The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

An outgrowth, both musically and ideologically, of the San Francisco-based avant-garde industrial jazz collective the Beatnigs, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy formed in 1990. Comprised of former Beatnigs Michael Franti and Rono Tse, the duo quickly established themselves among rap’s foremost proponents of multiculturalism and liberalism; pointedly attacking hip-hop tenets like homophobia, misogyny, and racism.

One Nation under God

has turned into One Nation under the influence of one drug

Television, the drug of the nation

Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

TV, it satallite links

Our United States of Unconsciousness

Apathetic, therapeutic and extremely addictive

The methadone metronome pumping out 150 channels 24 hours a day

You can flip through all of them and still there’s nothing worth watching

TV is the reason why less than ten percent of our nation reads books daily

Why most people think Central America means Kansas

Socialism means unamerican and Apartheid is a new headache remedy

Absorbed in it’s world it’s so hard to find us

it shapes our minds the most

Maybe the mother of our nation

should remind us that we’re sitting too close

to the…

Television, the drug of the nation

Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

TV…

is the stomping ground for political candidates

Where bears in the woods are chased by Grecian Formula’d bald eagles

TV…is mechanized politics

remote control over the masses

co-sponsored by environmentally safe gases

Watch for the PBS special

It’s the perpetuation of the two party system

where image takes precedence over wisdom

Where sound bite politics are served to the fast food culture

Where straight teeth in your mouth

are more important than the words that come out of it

Race baiting is the way to get selected

Willie Horton or will he not get elected on…

Television, the drug of the nation

Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

 

TV, Is it the reflector or the director?

Does it imitate us or do we imitate it?

Because a child watches 1500 murders before he’s 12 years old

And we wonder how we’ve created a Jason generation

that learns to laugh rather than abhor the horror

TV is the place where armchair generals and quarterbacks

can experience first hand the excitement of video warfare

as the theme song is sung in the background

Sugar sweet sitcoms that leave us with a bad actor taste

while pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars

You saw the video – You heard the soundtrack

Now go but the soft drink

Well, the only cola that I support

would be a union C.O.L.A. (Cost of Living Allowance)

On

Television, the drug of the nation

Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

 

Back again, new and improved

we return to our irregularly programmed schedule

hidden cleverly between heavily breasted

beer and car commercials

CNNESPNABCTNT but mostly B.S.

Where oxymoronic language like

«virtually spotless», «fresh frozen»

«light yet filling» and «military intelligence»

have become standard

TV is the place where phrases are redefined

like «recession» to «necessary downturn»

«crude oil» on a beach to «mousse»

«Civilian death» to «collateral damages»

and being killed by your own army

is now called «friendly fire»

TV is the place where the pursuit of happiness

has become the pursuit of trivia

Where toothpaste and cars have become sex objects

Where imagination is sucked out of children

by a cathode ray nipple

TV is the only wet nurse

that would create a cripple 

Television, the drug of the nation

Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

 

◊  ‘Satanic Reverses’  ↓

∇    ‘Language Of Violence’  ⇓

The first day of school was always the hardest
The first day of school the hallways the darkest
Like a gauntlet
the voices haunted
Walking in with his thin skin lowered chin
He knew the names that they would taunt him with
Faggot sissy punk queen queer
Although he’d never had sex in his 15 years
And when they harassed him it was for a reason
And when they provoked him it became open season
for the fox and the hunter, the sparks and the thunder
that pushed the boy under, then pillage and plunder
It kind of makes you wonder
how one can hurt another

But dehumanizing the victim makes things simpler
It’s like breathing with a respirator
It eases the conscience of even the most conscious
and calculating violator
Words can reduce a person to an object,
something more easy to hate
An inanimate entity, completely disposable,
no problem to obliterate

But death is the silence in this language of violence
Death is the silence
But death is the silence in this cycle of violence
death is the silence

It’s tough to be young, the young long to be tougher
When we pick on someone else it might make us feel rougher
Abused by their fathers but was at home though
so to prove to each other that they were not homos
The exclamation of the phobic fury
executioner, a judge and jury
The mob mentality, individuality was nowhere
Dignity forgotten at the bottom of a dumb old dare
and a numb cold stare
On the way home it was back to name calling
Ten against one they had his back up against the wall and
they reveled in their laughter as they surrounded him
But it wasn’t a game when they up jumped and grounded him
They picked up their bats with their muscles straining
and they decided they were gonna beat this fella’s brain in
with an awful, powerful, showerful, an hour full of violence
Inflict the strictest brutality and dominance
They didn’t hear him screaming, they didn’t hear him pleading
They ran like cowards and left the boy bleeding
in a pool of red ‘til all tears were shed
and his eyes quietly slid into the back of his head
dead…

But death is the silence in this language of violence
Death is the silence
But death is the silence in this cycle of violence
death is the silence

The boy’s parents were gone and his grandmother had raised him
She was mad she had no form of retaliation
The pack didn’t have to worry about being on a hitlist
But the thing they never thought about was that there was a witness
to this senseless crime, right place wrong time
Tried as an adult one of them was gonna do hard time

The first day of prison was always the hardest
The first day of prison, the hallways the darkest
Like a gauntlet
the voices haunted
Faggot, sissy, punk, queen, queer
Words he used before had a new meaning in here
As a group of men in front of him laughed and came near
for the first time in his life the young bully felt fear

He’d never been on this side of the name calling
Five against one they had his back up against the wall and
he had never questioned his own sexuality
but this group of men didn’t hesitate in their reality
with an awful, powerful, showerful, an hour full of violence
Inflict the strictest brutality and dominance
They didn’t hear him screaming
They didn’t hear him pleading
They took what they wanted and then left him bleeding in the corner
The giant reduced to jack horner

But dehumanizing the victim makes things simpler
It’s like breathing with a respirator
It eases the conscience of even the most conscious
and calculating violator
The power of words, don’t take it for granted
when you hear a man ranting
Don’t just read the lips, be more sublime than this
Put everything in context, is this a tale of rough justice
in a land where there’s no justice at all ?
Who is really the victim ? Or are we all the cause, and victim of it all ?

But death is the silence in this language of violence
Death is the silence
But death is the silence in this cycle of violence
death is the silence

You won’t see the face ‘til the eyelids drop
You won’t hear the screaming until it stops

◊→  «Music And Politics» ↓

…If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics
I would tell you that music is the expression of emotion
And that politics is merely the decoy of perception