Conscious Rhymes For Unconscious Times: Rhymes & Reasons

by Emile Jansen

This book contains the reasons for writing songs about my experiences during Apartheid, but also post Apartheid, as the equal and opposite force to address the informational divide that continues to cripple South Africa. After a national tour of South Africa I saw the urgency to remember the fallen heroes and those who remain victims. I took myself on a trip down memory lane to share my experiences of Apartheid on this album. I felt an obligation to the many young people of my generation that was unsung heroes of the Apartheid struggle. These young people that I went to school with and of my age group whom made the ultimate sacrifice. The first song was called Roar Young Lions Roar, which, you know, speaks about Coline Williams, Robert Waterwitch, Ashley Kriel and Anton Fransch of the C.A.R.A. group. I did the song with Mr. Demas and Maniak. The song was followed by Power to the People, which uses the samples from the liberation struggle. I'm a South African, is about the struggle that we find in South Africa, where there is no such identity and truth, there's no work put into the development of collective nationality. It's more of a scattered collective of people. The fourth song is called Butterflies Fly By, which is essentially a story of me attending a mass rally (protest) at Wynberg Senior Secondary School during 1985, where the Wynberg Seven (A group of young learners whose lives were forever altered because of that arrest) were arrested. The song actually speaks about actual day and what happened through my experience, through my eyes. The next track is called To Hell With The Industry, which is direct conversation about how the industry has taken such a lot and from musicians, and then just generally, how its extraction or extraction mentality is about the capitalistic extraction and stealing of the people's creations. A small few that benefit, while the majority of the people do not. The next song is Making a Black Noise, with Angelo and I rhyming about our experiences. Afrophobia is again about the fear of being from Africa and why there are so many Afrophobic attacks. I don't call it Xenophobic, because it's not an attack on others taking majority of our countries resources and who are from Europe, we hate the we see in our fellow African brothers and sisters. Afrophobia is an attack directly aimed at other Africans. Only one race is about the conversation related to the Bushmen and how we are all from one human family, and that race is just a fabrication or an illusion. Fear is a song with Aisha Fukushami, who was a U.S. student at that time, touring through Cape Town, and she wanted to do a song and I made time to do so. I prepared the verse overnight and then went to the studio to record it. The 10th track is called from B-Boys To Being Men, which is the title track of the documentary that we were putting together. As B-boys we were taking responsibility for our words, actions and bringing about change. The 11th track is The Real Battle Be Me Battling Me and thus the song is not really specifically about the breakdance battle, but any battle in hip hop that is in fact essentially about battling yourself. People misunderstand this and they worry more about the opponent than their own skills and battle that needs to be the personal life lesson. The real lesson that supposed to take place is hidden by the ego and concern for the external instead of the internal. The last song is called Show What You Got, which is a call out to B-boys to stop talking and take action on more than just the dance floor but in their own lives and the world.

72 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 20, 2024