(r)evolutions: a soundtrack for #OccupyWallStreet

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"A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having." — V for Vendetta

I wanted to take a moment to make my own artistic contribution to the #OccupyWallStreet movement. I do not pretend to have the experience or cognitive dexterity required to fully understand this economic quagmire we are standing in, and I will allow others within this community to offer their own assessments and suggested calls for action. What I do have, however, is a keen appreciation of the amazing power art and music have to reflect our interiors, to nourish our spirits, and to inspire our ongoing involvement during chaotic times like these.

This mix was created in the spirit of the great protest songs of the 1960's, channeled through one of the most (r)evolutionary art forms of our time: socially and spiritually conscious hip hop (don't worry, there are plenty of rock and roll touch-points scattered throughout for the uninitiated). This set covers a very wide range of emotional content, from frustration to optimism to outrage. I also attempted to weave a variety of perspectives together, from premodern to modern to postmodern, as a demonstration of how these different points of view can all "fit together" into a single cohesive experience.

Every song in this mix is carefully wrapped around two main thematic pillars, which should be instantly recognizable to the Integral crowd:

Wake up.

Rise up.

As the editor of IntegralLife.com and a long time integralist, my primary motivation is to do everything I possibly can to encourage growth and awakening in this world. For the record, it is not my goal to proselytize the Integral Vision until the entire planet evolves to integral consciousness—that would clearly be a fool's hope. Rather, my role is to continuously document and present the key insights, perspectives, and practices that can be so effective in catalyzing our own personal and cultural growth, providing our small but ever-emerging community with the tools they need to step more fully into the world—so that each of us can become more skillful communicators and agents of evolution in our own little pockets of the Kosmos.

One of the common problems I have seen in the integral community is the temptation to use developmental perspectives to dismiss or write off other people's perspectives. Unfortunately, once we've made an object out of someone else's subject and lumped it into one category or another, it can become difficult to think outside the color-coded box, and the risk of egregious oversimplification and even contempt can disconnect us from the sort of empathy required to understand the problem and to find the solutions that we need.

As such, it's easy for many integralists to regard something like #OccupyWallStreet as a largely "green" movement (with plenty of healthy orange underpinnings, in my opinion, which prevents the movement from slipping off the edge into outright anti-corporatism and anti-capitalism, as well as a sprinkling of red anarchism for good measure). It's just green doing what green does best, we might say, challenging these latest disasters of modernity and the seemingly endless pursuit of profit over people. And to some extent, that can be an extremely useful generalization. But we need to remember that, regardless of how we might want to classify the movement, at its core it is an organic response to an insidious condition that infects the entire spiral of development, top to bottom.

One of the themes we often discuss here at Integral Life is the desire to create a healthy "conveyor belt" that can help us grow through increasing waves of consciousness, complexity, and care. But I do not believe that we can begin to hope for a healthy "conveyor belt" in the left-hand quadrants without healthy economic mobility in the right-hand quadrants.  Without a way to prevent such massive income disparity, without real economic mobility and the opportunities for growth and self-authorship that it allows, without a healthy and robust middle class, the gaps between each stage of development become dramatically increased—after all, the very best way to prevent people from growing into their fullest potential is to keep them locked into deficiency needs. This in turn ensures that the world remains perpetually entrenched in conflicting ideologies, reinforcing our collective fear and cynicism, and ultimately resulting in complete political paralysis. In other words, welcome to America in 2011.

For these reasons, I believe it is extremely important for all of us to pay very close attention to the #OccupyWallStreet uprising, and to seriously consider what the Integral Vision might have to contribute to the movement as a whole. Each of us holds our own unique piece to this massively complex puzzle, and all of us have a vital role to play in the ongoing drama of evolutionary emergence. Integral philosophy offers an exceptionally rich and powerful framework to help us make sense of all this complexity, but we cannot allow ourselves to remain forever stuck in abstraction. We must live this vision in our daily lives—in our hearts, in our hands, and if need be, in our boots. We must step beyond our own biases and pre-conceived notions of how the world should work. We need to remain ever vigilant to the dangers of partiality, while at the same time being careful not to get lost in the forest without ever touching a single tree.

It helps to remember the story of the Buddha, which is the story of a man who sat and sat and sat some more, until finally it was time to stand up.

My friends, it's time to stand.

It's time to dance.

Download here (265 MB, 2 hours)

WHAT IS A DJ MIX?

To some, a DJ mix might seem like little more than an iTunes playlist, a mix tape you made for your boyfriend in middle school, or the product of wedding DJs who are contractually obligated to play "Mony Mony" and "The Chicken Dance" everywhere they go. But to others, the DJ mix is something much more extraordinary. When done right, it can be a truly integrative art form—taking bits and pieces of our shared cultural reference points, and using technology as an instrument to transpose, transform, and recontextualize those pieces until something genuinely and unmistakably new emerges.

The DJ is so much more than a human jukebox who puts together a compilation of catchy tracks. It's about knowing how to fit those tracks together into greater and greater wholes—matching, manipulating, looping, and layering individual songs into a single seamless experience. At his or her best, the DJ is a musical maven, turning people on to new sounds and new genres while fighting the growing tides of cultural homogenization. It's an art of sonic ninjitsu, learning how to use turntables, MIDI players, or laptops to mix and match beats, keys, and melodies. And like any performance art, DJing can be a sort of 21st century shamanism, conjuring and shaping the states and experiences of entire groups of people by crafting the most unbelievably satisfying breakdowns, bardos, and transitions—creating a space for all of us to dance ourselves into oblivion.

Now to be perfectly clear, the DJ mix is still a subversive art form, and is often perceived as a threat to the status quo of the music industry—which, come on, kind of makes it a little bit cooler doesn't it? Although no small-time DJs like me have ever been harassed or sued for sharing their mixes for free on the internet, I have to admit the fact that this all exists in something of a grey area in copyright law. I do believe I am morally justified in sharing my art with you all, but there are some who would disagree. For more on this, check out this friendly debate I had with Ottmar Liebert a few years ago.

If you would like to connect with me on Facebook and receive updates on future mixes, here is a link to my dj rekluse fan page.

TRACK LIST

Here is a comprehensive track list for the Dark Matter mix, complete with time-codes and purchasing links. If you like anything you hear in this mix, please support the artists by PURCHASING THE ALBUMS!

(r)evolution I

(0:00) Awake – The Doors
(0:26) Revolution (STR Part 1) – DJ Z-Trip
(0:52) Build This World – Joyo Velarde
(3:07) Heartbeat – Nneka
(5:12) Nothing to Lose – Blitz the Ambassador
(7:43) Civil Disobedience – Sage Francis
(9:52) Tr(n)igger – Saul Williams
(11:45) Land of Confusion – Genesis
(13:11) Capital G – Nine Inch Nails
(15:55) Angry – The Bug
(17:22) Kalkuta Show – Gift of Gab and Lateef

(r)evolution II

(0:00) Strange Days (Thievery Corporation mix) – The Doors
(2:00) War (King Britt Mix) – Edwin Starr
(2:17) Nucular Turrism – George W. Bush
(4:41) Revolution – The Beatles
(5:11) We Need a Revolution – Dead Prez
(6:05) Rise Up – Zeph & Azeem
(7:27) Rising Down – The Roots w/ Mos Def
(9:58) Robbin Hood Theory – Gang Starr
(13:21) Six Days – DJ Shadow w/ Mos Def
(16:36) Storm Warning – Latyrx
(19:24) Harvester of Sorrow – Metallica
(21:46) Pray for Rain – Massive Attack
(24:16) Resurrection – Lupe Fiasco

(r)evolution III

(0:00) Riot – Wyclef Jean and Serj Tankian
(2:50) We R In Need of a Musical Revolution – Esthero
(4:48) Evolution Revolution Love – Tricky w/ Ed Kowalczyk
(6:30) The World's Gone Mad – Handsome Boy Modelling School (feat. Del the Funky Homosapian)
(9:35) Rise – Flobots
(12:02) Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix
(12:20) Wake Up – Rage Against the Machine
(12:45) Rebel Without A Pause – Public Enemy
(13:19) The Rebel – Zion I
(14:16) Sly Fox – Nas
(16:12) Everything Is Under Control – Coldcut
(18:18) Animal in Man – Dead Prez
(20:34) My Favorite Mutiny – The Coup
(24:03) Fight the Power – Public Enemy
(24:24) The Message – Grand Master Flash

(r)evolution IV

(0:00) Poems 4 Post Modern Decay – Zion I
(1:45) I Told Y'all – J Dilla
(2:33) Black Steel – Tricky
(3:59) Seein' Thangs – DJ Shadow and David Banner
(5:25) Last Trumpet – Lyrics Born
(9:13) If – The Maroons
(11:41) Evil – Paris
(15:44) Resist – The Lifesavas
(16:49) Beautiful Struggle – Talib Kweli
(18:36) American Terrorist – Lupe Fiasco
(22:48) The Travelers – Brother Ali

(r)evolution V

(0:00) Weight of the World – Pigeon John
(2:50) As the World Turns – Blackalicious
(6:14) Yes We Can! – Azeem w/ Variable Unit
(8:44) Nobel Acceptance Speech – President Obama
(10:11) Something's Got to Give – Beastie Boys
(12:52) Eugene's Lament – Beastie Boys
(15:04) One Day – Matisyahu

Download here (265 MB, 2 hours)

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Corey deVos Corey deVos is Editor, Writer, and Producer of Integral Life, as well as the Managing Editor of KenWilber.com. He has worked for Integral Institute since Spring of 2003, and has been a student of integral theory and practice since 1996. A collection of Corey's writings and "trans-genre" DJ mixes can be found on www.CoreyWdeVos.com.                            In Hot Water           Fully Human, Fully Divine: Integrating the Work of James Fowler and Evelyn Underhill           Responding to the Death of Osama bin Laden