HIP HOP ACTIVIST REMIXES HIP HOP, HIS GRANDMOTHERS WISDOM, AND EDUCATION TO BRIDGE GAP BETWEEN YOUNG AND OLD

Interview By Nicole Allen (www.bsidemagonline.com)

B-SIDE: What does From Afros to Shelltoes stand for? What’s the organization beliefs based on?

GARNES: We’re about solutions and empowerment. That’s what it’s got to be about. We can talk all day. Black folks love to pontificate. We love a good speech. At the end of the day, if you don’t have a solution after the fiery speech at the church it doesn’t go anywhere.

B-SIDE: Why did you decide to start your organization?

GARNES: From Afros to Shelltoes was founded out of my frustration with the relationship between hip hop heads and the Civil Rights generation. There’s always been an underlying tension there especially since we are the product of the Civil Rights generation. But we definitely have a contemporary remix post-integration. So, I had been doing a lot of work in the community and this tension just kept coming up. I was always the person who kind of bridged the generation gap naturally because I grew up with folks like Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poet, James Brown, James Baldwin, etc. But it actually started as a joke between me and my business partner, Sugar Johnson. We would always say we do stuff from Afros to Shelltoes. We decided to make this an umbrella organization for everything that we’ve done. We are celebrating 12 years of our collaboration. So, it was basically founded out of frustration and my need to create the change in the world that I wanted to see.

BSIDE: Now explain what you do to bridge the gap between hip hop and the Civil Rights era?

GARNES: From Afros to Shelltoes is our mantra. It’s also our organization. In the title, we purposely call it that because afros represent the Civil Rights generation. Shelltoes represent the hip hop heads. You know- Adidas Superstars- Run-DMC is the perfect hip hop icon. We approach everything we do with the five principles of black psychology: improvisation, resilience, spirituality, connecting to others and the value of direct experience. We use the principles to empower other folks. Whether we’re doing workshops with youth, a panel on hip hop culture, or if we’re speaking to kids- we have a framework that takes into account the psychological trauma that black folks have been through. I think in order to bridge a generation gap you have to naturally love black people. So, it’s not something that we just set out to do. We’re people (Ed & Sugar) that were raised with a certain sense of history that we naturally do that in everything that we do. For instance, we might be doing an identity writing workshop were we might have Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin. But we might also incorporate Erykah Badu, Saul Williams, and Jessica Care Moore. So, it’s really a natural extension of our personalities

B-SIDE: Some of the students my advisers ask me to talk to and help guide especially the young ladies don’t get it. I’m like Dang! Here they are 21 and 22 and here I am only a couple of years older than them and I look at where I was when I was their age- you know my hunger, how driven I was- there is a disconnect. Where did we get disconnected?

GARNES: This is where the disconnect happened- we have this thing that there’s suppose to be enlightened black folks and the folks that are keeping us down. For whatever reason, the scapegoat for a lot of social ills is young black kids and hip-hop. But if you’re looking at this from a personal development standpoint, kids came from parents. Which means the generation that birthed these kids and our youth raised them. So, it’s all of our responsibilities and what has happened is the blame is placed on the kids. Instead of it being placed on all of us. It’s like the village raising the kids mentality. The disconnect happened when you have kids looking to be raised and cared about and the only thing they get is negativity. “You’re all crazy.” “You’re wearing your pants too far down.” “Why are you acting like that?” “Why do you want to dance on a pole?” Why? I saw mama dancing on a pole. Why are you tootsie rolling at the age of four at the family reunion? Why? I saw mama tootsie rolling. Why are you cussing and want to slang drugs? Why? Mama’s cutting coke on the kitchen table. So, we have to be responsible for that. Kids don’t raise themselves. The disconnect also happened because the Civil Rights generation dealt with so much that they’re often given a pass that they shouldn’t get. People don’t care if you marched with King. If you’re not doing right, then we need to call folks out. A lot of times we give people passes because they were apart of that movement. But we’re living now. I’m not disrespecting history, but often civil rights is pinned against hip-hop like they’re not one in the same. Now, youth culture is changing the world. When you start making money and making moves there‘s going to be hate. And there’s a lot of young positive people making moves. If everybody is crazy, how come the people I hang out with aren’t crazy? If everybody’s stripping, how come my female friends aren’t strippers?