Cory Booker, Chuck D and more will talk voter suppression at the Hip-Hop Political Education Summit, which has Milwaukee ties

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It's a hip-hop event with a lineup like no other.

Music stars Public Enemy's Chuck D, YG, Big Daddy Kane, Bun B, Rapsody and Cordae are on the bill — along with journalists like Soledad O'Brien, academics like Cornel West and politicians like Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. — for the Hip-Hop Political Education Summit, streaming on Tuesday, National Voter Registration Day.

With its mix of music and social-issue presentations, the summit shares some characteristics of Hip-Hop Week MKE, established in 2018 by Milwaukee Ald. Khalif Rainey. That annual week of events — the only one of its kind sponsored by a city's government — features concerts and explores financial literacy, politics, health and wellness and other topics through a hip-hop lens.

"It's probably best to go to the doctor and hear from him as to how you can make lifestyle changes and live healthier, but some of those messages just don't resonate from those individuals," Rainey said. "But when you put them in the context of hip-hop, now some of the apolitical and the disenfranchised and the unengaged members of our community, their interest is piqued."

The power of hip-hop, he said, is its ability to bring together diverse groups.

Milwaukee Ald. Khalif Rainey, shown at an October 2019 Common Council meeting, helped organize Hip-Hop Week MKE.

David Mays, founder of seminal hip-hop magazine the Source and a chief architect for Hip-Hop Week MKE last year, is one of the co-founders of the summit. Hip-Hop Week MKE is a sponsor and Rainey will be a speaker. (He's not the only politician from Wisconsin presenting; state Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is also part of the lineup.)

"In a lot of ways, you could say that before there was Black Lives Matter there was hip-hop," Mays said. "In the late '80s and '90s, it was the vehicle that gave voice to all the same issues, of systemic racism, police brutality, etc., that today are making it into the mainstream discourse."

The summit will be free to watch on hip-hop media site Revolt TV's YouTube and Facebook pages, with times to be finalized. Viewers are asked to register for free, so they'll be able to ask questions of the speakers, at hiphoppoliticaled.com.

Roots in summer of protest

Mays established the Hip-Hop Political Education Summit this summer with Bakari Kitwana, a cultural critic and activist (and former Source editor-in-chief), after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody sparked Black Lives Matter protests around the country.

"With all the social and political activity, all the protests that are going on, it just felt to me that there was a void in terms of hip-hop not really having a voice," Mays said.

At the same time, Mays was working with Rainey on programming for Hip-Hop Week MKE, which had been scheduled to take place Aug. 17-22, the same week that the Democratic National Convention was to be held in Milwaukee. The coronavirus pandemic forced the DNC to become a largely virtual event and Hip-Hop Week MKE to be canceled.

But the momentum Mays and Rainey were building for Hip-Hop Week was channeled into the summit, Mays said.

"I had been feeling we can't let another year go by and not try to do anything," Mays said of working with Rainey. "His vision from the beginning with Hip-Hop Week was to demonstrate and show how hip-hop can be used to engage at-risk communities on subject matters that can be life-changing, but that sometimes folks don’t pay attention to."

Voter suppression a central theme

That's the approach for Tuesday's summit, with voter suppression being an overarching theme, one that's important in Wisconsin, a battleground in the November election.

Wisconsin has already been at the center of this debate this year.

The state moved forward with an in-person election in April in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Voters waiting to cast their ballots in key races, including for state Supreme Court and the Democratic presidential primary, experienced long lines after a severe shortage of poll workers forced Milwaukee to open five polling centers instead of its normal 180 sites.

"I'm disgusted. I requested an absentee ballot almost three weeks ago and never got it. I have a father dying from lung disease and I have to risk my life and his just to exercise my right to vote," said Milwaukee resident Jennifer Taff (holding sign). She had been standing in line at Washington High School for almost two hours in the primary election in April.

This all came on the heels a contentious legal battle over an effort to quickly remove thousands from the state's voter rolls because they were believed to have moved. The state Supreme Court is not expected to rule on the case until after November's election.

"There's many in our community … when they hear about the Supreme Court of Wisconsin forcing us to have an election and cast our ballot in the midst of a pandemic instead of deferring it to a later date, they scroll past that article," Rainey said. "But when you put it in the context of hip-hop and you have these conversations with people who you can identify with, people that you can relate to, I think we stand a chance to engage people and have them actively get involved with politics going forward."

Rainey is hopeful Milwaukee residents will tune in and anticipates the artists and academics will draw a diverse audience.

Ultimately, he said, making change comes down to voting and electing people who are focused on the issues residents care about.

"The whole goal of it all is to inspire and encourage and empower people to get active in their communities and pay closer attention to what's going on, so they can be involved and their voice can be heard," he said.

Keynote speeches, panels, performances

Tuesday's summit will include four keynotes and musical performances by Akua Naru and Rebel Diaz.

The opening discussion explores how hip-hop has shaped political discourse, with veteran music producer 9th Wonder and Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal moderating a panel that includes West, Kane and Rapsody.

A second panel, moderated by "The Breakfast Club" co-host DJ Envy and hip-hop talk show "State of the Culture" co-host Eboni K. Williams featuring Chuck D and National Urban League President Marc Morial, will look at how the pandemic has exacerbated voter suppression.

Chuck D, a hip-hop legend and leading force behind the seminal, politically outspoken group Public Enemy, is among the artists, activists, academics, politicians and journalists participating in the inaugural Hip-Hop Political Education Summit Tuesday. It's free to stream and open to the public.

The third keynote will look at social media disinformation related to the election, moderated by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and including Bun B and U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indiana, among its panelists.

Latosha Brown, co-founder of the advocacy group Black Voters Matter, will present the final keynote.

Following this summit, Mays is pursuing funding for more events this fall ahead of the election, including some that may be tailored specifically to voting in Wisconsin.

"One of the things about hip-hop, that has always been part of its power, is that it’s a very kind of unifying culture, and it appeals to a lot of different types of people and brings different types of people together in a very powerful way," Mays said. "Hopefully, we will see some incredible interesting things come out of this, and I hope that this lights a flame under the hip-hop community a little bit, so we can do more and make a difference."

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.