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[from the Blue Scholars website. thanks Geo]:
PHILIPPINE END-DEPENDENCE DAY / BAYANI RELEASE
a elegy from Geologic aka Prometheus Brown
June 12, 2007
The countdown is over - Bayani has finally arrived. After a year of digging, writing, dialogue, touring, cleansing and remoulding. After one non-stop week-long session in the studio and six months of preparation. The constant grind of the previous three years is now pressed and packaged for mass consumption!
It's also fitting that Bayani is liberated from the distribution warehouse on June 12 - the anniversary of the 1898 declaration of Philippine independence from Spain. I grew up celebrating this day at community festivals. In recent years, rather than celebrate, the day serves as a reminder that our true independence day still awaits.
For those not familiar, a
inserted/taken from wikipedia:
Philippine Independence Day (Filipino: Araw ng Kalayaan) is a working holiday in the Philippines commemorating the country's declaration of independence from Spain on June 12, 1898.
Philippine Independence Day (Filipino: Araw ng Kalayaan) is a working holiday in the Philippines commemorating the country's declaration of independence from Spain on June 12, 1898.
The event was led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in his mansion on June 12, 1898. The flag of the Philippines, which was made in Hong Kong by Marcela Agoncillo, was first flown in that event. It is also where the Philippine National Anthem, composed by Julian Felipe, was first played by the San Francisco de Malabon band. The song was played under the name Marcha Filipina Magdalo, later renamed as Marcha Nacional Filipina.
The Philippines celebrated its Independence Day every July 4, the date in 1946 that the United States granted independence to the nation, until 1962, when President Diosdado Macapagal signed the Presidential Proclamation No. 28, changing the official celebration to June 12, the date in 1898 that Emilio Aguinaldo declared the nation's independence from Spain. Officially naming June 12 as Araw ng Kalayaan (Independence Day) and July 4 as Republic Day and Philippine-American Friendship Day.
In 1896, the Philippine waged revolution against Spain and declared independence on June 12, 1898. After the Spanish-American war, the US bought the Philippines from Spain in 1898 for $20 million with no intentions of allowing the new nation to be born. What followed was perhaps the US' first Iraq (The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902) - a war of aggression and domination to exploit the indigenous people's land, labor and natural resources. Pretty much the same story between your typical first and third world countries.
I provide this history as a context for what motivated the overall theme of Bayani. That "typical" story between the first and third world has displaced massive waves of people coming to America in search of the wealth being stolen from them. And then, the sons and daughters of these immigrant families interact with one another. Alot of times, it's friction. But you can't keep people with similar oppressors and aspirations apart forever. Displaced people find one another and take their places back. Like Gabriel and Mobb Deep said, your beef is mine. Internationalism over instrumentation.
Over the last 9 years living in Seattle, I've come across a crazy whirlwind of Third World peoples. In my neighborhood alone, there are families from the Philippines, Vietnam, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Cambodia, India. Just like they have done to the Central District, the South End is enduring a wave of "development," which always sounds good as long as you're not the ones being displaced. The local contradictions are tied in with what's going on globally. While the US continues to drop half a TRILLION of our tax dollars on military aggression in Iraq, we're watching youth fall through the widening cracks of the education system. Those who make it now face tuition hikes that make it near impossible for most working-class families to afford. Police harassment and surveillance continues in our communities. Anti-immigration hysteria is nuts right now.
How can anyone say an album like this is TOO political?
Like many have said before, the political is personal. What keeps renewing my resolve to see my people get free is linking arms with brothers and sisters with similar struggles. We owe it all to the legacy left by those who lived and died to build this culture called hip-hop. Because without the music, I doubt many of these connections would have been made. With these folks' encouragement, I felt at ease showing a personal side on some tracks, as well as fusing their experiences with mine and my family's own to tell a story of working people breaking down the walls that imperialism built between them.
So what you wont find on this album are any "club bangers" or some watered-down shit with a repetitive hook and raps about raps. I'll leave that job to the many rappers out there already doing that. To me, the sharpest aspect of an emcee is being that of a storyteller. It's one that I'm still working on. I feel that what's happening in our neighborhoods is inextricably connected to what's going on worldwide. And the people who stand on the bridge between the local and the global struggle have stories that need to be documented now.
Regardless of what a critic or fan might say about the album now, good or otherwise, I'm mostly concerned with what future generations will come away with when listening to it. Every bar I penned is part of a historical documentation project. Something is happening in the town. We're linking arms and building monuments made from the bricks of the Third World movements of the previous generation - the KDP, the Black Panther Party, Brown Beret, I Wor Kuen, Young Lords and many others. I salute my kasamas here in the US waving the Bayan-USA banner, connecting the struggles of Filipinos in America with our folks back home and folks from other struggles. To all working folk in general and to my Pinoy brothers and sisters in particular - ISULONG!
There isn't enough music being made with the ideas that gives these movements their soul. So we tried. Thanks for listening, yall.
June 12th. Philippine End-Dependence Day. Bayani hits the streets. Give thanks.
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i also talked to my mom about today. here's a few quotes from what i can remember from the phone conversation:
bev: today's philippine independence day.
mom: oh yeah? what's today?? [counts to self] ...11-12. oh yeah! you see, i already forgot. because we used to celebrate it on july 4th. that's why when you're over here, that's all you care about, really. because it's the same thing.
b: there was a news report on TV patrol. they had a bunch of kids sing the anthem, but then they asked the parents and they forgot.
m: that's how it is. i never sung the tagalog version [of lupang hinirang] in school. we learned it in english... we sang land of the morning... i'm not used to singing it in tagalog."
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June 13 2007, 07:39:59 UTC 4 years ago