The Song That Changed My Life
The Album that changed me. Listen below.
Like most important moments in my life, it begins with a song. I became woke in the naughties because of music from the 90s.
For a long time, I don't think I ever really cared... not about things that mattered anyway. I paid attention of course, but it was to things like video games and comic books. I was blind to strife happening outside of my suburban bubble. Despite having family and close friends going through hard times all around me. I had barely enough privilege to sleep through a lot of it.
When I finally got to University, I was fortunate to learn a variety of important lessons. My degree was in media, but with that came the study of history, economics, and business. Despite having access to wonderful instructors and books, I still didn't care. I paid attention of course, but now it was to things like my ska band, my grades, and girls... way too much attention to girls. Yet I left with all this unapplied knowledge. Little of it made any cohesive sense or seemed particularly useful, but I did well enough to leave with a degree. Still, I was just privileged enough to sleep on everything I'd learned in college.
I was middle class and had the privilege of growing up in the United States during one of the most economically stable periods in the country's history. We O.G. American millennials inherited the mindset our parents had gotten from theirs. We thought that all we needed to do was work hard, make good decisions, and be respectful to the police. If we could do that, then we'd "earn" prosperity, and security. Our membership in the neoliberal, meritocratic, "Greatest Country in the World" club would be assured. We may have been born through no effort of our own, but we should be proud that our prenatal draw was so lucky. We could have been born in one of those other countries corporations started outsourcing to.
The Nature of the Song
The song that changed me.
It was on a road trip to visit a sad friend in a sad town in north Texas where he'd gotten his first job out of law school. After weeks of begging, I begrudgingly agreed to come. I found a 3 day weekend, a travel buddy, and $20 of my last $30 to spend on an overdue oil change. My road dog Joe and I took off on an 8-hour journey through the badlands of Texas. It looked like all those cowboy movies your granddad likes.
Joe was a diehard fan of techno. He introduced me to Daft Punk. He'd recently learned to download full DJ sets from radio stations in the UK and burn them to CDs. He'd brought an impressive stack of them along despite my protests. Around halfway through our trip, I popped in a new disc while he slept. That's where I heard the song. This DJ decided that rather than start his set with "dope beats," he’d rather kick it off with knowledge. This was when I first heard Nature of the Threat.
"Nature of the Threat is a 7-minute, 44-second hip-hop anthem by rapper Ras Kass from his 1996 debut album Soul on Ice. Eschewing the typical rap tropes, Ras Kass deep dives into a hard-hitting, rhyme filled with the chronology of the world. It was all from an Afrocentric viewpoint. Even being a long-time fan of hip-hop by this point, I had never heard anything like it. It shocked my brain like a defibrillator on my temples.
In the song, Ras hit me with viewpoints I had never considered, from angles I had never seen before. He revealed inconsistencies around lessons that made up the bedrock of my worldview. I must have replayed the song 20 or 30 times in a row. I wanted to pick up on every detail I could. Nature of the Threat was a lyrical tour de force so brazen and sure of itself. Even amidst its inappropriate views and inaccurate claims. Ras wasn't here to debate - he was here to attack. His targets ranged throughout topics of world history, Thanksgiving, Jesus' skin color, Carthage's genocide at the hands of Rome, the origins of racism, connecting Christmas and Saturnalia, the slave trade, and biological warfare against the Native Americans. Ras Kass cites German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, gives numerous dates to back up his claims, and had the audacity to make a point of how "Jews don't salute the swastika but {Black Americans} pledge allegiance to the [US] flag that accosted ya."
Nature of the Threat was over a decade old before I’d even heard it. I didn't even need to know if Ras Kass' claims were true for them to make an impact on me at that moment. It changed the way I saw my country, my religion, and myself. After encountering Nature of the Threat I was a different person. It only took 7-minutes and 44-seconds.
Waking in Slow Motion
Wake up before Grandmama comes back with a switch!
It’s hard for sleeping people to encounter anything of substance on their own. It's even harder for them to understand that substance when they do. I had revolutionary information before I ever heard Nature of the Threat. My Jewish 5th grade teacher took on the school board so we could watch the mini-series "Roots" in its entirety. Rage Against The Machine had been raging for a decade already. For a year, I even lived with 3 members of a Zapatistas support organization in Austin, but I wasn't ready to understand injustice. Even when it had been happening to me by the state, police, and various so-called friends for several years. I wasn't able to turn that corner on my own. I needed a catalyst of the right size and shape to wake me out of my American slumber. Or at least let me “yawn and stretch and try to come to life.”
Over the years my views have continued to shift and change as I've increased my knowledge on my own. It started small. At first, I couldn't celebrate Christmas anymore. I couldn't vibe with Christianity on the whole. Christians can't even agree on the skin tone of a rabbi even secular scholars agree exists. How can I trust anything else in your Bible? Was God taking a nap during American slavery?
After Nature of the Threat, I couldn't bring myself to say the pledge of allegiance anymore. Ras Kass's point about my accosted ancestors killed patriotism in me. Then I learned about the rest of my incarcerated brothers and sisters. I began to understand the daily psychological assaults and constant disrespect we had to suffer through. I couldn't unsee the danger the police posed to any who didn't look white and mainstream. My decisions about my life and friendships started to change as well.
Those Not Waking At All
You get it! She’s forcing herself to sleep. She must not be afraid of Grandmama. She’s gonna be sorry…
My social media posts looked different. I wanted to share and educate people as it happened to me. I wanted my white friends to think about injustice in new ways. This led to arguments online and off that saw me no longer associating with some people as much... people I knew who voted for Donald Trump. People I grew up with who come from where I come from but experienced it through a different lens of a different color.
Today, I occupy my time in continued exploration of capitalism and colonialism. I make art about the forces that continue to exploit people around the world. I rage against the weaponized mundanity to which we've become accustomed.
I began to remember lessons I glossed over in university. I remember the economics classes I didn't care about. I remember the media studies I couldn't understand at the time. I see how closed off my mind was to the problems of the world and the small ability I have to fix some of them. If I hadn't heard that song back then, I would not see the world the way I do now. And while that is alienating, it's also comforting to know that I care. I know that I changed, and if I can do it, it means other people can too.
