STREET SOUNDS RAS walks the walk on politically-conscious rap BY ALEXANDER PROVAN

When Hurricane Katrina revealed a neglected underclass and shocked hip-hop’s statesmen into politics, Providence’s Riders Against the Storm (RAS) had just dropped their debut album, Everybody Dig. The record is a playful piece of acrimonious punditry and soulful affirmation, drawing equally from Malcolm X, Southern gospel, and A Tribe Called Quest. The mixture of rhymes and political consciousness should be familiar to listeners in Providence, where hip-hop culture has long been part of the city’s social justice movement.

RAS is comprised of Jon Mahone, a teacher at Hope High School and program director of Truskool Studios, an after-school arts program that recruits urban youth to paint murals; Ghislaine Jean, a founder of Females Igniting Righteous Elevation (FIRE), which aims to empower young black women through activities as diverse as literacy and self-defense, and In House Freestyle, a black comedy troupe that includes Mahone; and Abdul Mateen, who also has a history of activism in Providence.

While RAS’s subject matter is unusual, it isn’t novel. Everybody Dig is a paean to the rappers who started putting politics and music together — KRS-One called it "edutainment" — from Kool Herc, who first used turntables to appropriate and recycle soul and disco, to Public Enemy, the archetypal urban black radicals.

What makes RAS different? According to Mahone, "Unlike most musicians that sing or rap about visions for social change, we walk the walk." Fists raised, tongues taut, the trio aims to bring its civic virtues from the streets to the stage, following a tradition of rappers who derive their artistic brio from a pervasive sense of disgust with the way things are, coupled with an exhortation for the black community to come together and deliver change. "Our people are hurting," laments Mahone, "and our music is a reflection of many of our problems."

Those problems generally evade the purview of popular hip-hop. But with Katrina’s aftermath invigorating hip-hop’s long dormant political consciousness, Jean wonders if there might be a space for music that promotes community and political involvement. With HIV/AIDS taking a heavy toll in the black community, Jean questions why most popular rap is glorifying promiscuity. Mahone derides such music as being "reduced to the lowest common denominator. If it ain’t about sex, then it’s about violence, " he notes. "If it ain’t about violence, then it’s about drugs and alcohol."

While you won’t find anything resembling Ice Cube’s landmark AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted on today’s charts, RAS believes songs like "Amerikkkan Dream " can still resonate beyond the choir. If rappers who are used to offering listeners detailed instructions about how to make crack — see Master P’s "Ghetto D" — can quickly become political critics and advocates for their communities, maybe listeners will follow suit.