UPDATE: Newer version with additional content added: Klanhattan KlanVillage Mixtape – Median Income Edition.
Download / Preview Klanhattan KlanVillage Mixtape – Median Income Edition. Youtube playlist.
preview the digital booklet (includes mistari/lyrics and artwork, included with download)
Tracklist
1. had time – recorded @ KlanVillage
2. knobs – recorded @ KlanVillage
3. flowers – recorded @ KlanVillage
4. mark hunt – recorded @ KlanVillage
5. thru with love – instrumental by Pope Quiet Tha Loudmouth, recorded @ KlanVillage
6. suck my D – recorded @ KlanVillage
7. born in trouble – recorded @ KlanVillage
8. depressionfuel – instrumental by Pope Quiet Tha Loudmouth, recorded @ KlanVillage
9. can’t look away – recorded @ KlanVillage
10. bottom lines ( KevEconomist ) – recorded @ KlanVillage
11. hole ( you’re just poor ) – recorded @ KlanVillage [ Bonus Track ]
12. adult shit – recorded @ KlanVillage
13. Janet Yellen – recorded @ KlanVillage
14. no security – instrumental by Afroshax, recorded @ KlanVillage
15. No Respect – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
16. Klanhattan KlanVillage – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
17. dreams – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
18. prisons – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ Veltri, produced by Stefan Moessle
19. shadows – instrumental by Sniper SP, recorded @ Veltri, produced by Stefan Moessle
20. coma – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
21. appreciation – instrumental by Mohjay, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
22. fed myths – instrumental by Pope Quiet Tha Loudmouth, recorded @ Veltri, produced by Stefan Moessle
23. lost city feat. Bosco Baya – instrumental by Kt, recorded @ IGM, produced by Block
Klanhattan KlanVillage Mixtape
why are we all broke? Maskini everywhere. At a time when income inequality is at its highest in the USA since the 1960s, police are tear gasing schoolchildren in Kenya, and economic elite accountability is unheard of, had to do this mixtape. This thoughts you can’t say while having a job, okay, I’ll be that guy. Seein the impact of Mau Mau Kambi & Ukoo Flani in Nairobi & Mombasa in 2011-2012 made clearer the stakes of the economic violence I was already familiar with, growing up in the village. That violence complacent middle classes can afford to ignore, and global business elites maintain for their own exclusive benefit. recording the tape in Kenya, I went with the flow, kinda findin my voice, guided by guys like Gas Fya2, Washamba Wenza, BlackGzas, Audio Kusini. There was a voice in my head, I played it safe, stuck to references. was still learnin how to do it. then “hip hop” in usa since i been back and the return to relative poverty [livin like a yuppie in kenya, funds ran out quik], situations got me frustrated with the state of affairs here & globally.
So I took inspiration from the more historical “conscious” rappers in Kenya & put some of my own ideas & experiences in here. I wanted to go farther, “speak out of turn” like the Senegalese guys from Keurgui Crew. I wanted the tape to be the voice me and people from my class background didn’t have, weren’t allowed to have, were misdirected from being portrayed accurately by commercial medias. Yaani, nimechoka with bullshit. Exposure to people livin hip hop lifestyles in Kenya got me thinkin, weakenin the chains of mental slavery handed down by the privileged classes.
what is a klan? Economic opportunities forced me back to my native dumpsite, word to Dandora, “KlanVille.” Johns Manville Asbestos Manufacturing “City” aka rustbelt shithole rapeslave pit. Yuppie-funded Ku Klux Klan school in nearby Zarephath spreadin the toxic ideologies designed for poors’ consumption earned the town its local, self-hating nickname “Klanville.” knowin am broke and no one cares, I flipped it to match my reality. “KlanVillage” was coined freestylin over a Mohjay beat tape i was listnin to on youtube. Everywhere in Kenya, “ukabila ni ujinga” but when u did the economics, that klanfascism categorically prevailed. Convenient colonial identity technologies to keep power in the same kinds of hands, u kno. Did a lot of research, started readin their The Economist. Connections between the Atlantic Slave Trade and modern version, Citibank. Started reading beyond my homes in Kenya & USA. Parallels between domestic and foreign instances of planned, systemic economic underdevelopment determined by central power regions.
Mpeketoni v. Westgate, daylaborers v. the propertied elite, schoolkids v. property developers. This elites continue to consolidate power thru backdoor manipulations & outright theft, confident in their safety nets. am here hurlin my broke words at the facade of their Bostom Dynamics drone murders. inspiration from Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mike Davis, hip hop jamii…while simultaneously gaining an understanding of the world of privilege the majority here in the real world are excluded from. Becoming aware of the commercial banking system & the realities of technology & global trade filtered thru yuppie control. tryna navigate the violence, fiscal and physical in this era of “no security.”
what is the way forward? tumechoka poverty, violence. will we continue to fite each other for scraps & fall into the same traps & rent systems business elites design for us? will we fracture along arbitrary identity-politicks lines while only a few benefit from the overall violence? will we continue to imbibe the apartheid bullshit they spit? education and economic opportunities for more people would increase efficiency but the landlords don’t wanna see it. Where is the boundary between their “efficiency” and intergenerational economic exclusion? Yes, people respond to incentives, but whose efficiency? Will we free our minds from the mental slavery they promote? The myths of individual ascension of the class ladder, peppered with Precious few token examples? The myths of the “self-regulating” market & “limited, small-government” economies? Governments av been notoriously kkkorrupt and inefficient, so how do we change the economic situation to enable equal opportunities & redesign our legal system with economic opportunities in mind? Prison system gotta go, drug war on the poors must stop. we’re tired of it. Of coz, safety nets do not want change. Will we continue to injest their myths & emotional manipulation? their same cynical, small-minded klannish bullshit? will the systematically underdeveloped KlanVillagers, rural & urban, continue to live in the shadow of the economic elite, decision-making classes who reside in the posh districts of the world’s Klanhattans? Why we always in positions of reaction? Will we trade emotions and myth-ideologies for our lives? Or will we say “enough,” & demand our economic opportunities? Our economic & human rights? Will we keep waiting for our economic elite so-called leaders to change things? They have proven they can not be relied upon. Will we see thru this individualist, self-regulating myths, & face the ugly reality of our own suffering?
Without economic action that benefits the collective, not just a few individuals, there can be no lasting political or social change. Ni wakati. We can’t wait for them to give us jobs. We must take jobs. We must make jobs. In a world where daddiemoney is all, we need to focus on skill building and rejecting toxic ideologies. We can use the information technologies and global trade realities to strengthen our futures. If the extant systems fail to provide opportunities, we create our own. What is hip hop for the impoverished globe without economic change? barbie parakeets need to go to sleep. Build.
no more waiting.
SPECIAL THANKS:
Mohjay, Pope Quiet Tha Loudmouth, Bosco Baya, Qama, Ekori Turkana, Sniper SP, Spikes Music, Block Muzik, IGM Studios, Stefan Moessle, Veltri Studio, Judge Black Duo, & Afroshax.
EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS: Jim, Alejandro, Jorge, & Patrick, my fellow KlanVillagers.