venstresida.net

I am truly sorry that you feel that way. I probably should have mentioned a lot of underground artists, but the fact is that I today use approx 0.5% of the time i use on politics on music, and I really do not know the underground hip-hop scene that well. Also in the interwiew I wanted to tell the truth about what artists have inspired ME, when I came into hip-hop and on from there, and these artists were commercial artists who in addition had a message (or who simply had rhyming skills). Very few (if any)underground artists made it over to Norway in those days. Today I unfortunately have little time to follow the hip-hop scene at all. I also feel that your total rejection of commercial artists is politically wrong. If you have got a chance to spread a revolutionary message using capitalisms own weapons, go ahead I say. I of course agree with you that these artists also have problematic sides to them (altough the sides you feel are most problematic may not neccesarily be the same I find problematic, I do not like Ice Cubes affiliation with the Nation of Islam f.ex. in one period). I really have very little experience with how black nationalism works in the US today (being norwegian) and as such know little about the progressive and/or reactionary possibilities that lie in such an ideology (I am sure there is a potential for a little of both).

I will still hold on to, howeaver, the fact that the music of 2pac, early Ice Cube, PE and Dead Prez, does have a progressive potential. If you have got other artists you feel I should have mentioned, why the f**k don't you list them in your comment in stead of complaining that I don't list a long line of artists I really don't know that well? As you can see from the next paragraph in the interwiew, I do promote the Norwegian radical MC's I know. Do you know/promote these?

Most of my political time and resources today go into work in the party I am a member of (www.rv.no), work in a much broader front against neoliberalism (www.attac.no/www.attac.org), and work in my union (www.ntl.no), plus I try to write essays, articles etc. for different newspapers. I have however not given up on hip-hop completely, and I hope you do not judge my entire work based on one sentence from an old interwiew. I have downloaded quite a few of your tracks over the years, and I must say you generally keep a high standard. If you feel there is something in particular I should do to support you or any other particular artists, please let me know.

On my end, I don't have anything bad to say about your work (apart from an obviousley sectarian wiew of the black liberation movement). It's good, so keep it up.

*Clenced Fist*
Ice