This episode I have a returning guest Macedonia to discuss one of the most unsung gems of the 1970's; Christopher St. John's Top of the Heap.

A radical take down of the pangs of social mobility for the Black individual, Top of the Heap is an entry into Black Cinema that takes a hard look at Black existence in the imperial core through the experience of the Black Police Officer. Macedonia and I dissect this film that both hit us like a ton of bricks upon first viewing and we both believe it holds significant keys to discussions around Blackness within empire.

If you want to watch Top of the Heap before the episode drops its free on Tubi

To see more of Macedonia is doing you can check his work on these platforms:

Radio BSOTS - http://bsots.com/

BSOTS blog - https://radiobsots.blogspot.com/

Mixcloud - https://www.mixcloud.com/macedonia/

Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@bsots

Threads - https://www.threads.com/@bsots

IG - https://www.instagram.com/bsots/

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Popular educator and organizer Layan Fuleihan joins me to discuss the current battle of ideas here in the Imperial Core of the U.S. and in the long struggle towards dismantling capitalism to build a socialist future what is the educators job and approach? I talk to Layan both philosophically and practically about the work she does at The People Forum in the belly of beast of New York City and the importance of spaces for political education that support active organizing in this current moment. Its a rich convo and the first of many of its type about education I plan to have on Within Our Gates.

We also talk about The Peoples Forum current campaign to raise funds for the new space in NYC. For more info about the initiative on how to donate click here

Layan Fuleihan is a popular educator, organizer, and lifelong student of historical and contemporary struggles of the oppressed. Layan developed her educational approach while working with youth and families in schools, libraries, and community and feminist organizations. In her role at The Peoples Forum, she is committed to developing political education programming and resources to support the building of working class, internationalist movements.

Layan approaches her work with optimism and the conviction that a world free from the control of imperialism and capitalism is possible. When not studying or organizing, Layan cooks for friends, enjoys poetry, and dreams of returning to a liberated Palestine.

Contact Layan at [email protected]

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

For this episode of Within Our Gates I am joined by my comrade Jared Ball to do a long awaited talk on Hip Hop and its politics. We dig into some significant, yet under known projects that looked to deepen Hip hop's connection to the broader movement of Black revolutionary history such as the Black August Hip Hop project, and what this period history uncovered about the issues of the artist/celebrity in liberal capitalist culture in the context of wedding them with political movements. We dig into a rather unseen documentary on the project as well as some other sources. Its a dope episode and frankly one of the first in a series of episodes I plan on doing with Jared on this subject.

Looking forward to hearing thoughts!

Check out some of these links before the episode drops!

Black August Hip Hop Project Documentary

My 50th Anniversary Hip Hop Documentary by Jared Ball

The Assimilation of Hip Hop, Hegemony, and the Empire State by Shellyne Rodriguez

50 Years, Is There Anything Left Of Hip Hop?

Dr. Jared A. Ball is a Professor of Communications Studies and Black/Africana Studies at Morgan State University, author of I Mix What I Like!: A Mixtape Manifesto: https://imixwhatilike.org/2011/07/01/..., The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power, host of iMiXWHATiLiKE!, co-founder of Black Liberation Media, and co-host of Saturdays with Renee: • Saturdays With Renee You can find his work on YouTube at / @imixwhatilikejaredball and / @blackliberationmedia

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Peace Comrades!

This episode is actually one I recorded October of last year, but was only exclusive on my Patreon, but it was too good of an episode and too important in terms of topic to NOT release to you all. So here it goes. I am joined once again by my friend Adam Thomas to talk about the then recent rerelease of The Spook Who Sat by Door, and how this film has a shaky reputation with the Black professional managerial class. We also dig into how Spook got made, the differences between the film and the book, how it existed in its time and even do some side convos on how cold war logic for Gen X audiences effect how the film is remembered.

Hope you all enjoy!

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Peace Everyone. Im back with another solo episode talking about the world premiere of my feature length film The Hand that Feeds, and my thoughts around the current state of independent cinema. I wrestle with the contradictions of Second Cinema and how under its heavy hand a truly radical cinema can never materialize. I also speak on what I believe is the need for a Revolutionary Arts International, and address some (unprincipled) criticism thrown my way.

Looking forward to hearing comments on this one!

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Peace Folks. For this episode I am doing something a bit different. I decided to solicit questions from my listeners and answer them! And boy did I get some fantastic questions and hopefully the answers I give are up to snuff. I tackle things from the Hollywood response to the genocide in Gaza, my opinion of Fourth Cinema, how art fits into the Marxist concept of the superstructure, the work of David Lynch and some other things. This is something Ill be looking to do at least a few times a year. I hope you all enjoy! Shout out to the Patrons who sent in these (great) questions!

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Joining me on Within Our Gates is Animator and Scholar to Samantha Youssef to talk about the entertainment industry and how it uses often initially well meaning artists to uphold Hollywood's imperial messaging system. Samantha and I take a deep and personal dive into our experiences in the training grounds of arts/entertainment, we compare and contrast our similarities and differences but ultimately come to conclusions that all the methods point in the same pernicious direction.

Its a great talk and look forward to more with Samantha on these topics.

Here are some things to check out that feature Samantha speaking about her work and experiences.

Is Superman Pro-Watermelon?

True Hollywood Stories on the Military Industrial Complex

"We See the Audience as Marks!" the Psychology of Manipulation in Film

Encoding Empire: How Black Panther Manufactures Consent for Imperialism Among Oppressed Groups

Donald Duck Does D.E.I.

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Additionally, check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's, a series I co-hosted with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism. We take a dive into the wild world of 80's Hollywood and uncover what it has to say about this imperial project called The United States. You can find us on Patreon and make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Tumes

Joining me for this episode is writer and political theorist Sudip Bhattacharya as we dig into Mira Nair's cult favorite film Mississippi Masala. We dig into its attempt to have commentary on the conundrums of cross cultural exchange and how the film fits into the trajectory of liberal diversity projects in American Cinema during the early 90's. We also fit this into work Sudip has done on the topic of culture from a socialist/Marxist perspective in order to deepen our convo on what was/is missing then and now in works like Masala and others.

We also have some great digressions talking about Domenico Losurdo's work, the conservative nature of Spike Lee, the Birth of a Nation level racism of Indiana Jones Temple of Doom and the grave problem of socialist groups like Platypus Affiliated Society. Its a top notch convo and the first of many to come with Sudip.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

The Hampton Reader

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Currently we are hosting a asynchronous study group talking about Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart's classic text How to Read Donald Duck. We will going for the rest of the month so join up now!

Also check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's co-hosted series beginning with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism.

We will be posting the audio recordings of the episode here but make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

How are the arts in the vaunted "age of tech" affected? And how do we study these effects with a materialist approach? To answer these questions I have with me Dwayne Monroe who is a technologist with decades of experience in the US and Europe. He intimately knows how technologies the media describes as ethereal really work, where they come from, and how they are used in the multinational corporations and governments dominating our lives. He applies what he calls a Noir Marxist lens (stylistically informed by the work of Raymond Chandler, analytically informed by Marxian materialism) to dissecting the tech industry.

We have a fantastic conversation covering everything from so called Artificial Intelligence, how the creative class is a deployment zone for tech industry shenanigans, the sordid history of camera technology within the world atomic bomb testing and military projects and what radicals need to consider when integrating tech in their lives and organizations. Its really an important convo and one of the first of many I plan to have with Dwayne. For some links to Dwayne's work check it here:

My main blog, 'Computational Impacts' - https://monroelab.com Verdigris (the literary journal I started with a few friends, I typed the wrong URL in the label I used for the show) - https://vdgasjournal.com The film podcast, Film Conversations (we talk about films and the industry overall from a grounded perspective) - https://open.spotify.com/show/3E5dPk4of0pFAVdcTjGbzy And here is a link to the film we discussed in the episode:

https://youtu.be/XdrVWeXYUog?si=Kvh9ApjSzo90hSaw Also two of Dwayne's recent appearances on MAKC: https://www.youtube.com/live/TLue-ZDo04Y?si=vvF7gKK3NOjwOASN

https://www.youtube.com/live/OxQ_EWinHtA?si=ns-6ZXUpyTKC2r-G

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Currently we are hosting a asynchronous study group talking about Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart's classic text How to Read Donald Duck. We will going for the rest of the month so join up now!

Also check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's co-hosted series beginning with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism.

We will be posting the audio recordings of the episode here but make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams

Is it Black Cinema or Black Hollywood? To me this is an essential question and for this reason I had to bring on Filmmaker Chad Murdock to talk about with me. We dig into a piece that Chad written called The False Notions of a Blackened Image where he does a material analysis on images that are routinely dispersed currently throughout popular Black movies. We also speak about his recently released film, Phantom of a Killing, and dig into the origins of Chad's development as an artist, his politicization and how thats informed his mode of production. We go a lot of angles, dig into a lotta artists from Ousmane Sembene to Yukio Mishima. Its rich and robust and frankly will be the first of many! Chad also has a special on-line screening of his work on Write Brain TV this Thursday July 24th at 6pm EST Check it out! For more on Chad's work check his website.

To get a jump on the shows a few days early, bonus video episodes every month, deeper dives into text and works with revolutionary content and political art study groups check out Mtume's Patreon and become a subscriber!

Currently we are hosting a asynchronous study group talking about Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart's classic text How to Read Donald Duck. We will going for the rest of the month so join up now!

Also check out my new colaboration The Imperial 80's co-hosted series beginning with Jared Ware of Millenials are Killing Capitalism.

We will be posting the audio recordings of the episode here but make sure to follow the channel if you want to catch the livestreams