Jared A. Ball - I Mix What I Like!

Table of Contents

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR I MIX WHAT I LIKE!

Jared Balls carefully constructed narrative draws upon an extraordinary range of analytical and evidentiary sources to provide a concise explanation of the mixtape movement. Simultaneously, he uses this history to illuminate how the media promotes ideological interests, and how those interests serve not simply the corporate bottom line, but the much larger political objective of assigning each of us our place in society. I Mix What I Like! serves as both an example of emancipatory journalism and a model for emancipated thinking, without which we will be consigned to struggling for a kinder, gentler subjugation rather than true human liberation.

Natsu Taylor Saito / Author of Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law

Jared Ball is one of the most important activist intellectuals in the United States. His book is powerful and provocative Unlike President Obama, Professor Jared Ball is committed to revolutionary change in America. His book provides an insightful analysis and critique of culture, media, and African American politics.

Ollie Johnson / Department of Africana Studies / Wayne State University

Dr. Ball has created a twenty-first century Black radical manifesto that samples and remixes the best of the radical and anti-imperialist tradition. I Mix What I Like! recognizes the colonized nature of contemporary Hip Hop and the colonized context of the people from which Hip Hop emerged. In the tradition of Noam Chomsky and Public Enemy, Jared Ball brings the noise to the status quo and lays out his vision of Mixtape emancipatory journalism as the liberatory mass medium for today and the future. I strongly recommend this work for all those interested in reflecting upon the theory and practice of struggling for social justice in todays America.

Dedrick Muhammad / NAACP / Author of Understanding Racial Inequality in the Obama Era

One way to prevent the appropriation of a revolutionary cultureone that expresses the desires and visions of the oppressed to fight for liberation and self-determinationis to smuggle the word as if it is a liberatory tool, replicating the clandestine, anti-colonial and resistant drum of the maroon. Jared Balls concept of mixtape radio follows that tradition with an irreverence that we so sorely need.

Claude Marks / Freedom Archives

Jared Balls work conveys the ultimate reality about hip hop: that there is no nation space in hip hop but that which exists for revolutionary music for the Africans and African and Indigenous oriented colonial Spanish speaking peoples (misnomered latinos). The strength of the colonial argument presented places whites as settlers in hip hop. Load the audio clip and bust a shot for freedom!

Mark A. Bolden / The Fanon Project

Dr. Jared Balls impressive book is a bold undertaking in which he critiques and ultimately distances himself from the prevailing assumptive logic found within pop academic circles. To be sure, Mixtape Radio does not offer itself as a panacea for the oppressive structures he addresses. The revolutionary power of this book lies in its capacity to interrogate staid constructs of thought and re-pose vital questions pertaining to emancipatory journalism. For the power to pose the question is the greatest power of all.

Frank B. Wilderson, III / Author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid

I Mix What I Like! is a brave and necessary book that focuses the conversation about hip hop (and politics) beyond the limitations of 90% of published materials on the subject. Once again, walking the walk, Jared Ball offers a provocative, though not surprising, piece of work that shifts the debate into a much-needed direction.

Shaheen Ariefdien / Former member of the pioneering South African hip-hop group Prophets of da City

Like a classiccassette recordedStretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show, circa early 90s New York City, Jared Balls manifesto is a raw, uncut, ground breaking contribution to a new frontier of critical thinking and critique within Hip Hop discourse. Too many, are stuck on repeat and aint sayin nothin! Love it or hate it, Jared Balls work is necessary and vital for the cultivation of tradition and responsibility. Strong arm the system, grind mode heavy, Lets Get Free!

Carlos REC McBride M. Ed. / TRGGR MEDIA Group

Here, Jared Ball takes us back to the value of polemic and the revolutionary new knowledge-base of worldwide anti-colonialism before it was driven underground by counterrevolutionary repression. I Mix What I Like! is terribly thoughtful, terribly originala joy for the wonder-ground, and a political-intellectual terror for the overlords.

Greg Thomas / Author of The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power and Hip-Hop Revolution in the Flesh

Jared Ball is determined to rescue hip hop and left activism from increasingly subversive corporate control. This book is a manifesto that needs to be read, argued about, and yelled from the rooftops. Let the bricks fly!

Todd Steven Burroughs / co-author of Civil Rights Chronicle

The Funkinest Journalist breaks it all down for all servants of Soul/Funk music and Art in the 21st Century. His Mixtape Manifesto explains what we are up against battling corporate empires that control the coveted consumer-merchant access points, and offers us an option to distribute, connect, and popularize our culture.

Head Roc / The Mayor of D.C. Hip-Hop

Por mis nias Maisi y Marley.
No hay razon mas grande para luchar.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Much love and thanks to my wife Yari and my mother Arnette. Thank you to my godfather Tom Porter and to my entire extended blood and political family.* Thank you to the D.C. hip-hop community for your inspiration and support. Thank you to the many great elders and ancestors whose work is and is not mentioned here. Thanks to my many comrades and colleagues, with a special shout out to Organized Community of United Peopleno longer together but always with me. Thank you to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and to The Fanon Project. Thanks also to the many mixtape DJs and vendors who have sustained us for decades. Many thanks also to the low-power radio community, to Radio CPR-istas, and specifically to the inspiration of The Black Liberation Radio and Human Rights Radio networks. And special thanks to Mbanna Kantako. Thanks also to the D.C. Indymedia community. And many more hugs and pounds to Badia Albanna, Ciatta Zinna Baysah, Gabriel Asheru Benn, Mark Bolden, Mark Bowen, Todd Burroughs, Rosa Clemente, DaveyD, Bruce Dixon, DJ Earth 1NE, Glen Ford, Kymone Freeman, Suzette Gardner, Adanna Johnson, DJ 2-Tone Jones, Maleena Lawrence, Claude Marks, Parrish McLeary, Mazi Mutafa, Jason Haysoos Nichols, Dre Oba, Saswat Pattanayak, DJ RBI, Head-Roc, DJ Soyo, DJ Underdog, and Geoff White.

* And a special thank you to all the political prisoners, past and present, whose support networks will be the only financial beneficiaries of this book.

A PREFATORY NOTE TO THE READER

DJ Jazzy Joyce

The Funkinest Journalist