MC Diatribe, August 6

The following is an interview I conducted for the Somerville News with Mark Mclaughlin, also known as MC Diatribe, a local independent rapper and activist:

What do you do at Bridge Over Troubled Waters?
I'm a street outreach worker. Basically, it's my job to find homeless youth and try and get them to come into our program.

And what do you get out of that?
What? Personally?

Yeah
I mean, it's getting kids off the streets. That always feels good. It's the first step hopefully in getting them to turn their lives around. So, it's always a good feeling.

I've read somewhere that every kid in Somerville is taught the word "gentrification" in school. What are your views on the gentrification of Somerville?
I don't know if they're taught it in school. I think it's definately become part of people's vocabulary. I think it was an unspoken thing for a long time. People knew what was happening. I remember kinda learning the word and thinking "Oh, that's what that is, that's what's going on." My views on it? Well, there's good sides and bad sides, you know. And you can't ignore the good side, it's a safer place to be, it's a cleaner place to be. The quality of life is better. But the negative side is lots of the lower class people don't get to be around to see all this great improvement. And that builds a lot of resentment. When it's a place, you know, you grew up in your whole life and I'd like to reap the benefits of this too. You hear a lot of people claiming that it's taking credit for cleaning up the city and the working class and immigrant communities should be grateful towards them, but the reality is, it's like "Ok, Davis Square is nice now. Too bad I just moved to Chelsea, or I just moved Everett, which are basically in the same conditions I left" Lots of these other communities are where Somerville was ten, fifteen years ago, so nothing's really changed for the working class or the immigrant community in Somerville. They're just getting displaced to someplace simular to what they just left. I want people to stay around for the benefits, to see how the great the city's become.

What do you think of the Green Line extension?
Same thing. It's great. Obviously, I can't deny the benefits of it. Like I'm not sit here and be like "Oh, it's a terrible thing." But I think that gentrification, centered right now around Davis Square, is gonna spread to untouched parts of the city. Whereas, right now, Somerville is still, in my opinion, a working-class city, besides the Davis Square area, which the Red Line brought. So, now you're gonna have the areas of Winter Hill and Union Square and East Somerville and Assembly Square, and all these things, you know, it's gonna bring agreat resource, but with that resource, am I gonna be around for the Green Line? You know, I live in East Somerville now because I got priced out of this neighborhood. Now, am I gonna get priced out of East Somerville too in a couple years? It's be like "Ok, this is great. Somerville has the Green Line. I live in Brockton." You know, that's the way it goes. I don't see the roots of this city. You know, the true people that have been here for generations, they won't be benefiting from this.

So, about five years ago, I don't know where exactly in the city this happened, someone graffitied...
Right here

Oh right here? Someone graffitied "Kill A Yuppie" What's the motivation for something like that? Is this a common feeling?
I mean, I think a lot of teenagers have felt a lot of resentment and there's a lot of anger and misunderstanding. Well, that's when they started learning this word gentrification. People are just really angry about losing there place in the city and they took it out on what they saw as a threat to their community. And that's where we, Save Our Somerville, came in to mediate and be like "You can't have beef with these individuals that are moving in. They don't know. They aren't doing anything on pupose. So the real problem you wanna fight with someone, come to City Hall and it's not a violent fight. There's not gonna be an armed struggle here. It's gonna be, you know, political. You need to get out there and vote and become a political presence in the city. That way, City Hall is gonna look at you if you say 'Hey, we this huge constituancy over here and we vote and we're not happy with what's going on.'" That's the way we try to make that shift, tried to harness that anger that the youth was feeling and turn it into something positive...which is a difficult task.

But there is violence in the city and you've witnessed it yourself?
Absolutely

How does that, along with the drug problem with youth in the city, inofrm your music?
A lot. I mean, it comes from...I use music as a self-expression and I, you know, I use it to get things off my chest. Growing up here, there's just a lot of experiences that I think people aren't aware of and I use music to express what I've seen and what I think a lot of people are unaware of. Especially, nowadays, when you think of Somerville, you don't think of these experiences anymore. And those are still very much alive in my life. I like to say, I'm speaking the untold story. There's a story here that a lot of people are unaware of, or it's not being told, or it's being forgotten, and I just wanna create awareness of the struggle here. And that we have a lot in common with simular communities, inner-city communities facing simular problems and I think, lots of times, when we think of Somerville, at least now, we don't think of these problems. And that's a bad thing because when you sweep it under the carpet for too long, things will fester and get worse. Lots of my music is outta respect and homage to my roots, just saying "This is where I come from. This is my environment" I always credit Somerville, and I why I think there's so much pride, not just in Somerville, but lots of Boston neighborhoods because Boston is place where people credit their upbringing, their roots for making who they are and I will always say Somerville made me who I am today.

What is backpacking rap, or is it backpacking rap?
I think it kinda comes from the idea of people just selling CD's out of their backpack. You know, just being an undergound MC, but it more goes with the term of being a socially conscious rapper, being more abstract, you know, being a little more poetic. It's basically become anti-mainstream-type rappers. I would definately consider myself a backpack rapper. But it's basically the term for the underground MC having the stuff in there backpack and going around. It's anti-mainstream, that traditional gangsterism or whatever you wanna call it, thug rap.

What's it like being a white rapper?
Pshhhh, nowadays, I mean (laughs) I don't think it's any different. I mean it depends where you're at. There are experiences of being like,"Oh he's good...for a white kid" and it's more like, "No, I'm just good. Regardless of color." Nowadays, I feel like that's a stigma that's really gone. Emimen is renowned as one of the est of all time and Boston, in particular, has a lot of white MC's. It depends on what circle you're in and it depends what kinda music you're trying to do. I think if I was a white guy trying to act, trying say I was from the ghetto, I was selling crack, doing all this stuff I'd be a little like "Ok, doubtful." but if you're a white dude adn you're from the suburbs and you're rich and whatever, I think you'll be accepted in hip-hop as long as you're honest. Just keep it honest and people will accept you. Not everyone's gonna feel it. Not everyone's gonna like it. Some people are gonna be like, "This guy's whack because I don't relate to that." But, I think if you're honest with it, I doesn't matter what color or what gender you are or what-have you.