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FEATURE
Thugs Against Violence
July.01.2007 - by: Matthew Sheahan
New York is the birthplace of what’s now politely referred to as "urban culture," or hip hop. Rap music became popular in the early 1980s thanks to the efforts of its Bronx-born pioneers and the breakthrough albums of Queens-based Run-DMC.
But the rap and the "urban culture" that I knew twenty years ago is long gone. What passes for hip hop today is a sad shell of what once was a vibrant and intelligent musical form. Today’s rap has degenerated into a clownish and violent imitation of rap’s original promise.
Not that the majority white culture has many of us swelling up with pride, but for blacks and Hispanics, who suffer disproportionately from poverty and crime and a culture that helps fuel both, popular culture should produce something a little better and more purposeful.
Someone needs to be there to cut through the bullshit and speak truth to the powerless. Someone with some wisdom and talent and real experiences with street life and prison ought to be out there producing books and music and presenting an alternative to the hip hop minstrel show that the mainstream media feeds them. That’s where Carolyn Baxter aka ''Kulcha Born'' comes in.
Carolyn Baxter grew up in New York and frequently visits the city today from her home upstate near Poughkeepsie. She dropped out of school at 15, and unlike the celebrated rappers of today, she did real time in prison. Her six years behind bars were due to what she calls "adolescent dumb stuff".
One of the things she noticed about prisons is that the arts programs didn’t appear to be very relevant to the people in prison. She also noticed that a lot of people who were coming out of prison were often going right back in.
After she got out, she became a nurse specializing in treating HIV patients, Rehab, and is a Psychiatric nurse to this day. She took an interest in writing as a teenager, continued to write while in prison, and has had two books published and Numerous Essay’s and Hip-hop articles Published.
‘’The Hunt is On and Black men are the Prey was part of a Washington Post series on Contemporary Black men. ’’Snoop Dogg and Imus in Bed on Welfare was on Various internet sites. After Imus was bounced out of Talk radio for Racist remarks.
While in prison, she wrote her first book of poetry, Prison, Solitary and Other Free Government Services. She’s written two other books. Assata and the Baby Gangster, Vol. 1 is based on her life and prison experiences, including meeting radical black activist Assata Shakur (a.k.a. Joanne Chesimard). Currently seeking a Publisher.
Her latest book is called Platinum Dreams Lead Reality. "When I hear that young black and Hispanic men are safer in the war in the middle of Afghanistan than on a corner in the South Bronx, it’s like a stab in the belly, of a proud culture, forever pregnant with creativity, and intellectual innovation, killing its young," she writes. While championing rap music, Baxter is disgusted with the way rap music is marketed to young people.
"It’s a whole image of the black thug gangster-is Racist,and Sexist. It’s a brainwashing tool she say's. That’s where ''Thugs Against Violence'' steps in.
Her idea for an Organization called ''Thugs Against Violence'' is to appeal to young black and Hispanic kids to turn their life around and avoid prison. Hearing from someone like her, who has been to prison and lived the kind of dangerous street life that most gangster rappers only have wet dreams about, will make more of an impact on kids.
"I tell these guys, when I work with gangs, You rise Together but you fall alone. they’re not going to win with this. The System has a Custom made cage just for them. I tell them my experiences and I’ll tell them about people that I have known. I don’t preach to them. I’ll tell them about someone that lives three blocks from them."
She aims her efforts at black and Hispanic kids. "The black kids have it a little different," she says. "The white kids who listen to rap are not shooting each other."
Working as a nurse on movie sets got her small acting roles,and entrance into the Screen Actors Guild (S.A.G) her roster of celebrities that she’s met gives Baxter another way to keep young people’s attention. She’s worked in and had small roles in films Starting with a Whoopee Goldberg movie ‘’Eddie’’. Others including The Basketball Diaries, Copland, Sleepers, The Devil’s Own and Many others.Shes worked with stars such as Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt,Mark Whalberg, Leonardo Dicaprio,Harrison Ford,Denzel Washington,Silvester Stalone and many others.
Baxter sees rap music as being co-opted by wealthy producers who care only about the bottom line. "You have these guys who are completely materialistic and capitalistic," she says. "They are the worse of the worst." She mocks the wealthy elites of the rap music industry, like Def Jam mogul Russell Simmons. "Russell Simmons-he’s not really a rapper. If he had to rap at the drop of a hat, what would he rap about? ‘My mansion sprung a leak? and my maid is off Today?’’
"Would you rather the kids hear about street life or go to prison?…I know that I was intelligent enough that if someone rapped it down to me, I would have taken the advice." Instead of being in a Family that hid emotions and the world from me,discouraging individualisim Invalidating me at an early age, preparing me to become a child Victom of a Racist System.
She’s written articles criticizing both hip hop executives as well as more palatable black leaders, including celebrities like Bill Cosby. (I like Bill Cosby as much as any other white person, but admit it: The Cos’ would probably not last too long in the joint.) He aint the Voice of the ''People'' so he should just ''Fall back''! People are not the ‘’Target’’ it’s where their Tax dollars are going and the ‘’Organizations ‘’that are not putting it to the Intended Use for the Community’s and the Youngins’’.
In her efforts to get Thugs and Violence off the ground, she contacted many black organizations, such as the NAACP and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. Of the 100 or so calls and emails she sent out, she received only two or three replies, and they were lame, excuse-making replies.
But she has not been deterred.
"Our ancestors are angry," ‘’Martin Luther King is still having that Dream, but IT’S gone into syndication and no ones watching’’ she says.
"Harriet Tubman said, ‘I could have freed a lot more slaves if they knew they were slaves.’ If she knew that black men were shooting other black men in the street over bullshit…I’m sure she’s rolling over in her grave. "After all ‘’Crime does Pay, but you have to pay with your Life and you only have one.
She continues to travel and lecture and perform her rap music and sell her books, which sell Very Well on the ’’Bootleg Circuit’’ stores and whenever she performs.
"Somebody’s got to do it, why not me?"

printed July.01.2007