“i MiX WHAT i LiKE” is borrowed – in phrase and philosophy – from the work of Steve Biko. The collection of Biko’s “Frank Talk” columns titled I Write What I Like is much of the inspiration for the attempt here to blend the traditions of radical broadcasting, the mixtape and Black Consciousness with what Dr. Hemant Shah has called Emancipatory Journalism.
This is our 2008 interview with Shah about emancipatory journalism and my particular application of his idea in FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show. I eventually attempted to write about this project and its philosophy in “I Mix What I Like! In Defense and Appreciation of the Rap Music Mixtape as ‘National’ and ‘Dissident’ Communication” and then in I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto.
Emancipatory Journalism:
A) presupposes that inequality and oppression exist and that there are (neo)colonies and colonized populations requiring a form of journalism that is;
B) bottom-up. Central to EJ’s concept of good journalism are the perspectives of those most oppressed, those of members of the communities themselves – particularly those organizing social/cultural/political movements – as opposed to government or business officials and elites and;
C) argues that notions of “objectivity” must be critiqued if not entirely discarded in favor of clearly identified, studied, researched perspectives that advocate radical re-ordering of societies.
BIO
Jared A. Ball is a father and husband. After that he is a professor of Media and Africana Studies and produces multimedia for imixwhatilike.org.
EXPERIENCE/ACADEMIC
- Full Professor of Communication Studies, Morgan State University (Fall 2017 – present)
- Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Morgan State University (2011 – 2017)
- Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Morgan State University (2006 – 2011)
- Lecturer, Black Studies, University of Maryland at College Park (2004 – 2006)
- Lecturer, Media Studies, Frostburg State University (2004 – 2006)
EXPERIENCE/PROFESSIONAL/PRACTICAL
- Founder, editor, multimedia, writer, essayist/columnist, podcast, mixtape (audio/video) producer for/of iMiXWHATiLiKE.org (2011–present)
- Opinion Writer/Columnist for Atlanta Black Star (2017)
- Co-host/producer of No Hooks for the Hip-Hop Chronicles (2014 – 2016 – Weekdays on RapStation.com and WEAA 88.9 FM, Baltimore, MD.)
- Producer/Host with The Real News Network, Baltimore, MD. (2014 – 2016)
- Radio Programmer, Host, Producer, WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio, Washington, D.C. (2002 – 2015 – “Decipher: The Blackademics,” “Mid-Day Jazz and Justice,” “The Super Funky Soul Power Hour,” and “iMiXWHATiLiKE!” )
- Columnist with Black Agenda Report (2006 – 2012)
- Producer/Founder of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show (2002 – 2010)
EDUCATION/AUTODIDACT/EXPERIENTIAL
- Community study groups, political organization(s), reading (2001 – present)
- Endless hours of lecture tapes (usually while delivering pizza) procured from Everyone’s Place bookstore in Baltimore, MD. (1993 – present)
- Introduced to an appreciation for reading and studying history while serving a four-year sentence in the United States Navy (USS John F. Kennedy CV-67, 1989 – 1993)
- Three high-schools in four years, from upper-class private Quaker schools to working-class public schools (1985 – 1989)
- Raised by a single mother in a working-class section, “suburban section 8,” of Columbia, MD. – a “planned community” (1975 – 1989)
- Born in Washington, D.C. where an eventual love of go-go and lingering, but dying, and highly contradictory love for the racist named NFL franchise were instilled (1971)
EDUCATION/INSTITUTIONAL
- University of Maryland at College Park, Ph.D. in Journalism and Media Studies (2005)
- Cornell University, M.P.S. in Africana Studies (2001)
- Frostburg State University, B.S. in History (1999)
BOOKS/CHAPTERS
- “Agent Orange: Donald Trump as Political Chemical Warfare,” in Not Our President: New Directions from the Pushed Out, the Others, and the Clear Majority in Trump’s Stolen America, Third World Press, July 2017
- “Ya Basta Con Latino!: The Re-Indigenization and Re-Africanization of Hip-Hop,” with Luis ‘Pancho’ McFarland, in La Verdad: A Reader of Hip Hop Latinidad, (The Ohio State University Press, 2016), Eds., Melissa Castillo-Garsow and Jason Nichols
- “The Politics and Art of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson: The Return of the Repressed,” in Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s, Panther Vision, Kersplebedeb Publishing, November, 2015.
- “Tyler Perry and the Mantan Manifesto,” Baruti N. Kopano and Jared A. Ball in Interpreting Tyler Perry: Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, Jamel Bell & Ronald L. Jackson II (Eds.), New York: Taylor & Francis / Routledge Transformations in Race and Media Series, 2013.
- A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X, (Eds.) Jared Ball and Todd S. Burroughs, Baltimore: Black Classic Press, September 2012.
- “A Black Nationalist Raised by a White Jew?” in Occupying Privilege: Conversations on Love and Struggle, J. Love Calderon (Ed.), Love-N-Liberation Press, May 2012.
- I MiX What I Like: A MiXtape Manifesto, Baltimore, MD: AK Press, 2011.
- “Communicating Liberation in Washington, DC.” In Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia: Federal Politics and Public Policy. Ronald Walters and Toni-Michelle Travis, (Eds.). Lanham, MD. Lexington Books, Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010.
JOURNAL ARTICLES/ESSAYS/REVIEWS
- “A New Apartheid: Media Consolidation and Black America,” The Black Scholar, Spring, 2014.
- “For Hip-Hop: Amiri Baraka and Black Radical Art,” The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, Spring, 2014.
- “Hip-Hop Fight Club: Radical Theory, Education, and Practice In and Beyond the Classroom,” Radical Teacher, No. 97, (Fall) 2013.
- “I Mix What I Like! In Defense and Appreciation of the Rap Music Mixtape as ‘Dissident’ and ‘National’ Communication,” International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, 2011, 278-297.
- “In Living Colors: A Black Man with a White Mother Examines the Concept of Multiracial Identity– Past, Present and Future,” B.L.A.C. Detroit: Black Life, Arts and Culture Magazine, February, 2011.
- “Anti-Colonial Media: The Continuing Impact of Robert Allen’s Black Awakening in Capitalist America,” The Black Scholar, vol. 40, no. 2, Summer 2010, 11-23.
- “Beyond Health Disparities: Examining Power Disparities and Industrial Complexes from the Views of Frantz Fanon (Part 1)” in The Journal of Pan-African Studies, vol.3, no.8, June 2010. Co- authored with The Fanon Project: Drs. Mark Bolden, Chante DeLoach, Alex Pieterse, Otis Williams, Sirein Awadalla.
- “Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion by Adam Haupt” {Book Re- view} in The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, June 2009.
- “FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show: A Case Study in ‘Mixtape Radio’ and Emancipatory Journalism” in The Journal of Black Studies, vol. 39, no. 4, March 2009.
- “Derrick Bell,” and “COINTELPRO: Counter Intelligence Program,” entries included in Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty- First Century. Paul Finkelman, (Ed.). Oxford University Press, February 2, 2009.
- “Barack Obama, ‘Connected Distance,’ Race and 21st Century Neo-Colonialism” in The Black Scholar, vol. 38, Issue 4. Winter 2008.
- “Mixtape Inc. and the Definitive Incorporation of Dissident Culture” {Film Review} in The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture from Words, Beats and Life, vol. 3, no. 2, Fall 2008.
- “Communicating the Logic and Language of Black Liberation” in The Journal of Pan-African Studies, vol. 2, no. 5, July 2008.
- “Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip-Hop Culture by Yvonne Bynoe” {Book Review} in The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, Vo. 3, No. 1, January 2007.
- “In Search of ‘B-SPAN’: The Promise of Black Media Self-determination Now.” New York Amsterdam News; 5/11/2006, Vol. 97 Issue 20, p13. Co-authored with Todd Steven Burroughs.
VIDEO/DOCUMENTARY/AUDIO BOOKS/VIDEO MIXTAPES
- “George Jackson: Releasing The Dragon (A Video Mixtape),” The Real News Network, (Producer, Co-Director with Ed. Bashi Rose, 103 min.) Baltimore, MD. April 2016.
- “Son-Shine On Cracked Sidewalks: An Audiobook by Todd Steven Burroughs,” (Pr./Ed. Jared A. Ball), June, 2014.
OTHER
- Commentaries, essays, interviews and statements have appeared in the Amsterdam News, DC Indy Media, Free Speech Radio News, The Institute for Public Accuracy, Black Commentator.com, Black Agenda Report.com, LefTurn Magazine, Socialist Worker, The Nation, National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), San Francisco Bay View, DaveyD.com, Free Press Media Re-form Daily, Democracy Now!, TheGrio.com, TheRoot.com, The Washington Post, Common Dreams, Al Jazeera (English & Arabic), TeleSur (English), The Green Institute, Pacifica Radio, PopularResistance.org, Truth-Out.org and Atlanta Black Star
SELECTED INVITED PRESENTATIONS
- “The Hero-ification of White Supremacy in U.S. Education,” The Angela Project, Louisville, KY., September 11, 2017.
- “Colonialism, Propaganda and the Myth of Black ‘Buying Power,'” #BlackLivesMatter – Chicago, Chicago, IL. July 1, 2017.
- “Defining Emancipatory Journalism in the 21st Century,” American University, Washington, D.C., February 10, 2017.
- “#BlackLivesMatter and the Imperative of Emancipatory Journalism,” at the Colloquium on “Citizen Journalism, New Media and Activism,” sponsored by the Center for Black Diaspora and the African and Black Diaspora Studies Program at DePaul University, April 22, 2016 .
- “Dr. King, Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter,” Indiana University Northwest, January 14, 2016.
- “Words Matter: History and Rebellion,” Smithsonian panel on Mobilization & Expressive culture, co-moderator with Dr. Mark Bolden, April 25, 2015.
- “Malcolm X, The Mixtape and Obamamania,” Peace Studies Lecture Series, Goucher College, March 25, 2015.
- “Killing the Idea After the Man: Revolution as an Idea 50 Years After Malcolm X,” University of Southern California, Dominquez Hills, February 25, 2015.
- “Branding Malcolm X and Our Black Liberation Dilemma,” Jacob Carruthers Institute for Inner City Studies, Chicago, Il. February 21, 2015.
- “Narrative Dilemmas: Black Studies, Hip-Hop, Politics and Beyond,” Loyola University, African and African American Studies Lecture Series, November 18, 2014
- “Malcolm, Martin and Mass Media,” Library of Congress, January 29, 2014.
- “Internal Colonialism and Continuing Colonialisms,” Temple University, November 14, 2013.
- “Capitalism and Racism,” Capitalism: Racial and Social Justice Orientation Workshop at CUNY Law School, August 12, 2013.
- “Not Yet Unchained: Django and Lincoln’s (Ab)Use of History as False Transcendence,” Black History Month presentation at Bellevue College, WA. February 27, 2013.
- “A New Vision of Black Freedom: The Manning Marable Memorial Conference ‘Reinvigorating Social Theory; Redefining Political Struggle,’” conference participant/presenter. April 26, 2012, New York, NY. Columbia, University.
- “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Radical Tradition,” keynote presentation at the 22nd Annual Students of Color Conference, Highline Community College, Seattle, WA. April 20, 2012.
- “Internal Colonialism in the Age of Obama,” panel presentation at the Left Forum Conference, New York, March 17, 2012.
- “Media and Democracy and the Coming Upheaval” at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), part of the Robert E. Strippel Memorial Continuing Dialogue on Justice and Human Rights, February 16, 2012.
- “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” a panel discussion, February 15th 2012 at the University of Maryland at College Park.
- “Reading Hip Hop: Off the Records, In the Books,” presentation made to the Center for Worker Education at CUNY, New York, NY. September 9, 2011.
- “Beyond the Beats: Towards a Radical Analysis of the State of Hip-Hop,” with Dr. Chris Tinson, Rosa Clemente and Mariama White-Hammond. Presentation delivered during the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform, Boston, MA. April 9, 2011.
- “Drawing Some Political Lines: Ideology in Hip-Hop,” delivered during the second annual “Is Hip-Hop History?” conference at the City College of New York’s Center for Worker Education, February 26, 2011.
- “The Boondocks and Black Power Media: Revolutionizing the Black Public Sphere,” with Drs. Mark Bolden and Chante Deloach. Delivered during “Diversity Week” at Highline Community College in Seattle, WA. January 18, 2011.
- “Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Press: Assassination of Body and Image,” delivered during “Diversity Week” at Highline Community College in Seattle, WA. January 18, 2011.
- “Social Movements v. Social Media: The Internet Myth and Our Newton’s Laws.” Paper presented at the Maryland Communications Association conference, Frostburg, MD. October 23, 2010.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- Editorial board of The Black Scholar Journal
MEDIA PRODUCTION
- Basic Adobe Premier (Video)
- Adobe Audition (Audio)
Emancipatory Journalism Model (first published by Shah, 2007 and here reprinted from I Mix What I Like, p. 128).