***Click HERE to take a listen — Hoodia Rap***
Here is a rap song I wrote from the contemplative practice about industrialized food process, hunger, and its aftermath. The Hoodia plant grows naturally in the southern region of Africa. The San people traditionally consume the bitter plant as an appetite suppressant, to help survive in desert conditions where food resources are scarce. However, dietary markets today harvest Hoodia and target it towards those who eat too much, a dietary supplement. This bitter contrast in uses is what inspired me during the contemplative practices to write this rap. As a student of the arts, and growing up in South Seattle’s ethnic community, rap is a great medium of expression, poetry in rhythm (I know I’m not really a rapper). Please Enjoy!
Link to Instrumental — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrhrGFg4HZM&start_radio=1&list=RDCrhrGFg4HZM
The Hoodia Rap:
Don’t you hate this bitter taste
This bitter life, this empty plate
This empty mouth, this empty faith
Cannot relate. Why not?
Scarcity is too scary
15,000 to the dirt
That’s 15,000 on the daily (Referring to the film Silent Killer, 15,000 kids die each day)
But we head to the delis-petroleum jelly in our bellies
Cause’ the system be tellin’
Get acres of land
Monocrop for demand
But we losing a lesson, selling more’an we threaten,
Running Earth through the dirt turning heaven to hellish, yeah,
Are we blind by our own selfish nature?
Obsessed with trade we control mother nature
Nothin’ compares to another mother’s hatred
Seeing her baby fighting hard just to make it
Yeah, catch my breath on the exhale,
Try to hold yours, it’s getting hard just to inhale,
Try to not eat now, feeling sinks deep, wow,
Oh well, stomach on a nail like an impale,
Entails disaster, details devastating,
Large-scale we’re on the verge of suffocating [gasp]
CO2 levels rising, man it’s irritating…
Industries s’posed to look out for us?
Now you’re telling me that the system is what,
We can get en’uh,
F-Feening for m’uh,
GMO my MO! its my leggo my eggo, get
The jelly n’ nuttele I put helly in my bready, yuh
Oh yeah, past that hoodia plant
Who’s gonna die, who’s gon’ be next?
I need that bitter taste cause I can’t get enough,
And I’m tired of this uh, man enough is enough, yeah.
[Psh, Hoodia plant,
I mean like, who do ya’ think?
Hurting others also hurts ourselves
Hmph…]
Uh, Got this machinery
Moving easily,
Eventually all this corn
Turns to feedery,
It’s like catering
To the economy,
Doing this without
Accountability,
If you’re feelin’ me
Send all that energy,
It’s time to start change, lets hit the streets
Change the industry
Cause hungers a no!
You know…
Oh yeah, past that hoodia plant
Who’s gonna die, who’s gon’ be next?
I need that bitter taste cause I can’t get enough,
And I’m tired of this uh, man enough is enough, yeah.
Han,
I really enjoyed listening to your rap. I think the incorporation of arts into learning, environmentalism, and policy is a great way for people to build strong emotional relationships with abstract concepts. I was also very struck/saddened/angry learning about the Hoodia plant being exploited for people in western countries to eat more. However, coming to terms with this reality is the first step to preserving indigenous, traditional knowledge and making sure it is no longer exploited for the sole benefit of people that are removed from their culture and history
Response 2
Han,
First of all, great rap! I am impressed with the amount of time and effort it must have taken you to write and record this rap. It was all very cohesive, the beat was entertaining, and your flow was on point. I have never heard of the Hoodia plant before hearing your rap and was fascinated by the contrast between the San’s use of the plant to suppress their hunger to survive versus the way it is used in developed countries as a dietary supplement. It makes me wonder if there are other plant products in the world that are used in ways that display as much of a great disparity as with the Hoodia plant’s use.
Response 1
This is awesome!!! One concept I’ve been thinking about throughout this course is how to bring awareness about the food system into every day life. In order to really solve the problem we’ve created, we have to do more than the baseline. Sustainability needs to be integrated into our culture, and this is an amazing way you’ve done that. Putting the theme into music is a really clear way to demonstrate your message, it reminds me of how Logic addressed mental health and suicide by using a suicide prevention hotline as the title and focus of one of his songs. It was very successful at raising awareness and I think this path you’ve embarked on could be as well. Very imaginative!!