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Tons o’ guns
>> Rodrigo Bascuñán and Christian Pearce’s Enter the Babylon System takes aim at the culture of firearms from a hip hop perspective
INDUSTRY IN THEIR SIGHTS: Bascuñán (L) and Pearce
When I was first handed Enter the Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture From Samuel Colt to 50 Cent, by Pound magazine co-founders Rodrigo Bascuñán and Christian Pearce, it took me back to ’87. Returning from Iraq to immigrate to Montreal, I had a plastic gat that was filled with the waters of my motherland to spray at victims during the flight towards my new identity. When my pops saw that I was aiming a gun, despite the fact that it was plastic, he felt inclined to teach me that this form of amusement was no joke. He broke the toy in front of me, and to my dismay, my innocence went out with a bang. Long are those days gone, and no longer do we deal with beefs through giving brothers “a fair one,” as Rakim Allah put it. To get the Juice, people now reach for their heaters faster than a speeding bullet.
According to Statistics Canada, the number of homicides by firearm jumped dramatically between 2002 and 2005, from 152 deaths to 222. “Gun violence is at its highest in the areas that have guns,” says Bascuñán. “We have to deal with societal ills that create this problem, and those exist on so many levels beyond hip hop culture.”
A week after 16-year-old Tyler Jacob was shot to death in our beloved Mount Real, I sat down with Bascuñán and discussed everything from personal experiences, media responsibility and the roles of our pop culture icons and a self-empowering movement such as hip hop. From the clip to the chamber, from the boardrooms to the streets, we are all responsible. Put your burner down and pick this book up—we just might learn something from these brothers.
A HISTORY OF OPPRESSION
Mirror: Have you ever stared down the barrel of a gun? Have you had friends or family injured by gun violence and how did that influence your book?
Rodrigo Bascuñán: There were a lot of gun incidents in my family. My father and my uncle were both shot. My cousin committed suicide with my uncle’s handgun; his father was a police officer so he had weapons around the house. My father was shot by accident, but still. My uncle was shot nine times and he survived. His body isn’t as functional as it used to be, similar to when people suffer from strokes. But you know what, I tried to keep that out. I didn’t reveal that to the publisher or to Christian till way into the project. It reawakened me to the realities of my family experience. I was always aware of it but I had accepted that as a reality of life and a corollary to oppression. Writing the book and researching made me realize what my family had been through. I didn’t want it to taint my judgment, I wanted to stay open and speak to everyone on the subject instead of imposing my experience on the reader.
M: Speaking of oppression, why do you think a coloured person is more vilified when holding a gun than James Bond, for example?
RB: We haven’t shown a real evolution in terms of discrimination. I mean, 100 years ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, we take that for granted, but there still is a lot left to tackle. The black community is probably the most discriminated against, particularly in the United States. There is an intense racial history that still permeates the consciousness of America. We need to separate hip hop from black culture. Hip hop is a part of the history and culture, but it is not all there is to the black experience. That is unfair—I believe there is way more depth to the black community than just hip hop. Not everybody that is black is a hip hopper. It’s important to separate those two things, which is hardly ever done by the media.
LOAD THE MESSAGE
M: Hip hop came out of a need for empowerment and change. Do you think it can also play a role in reversing the state of representation?
RB: Yeah, we have a huge platform. The whole world listens to this music. We have an amazing opportunity to inject positivity into the world, but we have to be careful not to place the onus on music and on pop culture in general. I think fighting for a better education system is a better use of our time than going into what is in rap lyrics. Hip hop is a positive force in our lives as it is for both of us. It shaped my career, my confidence and self-awareness. A lot of times, when I listen to music, I realize people have so much power, but they are wasting such an opportunity by putting out such empty messages.
M: What role do you think our war orchestras play in the symphony of violence plaguing our society?
RB: It’s been shown that after wartime situations, there is an increase in violence in the areas the soldiers come back to. It’s hard to de-program someone after they have been told for years to view a population as the enemy. They feel very connected to their weapons—I mean, there is a riflemen’s creed in the U.S. army. Full Metal Jacket steez. Again, when people bring in music and blame it for the violence, it’s unfortunate we don’t realize our culture of war is more of an influence on our collective existence. That is much more a pervasive and fundamental message that works on such a subconscious level. It’s a lot more efficient of a technique than the media. It makes violence seem like the solution.
ARMED AND PARANOID
M: Do you think the culture of fear in society affects the consumerism of gun ownership?
RB: One hundred per cent. That was one of the most noticeable differences between Americans and Canadians when we were doing research for the book. All the Americans expressed a lot of paranoia of their fellow citizens. I don’t go home and think of my personal safety all day long! It’s an important point to make about the gun industry. Guns are very resilient, they last a long time. An AK made in 1949 is still used and is actively in good condition. This means that gun manufacturers don’t have many opportunities to sell guns. So when the government needs guns for war, they only go to these people every 20–30 years. So the civilian population is their bread and butter. How they do that is through fear.
M: Who are you targeting with this book? The general population or the hip hop movement?
RB: There are several themes in the book; one of them is Chris and I talking to the hip hop community, saying we need to be more aware of what we are doing. The other conversation is using the hip hop population’s experience and parlaying that to the general population. In a lot of ways, people that aren’t in hip hop will understand youth culture and break down their negative stereotypes of our culture.
M: If you needed to protect your family, would you get a gun?
RB: I don’t think that’s a proper safety measure. It’s one of the myths that the gun industry likes to propagate. It seems that access to guns is a bigger problem than the need for one to protect yourself. I don’t want to live in the world where that is the solution, where that is what I need to be safe. If I live in that kind of world, then there is a bigger problem permeating society as a whole.
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