Absent without leave, that shit happens to me on a regular when a hip hop show comes up.  Can anybody tell me who AWOL is and what's its objectives?

AWOL comes from the U.S. military acronym for someone who leaves the military without their permission, and it stands for “absent without leave.” Once in the military you are basically owned by them, a neo-slave, so if you leave because you decide you no longer want to be owned and ordered around, you go AWOL which is a punishable offense in the military. Many people, especially people of color in the U.S. enlist into the military as a way out of poverty, as a way out of the ghetto, as a way to pay for college, and basically military service is sold to us as some kind of an opportunity. It is sold on television, in the movies and films, in music, on the radio, and in plenty of hip hop magazines. AWOL is the term we use because we want to be free of the American culture of militarism and white supremacy. 

When one looks at the history of the U.S. and its military, its first mission was to defeat the native people of America, to ‘civilize’ them, and secure good land for white settlers from Europe to come and exploit. This is a racist system because Indians and Blacks were seen as savages in need of pacification, and control. The military was also used to put down slave revolts and rebellions in the U.S., and from these early beginnings it also employed blacks and other native people to wage war against each other. The buffalo soldiers are an example of this and so were the Indian scouts; so from the early days of the U.S. military, they were enlisting people of color to wage war on each other. This system has never stopped as now in 2003 we have American people of color in U.S. uniforms waging war against people of color in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, and too many other countries to name here. 

So getting back to who and what we at AWOL are; AWOL is a magazine and cd project, a Revolutionary Artists Workshop where revolutionary writers, artists, and poets can put out their work so issues of racism, oppression, and injustice are exposed for as many youth as possible to see and hear. It began as an idea by a brother Mario Africa who works with me at the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors along with Walidah Imarisha, as well as another brother Asif Ullah of War Resister’s League, our main goal in this work is to prevent youth of color in America from joining the U.S. military. 

What we began to see around 1999 and 2000 as far as hip hop music was the predominance of themes like getting money, selling drugs, getting jewelry, having sex, shooting each other, etc. We noticed a lack of balance in the music that was presented to the youth on the radio and television especially, we being a little bit older than youth, we grew up listening to Public Enemy, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers, KRS-One; basically there was more of a balance in the music then whereas now there really isn’t. Hip hop basically got taken over as a billion dollar industry and the record companies were making and signing artists just to make money, and the themes that they could package and sell easily were these negative themes. And that says a lot right there because when we examine who is really buying the music, the cd’s these days, it’s not mostly youth of color, no, the largest buyers of hip hop in America right now is white middle America. So the racism that lies under the surface in this country actually fuels the sales of rap music just like rock n roll music took off 50 years ago before it was white washed by Elvis. 

History repeats itself when we don’t do the work to really change and now we have a new Elvis-Eminem. Now we have white kids in Kansas acting out these stereotypical images of youth of color based on what they see and learn in rap videos. Anyway, since radio isn’t interested in revolutionary music, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. What doesn’t exist is a forum for revolutionary music and art, and that’s what AWOL is really about. We want to educate youth about what the military is and encourage youth to find other opportunities, but we also want to create a place, a forum, for revolutionary artists to network and get their music and art put on.

You from Philly right?   The home of political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.  Is Cointel still up and running?

Cointelpro is still alive and killing us it has just morphed into new forms. Even with hip hop music and culture we can see that cointelpro is still at work. The whole east coast vs. west coast “rap war” stinks like a cointelpro operation. To this day the murders of Pac and Biggie are mysteries, yet police were following both of these artists and had thick files on them. Even today in New York City and Los Angeles the police have a special task force to monitor and investigate hip hop artists! They are constantly arresting rappers and throwing them in jail.

Also with the music, take a look at the messages we hear and see on the radio and TV and then act out on each other and our communities. 50 Cent has a song where he sings “I love to sell crack”. Now the average listener will sing that along with 50, and so will little kids and youth. What 50 means by this among other things is he enjoys the money he gets from dealing poison which allows him to buy a bulletproof hummer with 22 inch rims, an iced out necklace, fancy clothes etc. What is removed from the song is the effects that crack cocaine has had in our communities across the US from addicts wasting away on the streets, to drug related violence to the massive numbers of people of color thrown in jail every day. 

We are constantly bombarded by negative messages in hip hop which creates a cycle of regurgitation, so the negativity only makes new artists push the envelope and it’s like a competition to see who can be more stupid that the other and sell the most records. I don’t completely blame the artists since record companies have much to do with how messages in music come out, but somewhere along the line artists must be held accountable. So cointelpro is alive and well in hip hop, they recognize the power that this music has and they are using it to kill us; and it’s working. Now on other levels with cointelpro, with the passage of the Patriot Act 1 and pretty soon we’ll see part 2 of that act, we basically have a new and much improved cointelpro program. They can do everything they dreamed of doing under the guise of stopping terrorism! The Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican independence groups all were labeled terrorists years ago, and nothing has changed. 

Now if you are against war or are a protestor against police brutality or globalisation, you can be labeled a terrorist and be detained or imprisoned without any rights. This has been happening since 1492, and now it’s just on the books and absolutely legal. In Mumia’s case as well as the case against the MOVE 9, Philadelphia police and the city government have covered up such grave injustices it truly makes one sick to their stomachs to hear about it. When you really look at what has happened to Mumia, MOVE and the MOVE 9 it has a huge effect on you; you either drop out of the struggle or you become even more devoted and dedicated to complete revolution of this system of oppression rooted in white supremacy that is governing the world. 

Magazines are becoming more and more saturated with the same format.  What made you wanna come out and do something enriching?

We recognize the power of media for today’s youth. Hip hop magazines of today have been infiltrated by corporations and the military. In every rap rag you will find a military recruiting advertisement as well as Coca Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, the Gap etc. except in AWOL. AWOL exists without any form of corporate advertising, we only come out once a year, but I think each one of our issues is better than 12 issues of these other rags. 

What most hip hop pubs put out is gossip about what artist is seeing what other artist, or what one artist said about so and so. Every mag has a fashion section or some spread that shows naked women wearing thongs. It’s embarrassing having a rap magazine these days because they are like soft pornography now. As Nas recently stated, hip hop magazines have been fucked up and there has never been one that truly represents hip hop culture as a whole. AWOL is not seeking to be that, but I would say we are closer to the true principles of hip hop than any of these other mags that serve poison to the people. We try and put out food for thought to make you mentally, physically, and spiritually stronger. These other mags put out garbage that makes you weak to sex, drugs, alcohol, the military, consumerism, etc. We ain’t with that!! 

We trying to bring revolution to the mind, the feelings, issues and artists that you see in AWOL already exist, we had nothing to do with creating them, we just want to give them their proper exposure. For example, I have read dozens of interviews with Damian Marley, but no interview had him speaking about the issues like he did in his interview with AWOL. The song by dead prez called “cop shot” was forbidden for release on their album by Loud records, so AWOL put it out on our cd. The album cover art for the Oakland crew The Coup was forbidden from distribution by their record label, so of course we printed it in our magazine. These are the kinds of risks we can take because we won’t lose our advertisers, because we don’t exist for them, we exist for the people. I wrote the story in AWOL Volume 1 about The Source Magazine advertising for the US Navy because it enraged me to see this piece of shit magazine calling itself “the source for hip hop politics” sell itself out to the US Navy of all things. What truly showed how wacko this was- in the same issue they had a Navy advertisement, they also had a story about hip hop artists helping to raise awareness and funds to stop the US Navy bombings in Vieques, Puerto Rico. So on one hand they are saying learn about this great effort to stop the bombing in Vieques by the US Navy, a few pages later they are saying join the US Navy??? Makes no sense to me, nor does phony ass MC Canibus who raps about the Illuminati but joins them thru the US Army and wrote the song “draft me”. What’s going on? Cointelpro in hip hop!

Mike Africa seems to be very active in the community.  What's Mike's role at Awol?

Mike Africa Jr. has been involved in 2 issues of AWOL. In Volume One he basically wrote and produced the song by the Seeds of Wisdom called “What are we Talking About” and he is also featured on a song on Vol. 3 called “Attack on da System”. He is a MOVE member and is very active on issues relating to MOVE such as freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal and freedom for the MOVE 9, all political prisoners innocent of any crime. 

AWOL is very much supportive of the MOVE organization since AWOL publisher is Mario Africa also a member of MOVE. Mike isn’t involved in the day to day activities of AWOL, but he has been a contributor ever since we began and has performed and spoke at many an AWOL event! Shouts to Mike Africa Jr. and Ursula Rucker!!

Ok I didn't mention that each issue of AWOl comes with a cd included.  Can u tell the people what artist contributed to all the issues?

Well I sure can, but it may be a long list!! Here are the artists we featured on the AWOL cdeez- Volume One we had C Rayz Walz, dead prez, La Bruja, JT Ameen, Poetica, Ricanstruction, Akan and Stewey Nuke ‘Em, Ryakin, 3RDWORLDWIDE, Luminous Flux, Masspyke, Itai Doshin, Division X, Soulstice, Aguafuego, Seeds of Wisdom, Black Surreal, Welfare Poets, Michael Franti & Spearhead. On Volume 2 we featured-DJ Ian Head, Blessd I, Khalil Crisis, Damian Marley w/dead prez, $hif, Good Sista Bad Sista, Mindclouders, Blk Sonshine, Mahasin, the Coup, Yellow Rage, Immortal Technique, Fine Arts Militia, Askari X w/Tajai, Truth Universal, Trends, Warclub, Big Worm, and Blackfire. On Vol. 3 some of the artists we have are the Hammer Bros, Critical Mass, Ruff Diemonz, Young Lao, Mike Africa Jr, Black Jesus, J Live, Tex Styles, Het Heru, Tahir, Jendog Lonewolf, LifeSavas, Mike Crenshaw w/Turiya Autry, Big Island Conspiracy, and Zion I.

Hip Hop is the voice of the youth right now.  How do you feel about hip hop's current formation.

I spoke a little bit about this on some of the earlier questions… but to talk about it some more. Hip hop is definitely the voice of the youth right now and that goes worldwide! Which speaks to the way the US exports its culture through entertainment: movies and music. 

But I also think that the elements of hip hop- that being the beat or the drums combined with the movements, the dance, and meshed with the spoken word, the oral tradition of storytelling, as well as the very visually appealing graffiti art- all exist in traditional cultures throughout Africa, Central and South America and Asia. If you go to Mayan or Egyptian ruins you'll see the writing on the walls. If you look at dance styles in Brazil, Angola, or right here in Native America you'll find similar moves that directly correlate between break dancing/b-boyin and native dance movements; and in each of these cultures the oral tradition of storytelling and passing the word is very rich and almost central to the way knowledge is communicated. It is a very Euro centric and Western ideal that values written culture and history as opposed to the oral tradition. These so called 'conquerors or civilized" folk always say we are backward or savage because we didn't have a written history, well that is in many cases a bunch of bullshit!! 

Many of our indigenous cultures indeed had volumes of texts- however they were all destroyed by the so called bringers of civilization. A stone tablet is just as much a written form as is paper books; which one do you think would last longer?? Or take the Inca civilization in Peru, many ignorant "scholars" claim they had no written language; well if all you are looking for is books or pages of text you won't find it there because the Incas had a totally different form of written language called quipu consisting of knotted string of varying lengths! If our indigenous and traditional cultures were so backward and savage then how come we knew about the planets and cycles of the sun and moon centuries before these Europeans and Americans? So that to me is the very base or foundation of hip hop, it's just our ancient ways represented in a new format and that is why it is drawing such a global youth audience. 

Hip hop is not only a vehicle to consume capitalism and materialism as it is being used right now for; but it really is a form of revolution and truly getting yourself in touch with your heritage and traditional way of life, one that is not dependent on technology for survival.

South African group Blacksonshine did a track for your CD a while ago.  Have you heard any other South African hip hop artist or group?

Besides hearing from you Rushay and your crew, we have not heard of any other groups from South Africa besides Blk Sonshine. We would love to hear more from cats across the world but since were are a relatively small magazine in this industry we don't get that much exposure worldwide. 

The amount that we have this far has been amazing, I mean we have heard from people as far away as Japan, New Zealand, Norway, all the way back to Brazil who read and love AWOL Magazine; so that has been a blessing. I want to encourage artists in South Africa to submit work to AWOL, what I've heard so far has been very good and in many ways much better than a lot of stuff from the US.

The new issue of Awol is dropping next month.  It's been awhile since you had a new copy out.  What was going on?  What was the struggle?

The struggle for us at AWOL is mostly financial. It is a pretty big undertaking to put out a magazine and cd such as AWOL. Believe it or not there really is no full time employees working just on AWOL! It is really only 30% of my work to get AWOL out. AWOL has a loose organizational structure made up of a publisher, a distro person, a few editors, and many artists, writers, and poets. 

Most people involved do it for free considering the fact that we may give someone $500 to do $5,000 worth of work! It is a great example however of people really doing this for the love of hip hop and revolution. AWOL Magazine is one part of a program run by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO). Our organization's main goal is to help youth get out of the US military as well as encourage youth to find other ways of resolving conflict and finding opportunities outside of military participation. One way we decided to do this work was through AWOL magazine. 

So we have a limited budget that basically can only afford one issue per year! We could really use a full time person working on AWOL, as well as more funds to pay for it's cost. It has also been the most successful project CCCO has ever put together so we are really trying to get more money so we can at least drop 2 issues per year, so keep ya eyes out for us!! 

If anybody wanna check up on Awol is there any site that they can go to, to find out more about AWOL?

Yes indeed! You can check out our website which is located at http://awol.objector.org. We have a lot of artwork featured there as well as articles and interviews. We have lots of events planned throughout the year and some of them are written about and photographed on the site. There is a section on our site where we have all the latest anti-war actions taking place in the US as well as up to date commentaries from political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal who still is on death row. 

Every artist we have on our cdeez also has a page on our site where you can find out more about them, sample some of their music and their contact info with links to their own webpages. So I definitely wat to ask folks who read this and haven't yet seen AWOL in person to check out our website for details. You can order the magazine from there as well as contact us. So check it out people!

Ok in closing what words of inspiration can you pass on to the youth of South Africa and other parts of the globe?

I really would like to say to the youth of South Africa as well as youth all over the world to keep on struggling! I think that youth across the globe really are in touch with a lot of things that youth in America aren't. Whenever George Bush goes to South Africa I see all kinds of protests on the news! That is tight and everyone needs to keep that going. 

Remain defiant against these wars that the United States is going to engage in every 6 months. Ever since 9/11/01 the US has pledged to bring the war to the terrorists and that does mean all of us- in South Africa, in Liberia, in Indonesia, in Cuba, in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran, and really the list doesn't end- we have to recognize that this time right now is incredibly important, that this struggle has never seen a more intense power grab across the globe by the US and it's puppets, and we have to make a stand for justice, peace, freedom and truth. Don't believe the hype that the US is the beacon of freedom and truth for the world; it is a sham! These are the exact same people who enslaved and traded millions of Africans for labor; the same policies that exterminated Native Americans in order to steal their land and then imprisoned them in open air concentration camps called "reservations". 

The same people who maintain the status quo in America where over 2 million people are locked in prison, the same people who have propped up dictators like Saddam Hussein only so they can put him out of power when they no longer need him. This is the kind of "freedom" they will bring to you, and take it from those in the belly of the beast- this system has no freedom nor justice nor peace to provide for us in America how can anyone expect them to bring it to you overseas. Most importantly- people across the world need to know that there are people in the US who are working to change this system from the inside- our struggle against this injustice is a 500 year struggle and we ain't finished yet! 

They can kill and imprison us, but our spirit will always live on to fight another day, until real freedom is won!

Interview conducted by Rush

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