African American spoken word music idolises a non-Soviet small arm

Wotcher,

As we all know well, "Ayy Kaye forty seven is the rule/ don't make me act a motherfucking fool."

But need it be this way? From the creation of the AK-47 as a small arm weapons system in the late 1940s, could african american spoken word artists lionise a different small arm?

This is a difficult question. I believe we may take it as read that an african american tradition of spoken word musical arts will arise: it need not be hip-hop/rap/r&b but the deep vocal legacies of preaching, jazz and country will necessarily arise as a/many musics in the late 20th century in the United States. This is "sur" determined, an over determined cultural phenomena with too many antecedents to prevent without apocalypse or genocide. But why then the AK-47?

Between 1949 and 1980 many anti-imperialist struggles reinforced the AK-47 as the personal tool of "liberation." You may laugh. I too laugh while crying. But the phenomenon of the Soviet Union supporting apparently communist (no matter how tankie) will generalise the AK-47 in the use of apparently liberatory movements. And as an oppressed nationality african americans engaged in self-determination will reach out to tools around them, if only to the extent white idiots buy Maoist texts without reading or acting on them.

So where the ability to enculture another fire arm as a "freedom," weapon for african americans?

As a punk song sang, "Heckler and Koch, armourers of the free world: designed by nazi engineers who fled to Fraco's fascist spain…" any device can become freedom in ideology.

And the american market has so many select fire small arms available culturally. As contemporary general US culture proves, the AR-15 design can become a "freedom" arm to some.

At the core then is the issue of "white" america and "black" america and generally available small-arms that create an imaginary potential of freedom for african americans. To my mind availability and cultural recognition in anti-US struggle are the key. This includes any number of US manufactured small arms repurposed outside of the US. The garand, the m-14, the HK are all available. Indeed I'd suggest that retail availability in the 1970s during the (to my mind, inevitable) 1970s economic crisis is central. The Moist-Nugget is available here, culturally and for mass consumption.

Moist-Nuggets are the rule on the streets, I'll take your mother beneath my mother loving sheets.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Hard to do drive bys with the M-N

Lot easier with the SKS, with large numbers being imported in the mid 80s, first by Century Arms, for around 80 bucks. And that included the big 'Spam Can' of 600 rounds of so of steel cased ammo to feed it.

Chinese and the rest of the WP were happy to dump off the semiautomatic rifles from their arsenals for US Dollars.

But real drug dealers could get full auto AKs from the world arms markets when importing drugs by the shipload. They didn't need ATF import documents, and were even cheaper.
 
Tbh I think you're over-thinking it. There's two reasons AK-47 got chosen:

1) they're very dangerous and use automatic fire, which also parallels the sounds of beats or the "chopper" style of rapping (which is called that precisely because chopper is a slang term for an AK-47)

2) During the 1990s, there was a lot of Chinese-made AK copies turning up in LA especially.
 

Deleted member 94680

During the 1990s, there was a lot of Chinese-made AK copies turning up in LA especially.

This. It was more a statement of fact, than some geopolitical statement on the origin of small arms.


The AR-15 was the M-16, the M-16 was the weapon of the American military and Police. The AK was cheap and plentiful and often in the hands of the men the rappers were referencing in their songs.

Between 1949 and 1980 many anti-imperialist struggles reinforced the AK-47 as the personal tool of "liberation." You may laugh. I too laugh while crying. But the phenomenon of the Soviet Union supporting apparently communist (no matter how tankie) will generalise the AK-47 in the use of apparently liberatory movements. And as an oppressed nationality African Americans engaged in self-determination will reach out to tools around them, if only to the extent white idiots buy Maoist texts without reading or acting on them.

In the pro-communist states, the AK-47 became a symbol of the Third World revolution. They were utilized in the Cambodian Civil War and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union became the principal arms dealer to countries embargoed by Western nations, including Middle Eastern nations such as Iran, Libya, and Syria, which welcomed Soviet Union backing against Israel. After the fall of the Soviet Union, AK-47s were sold both openly and on the black market to any group with cash, including drug cartels and dictatorial states, and more recently they have been seen in the hands of Islamic groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIL, and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraq, and FARC, Ejército de Liberación Nacional guerrillas in Colombia.

The proliferation of this weapon is reflected by more than just numbers. The AK-47 is included in the flag of Mozambique and its emblem, an acknowledgment that the country gained its independence in large part through the effective use of their AK-47s. It is also found in the coats of arms of East Timor and the revolution era Burkina Faso, as well as in the flags of Hezbollah, Syrian Resistance, FARC-EP, the New People's Army, TKP/TIKKO and the International Revolutionary People's Guerrilla Forces.
 
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Why the weird reluctance to call rap what it is ?

Subtle racism

It’s more that if national liberation is a determining factor in idolising the AK the POD is going to be far enough back that it won’t necessarily be turn tablism, funk and street rhyming. It may well come from very different places with very different musical antecedents. Something is going to arise but it probably won’t be rap as we know it. The success of Ice Cube’s poetry or Disney acting aren’t overdetermined. The particularities of culture are far more susceptible to butterflies than, for example, wage price relations. Consider men’s hair fashion.
 
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