GlobalFaction & I Am Hip Hop Present A Discussion On Politricks in ‘ReZONEing’

By Apex Zero • On Education , , ,

politric

Glob­al Fac­tion and I Am Hip Hop Magazine present ReZONE­ing – an in-depth dis­cus­sion on the socio-polit­ic­al situ­ation facing our com­munit­ies. The call­ing of the snap gen­er­al elec­tion has intens­i­fied much of the debate, con­cerns, prob­lems and divi­sions that the cur­rent polit­ic­al cli­mate has imposed upon our people and the soci­ety, with – as expec­ted – most of the con­ver­sa­tion being centred on which polit­ic­al party people should sup­port. With­in poorer and more eth­nic­ally diverse com­munit­ies and amongst those who are more act­ive in grass­roots organ­isa­tion, the debate has been less about who to vote for and more about wheth­er or not people should reas­sess their present (often right­fully scep­tic­al) con­cep­tions of the Labour Party and sup­port the lead­er­ship of Jeremy Corbyn, who in many ways appears to be the most humane and relat­able can­did­ate to actu­ally stand a chance of becom­ing prime min­is­ter in liv­ing memory.

This scen­ario has seen many respec­ted and well known mem­bers of the Hip Hop and Grime com­munity come out in sup­port of Corbyn, get­ting behind his cam­paign and urging people, espe­cially young people, to engage or reen­gage with the pro­cess of party polit­ics and to register then vote on June 8th. The decision to do so has been framed as an urgent call to action at a crit­ic­al moment with import­ant areas such as the NHS, people’s basic income, school fund­ing, uni­ver­sity fees and the move­ment of people (often those escap­ing war­zones) being seen as at stake if the Con­ser­vat­ive party were to retake con­trol of the government.

As a res­ult of the reduced time-scale brought about by the snap gen­er­al elec­tion, people are being forced to accel­er­ate their weigh­ing up of Corbyn’s cre­den­tials and of the effect­ive­ness of back­ing a Labour Party that has at best betrayed its ori­gin­al pos­i­tion as rep­res­ent­at­ive of the poorer and work­ing class mem­bers of this soci­ety and at worst has only ever been the second half of an arti­fi­cial demo­cracy and polit­ic­al sys­tem designed to cre­ate the illu­sion of free­dom and par­ti­cip­a­tion in the polit­ic­al sys­tem. Unfor­tu­nately, due to the appar­ent urgency, this area of dis­cus­sion has been lost among the mass media driv­en, repet­it­ive con­ver­sa­tion of left or right, red or blue, Labour or Con­ser­vat­ive, Corbyn or May. In response to Corbyn being attacked by this same mass media, much of the con­ver­sa­tion by those who would nor­mally be the voice of the more focused dis­cus­sion have instead had to spend their air­time defend­ing him as a per­son or as a politi­cian. As a con­sequence, the dia­logue has shif­ted to be far more inline with the mass media (mis)conception of polit­ic­al debate.

With this set of cir­cum­stances as the basis, Glob­al Fac­tion and I Am Hip-Hop magazine have attemp­ted to realign this dis­cus­sion, pla­cing the con­ver­sa­tion in the zone of ques­tion­ing the very nature of the polit­ic­al sys­tem that party polit­ics rep­res­ents. After reach­ing out to a large num­ber of the Hip Hop, Reg­gae, Jungle, Grime and act­iv­ist com­munit­ies of Lon­don, a group of indi­vidu­als who view the polit­ic­al sys­tem from this per­spect­ive were brought togeth­er to dis­cuss the cur­rent cli­mate, wheth­er or not they were vot­ing or why, how polit­ics does not start and end with polit­ic­al parties, what our com­munit­ies should or can expect from this cur­rent situ­ation, where our ener­gies should be focused in terms of our com­munit­ies and polit­ics and the role that music(ians) and art(ists) can, could or should play in defin­ing and act­ing as a res­ult of such points of view.

Held in Imper­i­al Fla­vors Carib­bean res­taur­ant in Hack­ney, Congo Natty, DJ Steaz, Amy True, Potent Whis­per, Apex Zero, Rishma and Merz reas­on on all the issues men­tioned above and more in part one of “ReZON­En­ing”, an attempt to realign the cur­rent polit­ic­al conversation.

Watch the video and join in the discussion.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/pbIyK-ZmOl4[/youtube]

 

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Apex Zero

An emcee, beat­maker, film­maker and writer from Lon­don with Gren­adian roots, Apex Zero has spent his life learn­ing and liv­ing Hip Hop cul­ture, using it to inspire and affect change. Based in Beijing for a few years and reg­u­larly tour­ing the globe, Apex is well trav­elled, and uses the les­sons this provides to inform his art and out­look. He is a mem­ber of the Glob­al­Fac­tion digit­al pro­duc­tion house and the inter­na­tion­al Hip Hop col­lect­ive End of the Weak.

About Apex Zero

An emcee, beatmaker, filmmaker and writer from London with Grenadian roots, Apex Zero has spent his life learning and living Hip Hop culture, using it to inspire and affect change. Based in Beijing for a few years and regularly touring the globe, Apex is well travelled, and uses the lessons this provides to inform his art and outlook. He is a member of the GlobalFaction digital production house and the international Hip Hop collective End of the Weak.