Bryonn Rolly Bain - Rebel Speak: A Justice Movement Mixtape

Only Bryonn Bain could bring together an incredible roster of activists, hip hop artists, organizers, and public intellectuals in one compelling book, Rebel Speak . Bryonn is a revolutionary and one of the greatest scholar-activists of our time. From the streets to the suites, he shows us what resistance and rebellion should look like and be like in this time of uncertainty. This work will make you want to become an activist if youre not one already.

Rosa Alicia Clemente, Associate Producer, Academy Awardwinning film Judas and the Black Messiah

Through his work in the trenches as an artist, activist, and academic, Bryonn Bain has carved out a space over the past two decades as one of the most important voices of the twenty-first century. He exemplifies the power of the word as arguably the most effective weapon for social change and equality, and he wields it with a spirited conviction that moves everyone who hears his call.

Lolita Files, best-selling author of Child of God and CEO of Griot Initiative

Rebel Speak is not just a book. It is not just Bryonn having the courage to speak truth to power, or just walking, talking, and living while Black. This is love in all its forms telling Law and Order they cant exist without Justice. Justice cant exist without Mercy. Mercy without Understanding. And Understanding teaches us to forgive each other while still being held accountable. Rebel Speak is time itself, capturing generations of people who against all odds dared to believe and triumphed!

Nanon Williams, Death Row Survivor and Activist, Ramsey Unit Prison, Rosharon, Texas

Bringing together critical race theory, oral history, and the prison reform/abolition movement, these dialogues allow the reader to hear the multiplicity of voices that have been at the forefront of this work.... Anyone who is familiar with the genre and the theoretical foundations used will be duly impressed.

Miguel Martinez-Saenz, President, St. Francis College

The beauty of Bryonns engaging oral history is that these figures are able to emerge and claim the fullness of their space, their ideas, and their social contributions. His is the kind of textured writing that we need, the kind of writing that stays with you.

Eddie Bruce-Jones, Professor of Law and Deputy Dean, University of London, Birkbeck School of Law

Bryonns distinctive combination of artistic presence and intellectual gravitas comes across quite clearly. This book stands out as a unique document that manages to communicate a vision integrating scholarship with activism and art.

Thomas Jeffrey Miley, University of Cambridge

This powerful book combines the perspectives of elder activists like Harry Belafonte and Dolores Huerta with the perspectives of younger ones to address issues of mass incarceration and racial violence by the police in new and profoundly important ways.

Pedro Noguera, Professor of Sociology and Dean, USC Rossier School of Education

The world needs to see how Bryonn carries the tradition of joining art and activism as an instrument for justice at a time when the prison system has our communities in crisis.

Harry Belafonte, Artist and Activist

A legend in the making!

DJ Kool Herc, The Father of Hip Hop

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Lawrence Grauman, Jr. Fund.

CALIFORNIA SERIES IN HIP HOP STUDIES

H. Samy Alim and Jeff Chang, Series Editors

Women Rapping Revolution: Hip Hop and Community Building in Detroit, by Rebekah Farrugia and Kellie D. Hay

Rebel Speak: A Justice Movement Mixtape, by Bryonn Rolly Bain

Rebel Speak

A JUSTICE MOVEMENT MIXTAPE

Bryonn Rolly Bain

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2022 by Bryonn Bain

Frontispiece design by MM-Graphics.com.

Chapter-opener illustrations by Blaze Bautista.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bain, Bryonn, author.

Title: Rebel speak: a justice movement mixtape/Bryonn Rolly Bain.

Other titles: California series in hip hop studies; 2.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2022] | Series: Hip hop studies; 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021045187 (print) | LCCN 2021045188 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520388437 (hardback) | ISBN 9780520388451 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Social justiceUnited States. | ImprisonmentUnited States. | RacismUnited States. | DissentersUnited StatesInterviews. | Political activistsUnited StatesInterviews.

Classification: LCC HM 671 . B 33 2022 (print) | LCC HM 671 (ebook) | DDC 303.3/72dc23/eng/20211006

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045187

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045188

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In honor of

Veronica Mohamed Bain

My very first rebel teacher

The greatest mother of all time

CONTENTS

Track #1.

Track #2.

Track #3.

Track #4.

Track #5.

Track #7.

Track #8.

Track #9.

Track #10.

Foreword

Angela Y. Davis

Rebel Speak is an awesome collection of conversations that Bryonn Bain conducted with those who represent a wide spectrum of peoples movements that demand revolutionary change. All are rebels in their own way, even considering the surprising inclusion of a character one would not necessarily expect to encounter in this company. But this book is what Bryonn calls a literary mixtapea justice movement mixtape. And a requirement of the genre itself is the frequent inclusion of outliers and dissonances. In the hip hop mixtape, the choice of songs is based not only on individual rhythms, melodies, harmonies, and spoken meanings but also, and perhaps even more so, on the way they resonate with every other piece in the assemblage; echoes of each of these conversations are to be discovered in the others. This compilation of calls and responsesrevealing the blues groundwork of hip hop (and, indeed, virtually all Black music forms)pays homage to those who have kept our foundations strong while also spotlighting those who have created new rallying calls and demands for abolition and, ultimately, freedom

I first met Bryonn Bain at an event organized for Beyond the Bars, an annual conference cochaired by Kathy Boudin and Cheryl Wilkins at Columbia University. When Bryonn performed excerpts from his Lyrics from Lockdown , originally produced by Harry Belafonte and his daughter Gina Belafonte, I was impressed not so much by the story of his own arrest and wrongful incarceration during the period when he was a student at Harvard Law School, but by his implicit critique of the exceptionalism that so often characterizes such accounts. Audiences might be justifiably horrified that police mistakenly targeted the innocent and prominent Black man but remain persuaded that others who had not succeeded in distinguishing themselves as Bryonn has actually deserve the iron glove of the police. In that performance, he summoned the voices of those who have also been relegated to the ranks of the criminalized, transforming his individual predicament into a collective condition that manifestly demands an abolitionist response. Rebel Speak is another such tour de force , introducing to us the ideas, old and new, of movement leaders, young and seasoned, emphasizing throughout that music, spoken word, and other art forms are vital dimensions of our struggle for freedom.