Mobilizing for hip-hop

Normally, Stone Mountain’s Hip Hop Café is a place where one is more likely to discuss the latest Goodie Mob track than George W.’s position on gun control. On Sunday, however, the restaurant was the birthing ward for an organization that intends to leverage the industry’s economic potency into an invitation to the next inauguration.

The Hip-Hop PAC bills itself as a political action committee “formed to unite the political power of the hip-hop generation.” “Hip-hop is a billion-dollar-a-year industry,” said Tambria Mitchell, the organization’s publicist and organizer of the group’s first event. “We have put all our money into music and fashion, but we don’t have a political voice, and we should.”

Mitchell indicated that a political group galvanized around a musical genre is not much different from coming together around another cultural dynamic or political issue. “If you consider yourself to be a part of hip-hop culture, you pretty much have the same social consciousness and you face many of the same issues,” she said. Some of these issues - juvenile justice, welfare reform and education - are reflected in the group’s platform, which will be pursued on the local, state and national level.






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