URBAN CITIZEN

POLITICS:

Citizens check out the live feed of protesters from the NATO events at downtown Chicago

-Urban Citizen

 Citizen Music:

(Chicago, IL)  With the likes of Soldier Boy, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne and others gaining popularity, in the Hip Hop and Rap world, it’s good to know that the future of Hip Hop will still have some sort of modesty in it. Along with the already notable conscious Hip Hop heads like Common, Mos Def (now known as Yasiin), Talib Kweli, Professor Griff and Doug E. Fresh, in comes the four member Muslim group “The Ranks Music.” The Ranks Music as briefly described on their Facebook page was created  “with a vision and work ethic to reach the masses. With their hip hop music and powerful lyrics, The Ranks Music has been able to inspire artist from other genres including poets, singers and many more. The Ranks Music is growing to be a music label with a versatile list of great artist to impact the world.”  Hailing from the south side of Chicago the group has produced a very popular song “Elijah Rocks”. The songs  chorus thanks to a little help from Mahalia Jackson and the original song “Elijah Rock”, is very catchy and you’ll find yourself signing along to the words before the song even ends. Urban Citizen (uc) chats with the Co Founder of the group Arvence Muhammad also known as Brother Arvence (am) as he answers a couple questions for us.

UC:   Brother Arvence what makes you an Urban Citizen?

AM:  Well….. I live the lifestyle, not a bad one but I lived a lifestyle where I came out of a bad neighborhood in the city, and I know what people are going thru. So I can speak from their view point, and I can also speak thru others according to their lifestyle whether its good or bad, but its pretty much a 360 degree view point because once you come all the way from the bottom and you start to rise up and change your life into a better life its a way to reach people and show them kinda how to do the same. Those who may be having a hard time, especially where children are concerned, or youth or teenagers, those are the ones who we really, really want to reach out to because as they get older these are the future people who will be the future doctors and lawyers or they may run the country someday, so  you never know so thats what makes me urban because we come from the bottom and rise up and we show how we change our lives from bad to good.

UC:  What was your inspiration for doing the “Elijah Rocks” Video?

AM: The inspiration for the video was to show appreciation for The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and for teaching others through (our) music, about His work, who He really was and what He really did. Because everyone else tries to write Him out of history, your not going to really hear about him too much on the news or on the radio. It’s others who know about Him that have to talk about Him. It’s up to us who benefit from His teachings to keep His name and work alive and let people know about the sacrifices He made for us. We (The Ranks Music) want to show through music without being preachy or religious, it’s a Hip Hop song its a Hip Hop video but specifically it speaks about this one person who did so many great things for so many people.

 UC:  Is there anything else that you would like to add, or a question you’d like to  answer that someone else may not have asked you already about your music?

AM: Were pretty much all over the internet right now, you can check us out on twitter at “#the ranks music”, we have “Rebirth Nation”, “The Ranks Music” Facebook page, with all of our names on their and everything from videos and more music. Were steady in the studio, constantly coming up with different ways to reach the people. We talk about current events, music, Hip Hop,  we collaborate on  everything. We have been meeting with rapper Rhymefest who’s  done work with others like Kanye West. He likes the music that we make, so we’ve been spending time in the studio making music. A lot of people have been catching on to  us and its a blessing and were staying humble and were going to continue to stay humble, because  “to whom much is given much is required”. So were going to keep reaching out to young people in particular, and were going to keep pumping out respectful music, that’s our main goal.

-Khadeejah Tasheen

Check out this Video of  Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush who was kicked off the House floor for representing Trevon Martin in his speech.

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-Urban Citizen

Check out this video with another rendition of  the Jay-Z and Kanye West song N*gg@s in Paris. This post is dedicated to all the “bookworms” and “coolnerd” citizens everywhere!

-Urban Citizen