Topic: Pride vs. Power "Caucasian hip-hoppers are celebraters.
- Jan 24, 2007 04:29pm by KIZ
this was taken from their myspace site and from urban magazine.
here is the link to the article. sorry it's a long link.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=7968070&blogID=182657113&MyToken=960c68f8-1b2a-4579-98fb-bfff43229573
Here is the article: go to theire site to see the groups picture.
Pride vs. Power "Caucasian hip-hoppers are celebraters, not haters"
In the last week of September, an odd thing happened: A Phoenix rap group managed to light up controversy all over the nation via an article that appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times by staff writer Chris Lee.
The article, titled "Rap's Captive Audience," was about marketing rap music to prisoners, but it highlighted the Phoenix group Woodpile, a trio of white ex-cons with shaved heads, saying in the subhead that they were "musicians with a white power message." The first sentence called them "skin-headed," and later referred to them as a "white-power group."
I was immediately confused, because the article also mentioned that Woodpile was signed to West Coast Mafia Records, owned by two black guys, notorious gangsta rapper C-Bo and his partner T-Po. It also said that the members of Woodpile — Diesoul Ether Bunny, Crisis, and Critical — were for "'white pride,' not white supremacy."
After extensive interviews with the members of Woodpile; the group's DJ, King Trick (who's black); West Coast Mafia co-owner T-Po; a staff reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report magazine, which tracks hate groups; and an e-mail exchange with the author of the L.A. Times story, I'm confident that Woodpile was misrepresented. These guys are white, and not afraid to say they're proud of it, but there's not a racist element to the group at all.
Though they partially got the name Woodpile from the fact that in prison, white dudes are called "woods" — short for "peckerwood," a pejorative that originally referred to poor white folks much like "redneck" does — and they celebrate the term in tracks like "I'm a Wood" and "For the Woods" (off their new album, The Streets Will Never Be the Same), the article doesn't mention that Crisis and Critical, who are brothers, actually have the last name Wood. Critical has "WOOD FAMILY" tattooed down his arms, ink that he's had since before the group came together.
The L.A. Times story was widely circulated on Internet list-servs that track hate group activities, and made it to the desk of Brentin Mock, a staff writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report. It didn't compute for him, either.
"First and foremost, they're on West Coast Mafia Records. Bottom line — even if it's dollars and you can rationalize something like that, I can't see a black gangsta guy putting a white supremacist rapper or music artist on his label," Mock told me after he'd looked into Woodpile. "I can't see a white supremacist wanting to be subjugated to being on a black guy's record label. It kind of subverts the racial hierarchy philosophy of white supremacists. I couldn't even find this 'proud to be white' flavor. There's nothing wrong, criminal, or anything even racist to say 'we're white and we're proud.'"
Other than shout-outs to fellow "woods," I found no references on their record to racism, and after getting to know the members, I think Woodpile's message is the opposite of what the L.A. Times construed it to be — they want to bring hardcore white guys to rap music, rather than alienating anyone of any race.
The group's DJ is King Trick, who's been in hip-hop for more than half of his 42 years, and is a black member of Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation, which promotes hip-hop awareness and is adamantly anti-racist. "If cats really did their homework and knew their history, the statements that are made about this group are just idiotic, it's almost comedic," he tells me. "It makes no sense whatsoever.
"It's funny to me that with them coming out, we're not talking about bling-bling anymore," he continues. "We're not talking about who's gonna get the most ass tonight. We're talking about a real issue, for once. When you look at them coming into this scene — if black pride is cool in the world, brown pride is cool in the world, I'll be damned if hip-hop cannot embrace some cats that are saying, 'We're here, we love y'all, but we're here, and we want our folks to know they need to start coming out and supporting.' They're doing the most bravest thing I've seen in the scene yet."
Over beers on a weekday afternoon, Diesoul elaborates for me further. "In my mind, America at large doesn't want this image for white people. The powers that be, in my mind, would rather a white dude be metrosexual and chill than be aggressive and down. It used to be cool to take care of your family and friends and be John Wayne about it and never disrespect but don't let no one disrespect you. Now it's on some tip that I'm not feeling. What we're doing is gonna give people an image to look up to, that 'I'm a whole lot more like that than I am like Justin Timberlake.' That's not who we are. We wanted to represent who we were. Why can't you be white and like it without being racist?"
Chris Lee, the author of the L.A. Times story, justified describing Woodpile as a "white-power group" to me in an e-mail, saying, "They feel I did them an injustice by referring to their politics as 'white power' as opposed to 'white pride.' It was an editorial decision no fewer than four editors weighed in on. In the end, the paper went with white power for two reasons. Experts on the matter say white power can mean white pride (that is, the advancement of white people not necessarily to the detriment of people from other races). While it certainly has connotations 'neo-Nazi,' I clearly point out in the story that that isn't Woodpile's bailiwick."
comments?
- Jan 24, 2007 05:15pm by Reach. - Peace and oneness,
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Honestly doesn't strike a chord with me.
More "power" to them.
- Jan 24, 2007 07:50pm by phism
i guess if you can have white pride, in jail, and get along with people of other ethnicities, and not get killed by the Aryan Brotherhood, you're doing alright.
i don't exactly see these guys blowing up, though.
- Jan 25, 2007 01:05am by StikFiga - "i could never be a thug, they dont dress this well"--Malice of the Clipse
thats damgerous, i dunno makes me uncomfortable.
- Jan 25, 2007 01:18am by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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hey stik
what's dangerous?
and how is it dangerous?
please clarify if you would
hey phism
why won't they blow up?
nrg
- Jan 25, 2007 02:04am by phism
i assume they won't blow up because they probably aren't very good. just, from probability.
i think white pride only makes sense in certain circumstances, and prison may be one of them. white people are a minority there, anyway (for whatever reason you might assume)... i would say i thought it was dangerous because it might be a gateway to white supremacy for people who got into it, but 1) i don't think hip-hop is going to be the music of the white power movement, 2) i don't think they're ever going to get popular enough to matter. it's too much of a gimmick.
p.s. i think it's interesting that they shave their heads. now there will be white supremacist skinheads, sharps ([u:1c7fdebaee]s[/u:1c7fdebaee]kin[u:1c7fdebaee]h[/u:1c7fdebaee]eads[u:1c7fdebaee]a[/u:1c7fdebaee]gainst[u:1c7fdebaee]r[/u:1c7fdebaee]acial[u:1c7fdebaee]p[/u:1c7fdebaee]rejudice), and these guys in between. i kind of feel bad for non-racist skinheads who people always assume are white power. especially when a lot of them uh... aren't white. i almost want to start a separate skinhead thread... one time i was at the hangout and they had skinhead soul night downstairs and top 40 hip-hop upstairs, and of course there was a fight.. i don't think it was a racially motivated fight but it couldn't have helped anybody's image. still, skinheads started with soul and reggae... (hey, maybe there's a common thread there since kool herc is jamaican)
- Jan 25, 2007 07:44pm by JDFlow - [url=http://www.my.rawkus.com/profile/jdflow]JDFlow on Rawkus[/url]
[url=http://www.myspace.com/jdflow]JDFlow on Myspace[/url]
[url=http://ccedistribution.blogspot.com/]Distribution & Marketing[/url] Location: Seattle
I guess everyone's entitled to thier beliefs. It's no different from listening to Paris. I just wonder what sort of subject matter they're planning on incorporating. Will it be white pride or black hate?
- Jan 25, 2007 09:41pm by phism
i just wonder if they know that white people ruined earth.
sorry, i had to. 😉
- Jan 28, 2007 06:57am by Dropjaw - Dropjaw
http://www.hiphophobo.com
http://www.myspace.com/Dropjaw
http://www.myspace.com/deadrepublic
I'm on facebook as well, and my name is Kory Andrew Pedersen if you wanna be web homies. Location: Manhattan, KS
Damn! I was just about to market this.
