the hum / By Bob Doran

Hard Truth

Guerilla Funk on the road, plus Dr. No’s rhythms, Blackfire and May Day Mayhem

(April 30, 2009)  They call it the Hard Truth Soldiers Tour, the all-star collection of independent underground hip hop artists making their way across the U.S. and Canada, starting out on May Day in Eureka.

The Soldiers have a bullet-point manifesto with promises to “be strong and irreverent in the face of oppression,” “to encourage and support efforts by those adopting a conscious stance, who reflect positivity in an ongoing climate of ever-increasing intolerance and suppression of counter-establishment thought,” “to reject information, products, entertainment, popular media and music that are damaging to our communities, and that further support and reinforce negative stereotyping,” “to routinely question authority” and, paraphrasing Superman, “to stand up for truth, freedom, justice and equality for all people.”

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The rapper Oscar Jackson Jr., better known as Paris, does not exactly claim leadership of this Hard Truth guerilla action. “I’m the organizer of it all,” he says humbly as he wheels around S.F. preparing for the launch of the HTS insurgency. “The tour is supposed to represent artists that have a progressive leaning viewpoint, that often times are marginalized in the world of entertainment. We give a platform for them to be heard.”

And these are voices not often heard in the mainstream. “Music has become very corporatized,” says Paris. “Hip hop is now pop music, and once a form of art has become embraced by corporations, it’s homogenized to make it acceptable by as many people as possible. That’s what we’ve seen: an attempt by the corporate guardians to keep the music artificially young and dumb.

Corporations simply focus on the bottom line. They want to sell you things with music. They want to sell you burgers and Toyotas and sneakers and whatever else, so they keep it as safe and simple as possible. That’s why you see safe, idiotic programming on TV like Dancing with the Stars. That kind of shit has become the norm. What we’re doing is trying to counteract that in our own way.”

Paris got his start back in the ’90s, when hip hop tended to be a bit more political. His first records came out on Tommy Boy, a Warner Bros. subsidiary. “I ended up being released [from my contract] because of a song I did about assassinating the president. ‘Bush Killa’ was in ’92 [the target was Bush Sr.]. That entire chain of events made me recognize the importance of independence, so I started my own record company and I’ve been independent ever since.”

Most recently he heads the Guerilla Funk label with what he describes as “a who’s-who of politically and socially aware acts,” which is also a good way to describe the Hard Truth Soldiers Tour.

The kick-off date, Friday, May 1, at Nocturnum, features Paris and alt. hip hop mainstay Talib Kweli, who got his start in Brooklyn in the ’90s with Black Star alongside Mos Def. Then there’s Planet Asia from Cali Agents, jazzy DJ/rapper Pete Rock, T-K.A.S.H.,Kam, Conscious Daughters and Humboldt’s own Selecta Prime. Be there or be un-conscious.

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