[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 23751-23752]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                  A SALUTE TO CREATIVE POPULAR CULTURE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. MAJOR R. OWENS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 19, 2000

  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, some seemingly trivial items of urban popular 
culture are now on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in an exhibit 
titled ``Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes and Rage.'' When I visited the 
exposition I was most impressed by the large numbers of youth from 
diverse backgrounds who were viewing the multi-media displays. Their 
immediate excitement combined with the symbols, clothing, photographs, 
memorabilia, poetry, music and clippings of urban grassroots aspiration 
and expressions were fresh stimulants for the mind--and also 
inspirational. While human interaction and experience often generate 
fragments of culture, the phenomenon that grabs one's attention in the 
case of the Hip-Hop artists is the manner in which the components 
aggregate, mushroom, and continually spread across ethnic, class, and 
nationality lines. Beyond its image as a violent movement, perpetuated 
by a few highly publicized celebrities, is the fact that the majority 
of the participants are ordinary youth. Hip-Hop appears to be on a 
course to leap over the limits of neighborhoods and fads. In some cases 
its content moves beyond the frivolous and the trivial toward 
profundity. The concept of traditional culture relies heavily on the 
elements of universal appeal and endurance. Hip-Hop may generate a 
significant impact on conventional culture; it continues to spread and 
to last. Consider the implications; urban America has a generation that 
is making culture. These creators may evolve into a new set of heroes 
that posterity comes to respect and revere. These are heroes who are 
making culture, not war. We salute the foresight and the boldness of 
the Brooklyn Museum of Art and its Director, Arnold Lehman. This 
initiative has provided us with a small window through which we may 
watch culture being made. The following Rap poem was inspired by my 
visit to this unusual exhibit.

                          Make Culture Not War

  Make culture not war!
  Be loud about our love,
  Put passion in your dove;
  Shoot your best shot!

  Trivial sparks make profound fires,
  Teenage crazes light
  Big social blazes;
  Tiny innovations shape
  The spirit of sluggish nations;
  The greatest generation
  Still waits to take the stage;
  Against pain and greed
  Wage a new breed of rage.

  Combat sneaker boots,
  T-shirt uniforms--
  The battlefield is everyday;
  Go for the ultimate victory
  Fighting the Hip-Hop way!
  Be loud about your love!

  Draft your hottest hormones,
  Recruit ancient instincts,
  Mobilize mistreated manhood,

[[Page 23752]]

  Make rivers of sweat
  But let it always be sweet.

  Shoot your best shot!
  Ejaculate your joy,
  Pour powerful blessings
  Into the womb
  Of a wailing world.

  Generals in heaven command:
  Make culture not war!
  Hitler was an artist
  Painted by the past;
  Graffiti hieroglyphics
  Is a language that will last.

  Pledge allegiance
  To life abundant;
  Permit simple pleasures
  To be redundant.

  Fly a flag of flowers;
  On Babies confer new powers;
  The positive pursuit
  Must never pause--
  Happiness is our greatest cause.

  Storm beaches of despair,
  Fight poison convention everywhere,
  Scale cliffs rock hard
  With cynical soils;
  Victors bring your own spoils.

  The greatest generation
  Still waits to take the stage.
  Refuse to just sit
  On crumbling stoops and wait;
  Liberating geniuses
  May show up too late.

  Make culture not war!
  Rapping poets are warriors
  Drafted by anxious angels
  To conquer with their songs;
  Music makes no massacres.

  The battlefield is everyday;
  Go for the ultimate victory
  Fighting the Hip-Hop way!
  Shoot your best shot!

  Be loud about your love,
  Put passion in your dove;
  The greatest generation
  Take orders only from above.
  Make culture not war!

                          ____________________