heavy enough not to move out of a grove when a dj is scratching and mixing on the turntables. If the weight is to heavy, it will dig into the record and inevitable make it unusable. If it’s to light, it will bounce out of the groove and scratch up the record and eventually make it unusable. But when it’s just right, the DJ can take the crowd, musically, to places it might have never been before, or back to places that hold fond memories. The counter balance, this small piece of metal, can make all the difference in the word. It’s my hope that this report will do the same. I plan to use my blog, “Pawn Dreams” to present some of the opinions and research that will be contained in the Counter Balance. I do hope that you will not only read these posts, but also leave comments about the direction I take the conversation.
