Shardul Pandey: I welcome you AWKWORD at SANGKRIT, please tell our netizens about yourself ?
AWKWORD: AWKWORD (@AWKWORDrap) is a lifelong activist, a sociologist and a rap/Hip Hop artist who is in the midst of finalizing the first-ever 100% for-charity global Hip Hop project, World View. Organized almost exclusively through the Internets, World View features contributions from every continent, approximately 20 countries and all U.S. regions.
The album is sponsored by The Morgan Stanley Foundation and The DJ Booth and will be available via DJBooth.net, as well as iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Bandcamp, AudioMack and other online locales. All proceeds from World View are donated to Guns 4 Cameras, a 501c3 nonprofit that goes beyond the gun exchange, working to eradicate street violence through the education and empowerment of at-risk youth. Topics covered on the 25+-track album include mass incarceration and police brutality, poverty, imperialism, war, rape, freedom of information, drug abuse, depression and suicide, loss, teen angst, personal contradictions and individuality, perseverance and hope, the music industry and much more.
I will be dropping a brand-new video for my single “Throw Away The Key” on mass incarceration, stop and frisk, police brutality and systemic injustice and inequality. The video is sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Occupy The Hood and will be world premiered on 08/06/13 exclusively via RapGenius.com. Once it goes live there, though, it will be available to all (via youtube).
Shardul Pandey: So what is your ultimate message for netizens ?
AWKWORD: If you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.
Like Anne Frank said, nobody ever got poor by giving.
- We are losing our privacy and civil liberties every day — and this will be the end of democracy (not terrorism).
- For the poor and people of color, there is hardly any democracy (or justice) today.
- We all have a right to information, and there is no greater and more equal source than the World Wide Web.
“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”
— Juan Ramón Jiménez
“Anything a writer writes should be written with the urgency of someone holding a gun in their mouth.”
— Maya Angelou
Shardul Pandey: I am open for interviewing all those individuals who own their domain to somehow create virtual wealth in webspace since sustaining freedom is mostly built around domains running wonderful utilities in webspace that human-beings enjoy. What is your opinion for continuing this?
AWKWORD: First off, let me say thank you for everything you do to help further this mission — and for thinking of me in the same light.
As I believe you know, I am a major support of Aaron Swartz, Edward Snowden, Wikileaks, etc.
Also, it was on myspace that the idea for World View was first born, as I was inspired by all the music producers from around the world who were on there back in 2008 who asked me if they could remix songs off my solo debut. World View today is an extension of that, with many of those remixes and much more completely new music.
Further, as the domain owner of AWKWORDrap.com, I continue the tradition of private, individual ownership of Web space.
Shardul Pandey: It is really great to own your domain individually because you value your freedom. Such a tradition of individual ownership of webspace must get followed by all. What Ladar Levision could do with lavabit.com as absolute owner of domain that google.com registrants cannot ever do being a publicly traded company. I wish you freedom. Thank you!
