East Bay revolutionaries bump into town
The Coup
Smith Center Ballroom
Saturday, March 3
9 p.m. – 2 a.m.
$5 students
$8 general
Tickets through TicketMaster
It is my firm belief that there is a hip-hop fan in everyone. Somewhere inside all of us lives the need for spoken word or poetry put to music that forces the flow of strong beats and revolutionary speech into our open ears and way down into the hearts of all participants in this life.
If there exists a monarchy, a corrupt democracy, or a corporate oligarchy, in the music world, The Coup, like Castro on a hot July night, are the ones that would take them down. And if such systems exist in our nation, it is The Coup that’s talking about it, loud and strong, with a foray the match of which hasn’t been seen since Public Enemy.
Now, to draw up the end of Black History Month, with a boot that’s rightly stepped into March (anyone up for April, May, June?), Portland State University has the fortunate chance of seeing one of Oakland’s hottest hip-hop forces this Saturday night in the ballroom of Smith. As students and receivers of the strong work that the Association of African Students, Black Cultural affairs Board and the new PSU chapter of the NAACP, we have all had the chance to see many teachers, poetry readers and officials speak for the last month on the black experience. Here is your last chance, and it is not the least.
Lead rapper Boots and DJ Pam the Funktress are The Coup, and come with a somewhat stealth history of music. That is, they have serious hits and praise in the world of hip-hop, but unfortunately, they are continuously looked over in the recording world. Maybe it’s because they put out albums called Steal this Album representing their not-so-soft Marxist beliefs.
However Steal this Album, released in 1998 on DogDay records, has received so much underground support, (and hey, you can get any of their songs of Napster, not that I support this idea) that it is easy to find their albums at your not-so-middle-of-the-road record store.
Although, I must put in that featured on Steal this Album is Del the Funky Homo-Sapien on the track “Repo Man,” so there’s one more reason to go “get” that album. Gary Jackson from Hits magazine calls Steal this Album, “A funky montage designed to revive our dormant social consciousness.” XXL magazine says, “Revolution hasn’t sounded this good in a while.”
If The Coup can’t get both your political and your physical butts in motion on a Saturday night, then I don’t know what can. With Boots’ inspiring political raps, and Pam the Funktress’ individualistic and (may I say) feministic style of taking control of the mixing and tell-tale sounds of hip-hop, they could be well on their way to starting a revolution in your head, as well as in your behind.
