The Afghan Drug Problem by the Numbers

Afghanistan’s drug story begins with a well-worn fact: the country is the world’s largest producer of poppy opium, the raw material from which heroin is made.

Here is a less worn fact: Afghans have now become a leading consumer of their own drugs. An estimated one-million citizens (or eight-percent of the total population) are addicted, according to a United Nations survey.

Some experts believe this enormous drug problem may present a greater long-term threat to the stability of the country than the war.

Here is an index of Afghanistan’s drug statistics based on the annual United Nations Opium Surveys from 2009 to 2012:

— UN officials blame the drug addiction problem on three things: decades of war-related trauma, unlimited availability of cheap narcotics, and limited access to treatment.

— At least one-million Afghans are addicted to drugs, but likely more since the survey doesn’t cover women and children.

— There are 350,000 heroin and opium addicts, a 75 percent increase since 2005.

— Fifty percent of Afghanistan’s opium-using parents give the drug to their children.

— Between 12 to 41 percent of Afghan police recruits test positive for some kind of drugs.

— Nearly 900 tons of opium and 375 tons of heroin are trafficked from Afghanistan every year.

— Afghan opium/heroin has a double-impact, creating health havocs in consuming nations and putting large amounts of money in the hands of both criminals and terrorist movements.

— Ironically, the number of people dying from heroin overdoses in Russia and NATO countries is actually higher than the number of their soldiers killed during war-time engagements in Afghanistan.

— Opium poppy cultivation rose by 18 percent in 2012 despite eradication efforts by Afghan governors.

— Government corruption plays a role in undercutting efforts to take on the opium trade. So does the Taliban, who tax the crop in areas under their control.

— The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the Taliban may have earned as much as $700 million from the poppy crop in 2011.

— Poppy thrives in poor soil and Afghan farmers can make up to $10,000 a year per hectare of raw opium, versus $120 per hectare of wheat.

— Heroin is considered by many health officials as the world’s most deadly drug with a market of $65 billion worldwide and 15 million addicts, 100,000 heroin related deaths, and a major contributor to the spread of HIV.

Under the Bridge in West Kabul

In West Kabul there is a bridge called Pul-sokhta where hundreds of Afghan drugs addicts gather to shoot up heroin, smoke, buy, and sell drugs or nod off after using. Raw sewage flows openly under the bridge and garbage covers nearly every inch of ground.

Addicts under the bridge smoke heroin as well as shoot it up. A 23-year-old named Hasibullah tells us they put the heroin on foil—sometimes from the inside of cigarette packs—and light it up. They suck in the smoke using straws from juice boxes.

This guys who called himself Shir Shaw, says he’s been doing heroin for a year under the bridge. He first started by smoking hashish while in the Afghan Army, eventually adding heroin to it. He steals, begs, or works helping to fill up taxis with people (Afghanis share their rides to central locations) to earn the equivalent of a couple of dollars a day, usually buying four ampules of heroin.

He says he spends his days shooting up and his nights hustling for money.

Hasibullah: “It’s hell down here. We sleep in the dirt and shit. Everyone is always fighting, but once they inject they just fall asleep, fall down, and forget where they are. When someone dies, government comes and gets the body and they hold it for the family to pick it up. There are doctor’s assistants down there, university graduates, soldiers—they have family issues, lost people in the war, economic problems, or too much money, started having fun, and now can’t stop.”

The path under the Pul-sokhta Bridge is lined with flowing sewage and filled with garbage. Many consider those who follow where it leads to be already dead. 

All text and photos by Kevin Sites.

A pro-injection site banner in Vancouver. via Flickr.

The Conservative government is stubbornly standing in the way of addicts and the safe injection sites that could help them recover. If they had their way, addicts, even if the ones who are mentally ill, would be kept out of our backyards and left to fend for themselves. In June, they decided to ignore the Supreme Court and introduce Bill C-65, a moralistic piece of legislation that would make setting up supervised injection sites an absolute nightmare.

For those who don't know, a supervised injection site is a place where intravenous drug users can come to shoot up under the supervision of trained nurses and staff. They bring their own drugs, but are given clean equipment, like needles and tourniquets, and told how to inject safely to minimize the risk of overdose. If they overdose at the site, which happens pretty regularly, a nurse is there to intervene and stop them from dying.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by denying Insite, a Vancouver-based safe injection facility, an exemption from Canadian drug laws. Insite was to be kept open because it was saving lives, and the Court ruled “where the evidence indicates that a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption.”

I guess they were pissed about not getting what they wanted, because in response to this ruling, the government introduced Bill C-65. If passed, the law would require anyone hoping to operate a safe injection facility to meet 26 requirements, including police background checks on all potential employees dating back 10 years, crime stats on potential locations that police don't even really keep, evidence that they can sustain the site, and the views of local law enforcement, public health officials, provincial and territorial ministers of health, and municipal leaders, among other things that make it almost impossible to open a facility that only benefits public health.

I spoke with Donna May, the founder of Jac's Voice, an organization dedicated to helping drug addicts living with mental illnesses—in addition to providing coping strategies for their loved ones—about why she's been fighting for safe injection sites. She told me about her daughter, Jacquilynne.

When Jac, as Donna calls her, was 15, she fell and severely injured her back. The doctors prescribed oxys for the pain, and she was grateful; not only did they relieve the physical discomfort, but mentally they made her feel different somehow. Her mood, something she'd struggled with her whole life, was under control, the voices in her head had disappeared, and for the first time ever, she felt comfortable in her own skin. Jac could never connect to people, but the drugs made it all better. It wasn't long after, however, that the addiction spiralled out of control—growing into cocaine, fentanyl patches, heroin, and crystal meth.

Eventually, Jac ended up on the street. She was turning tricks and stealing from cancer patients to sustain her all-powerful drug habit. It was at this point that Donna told to get her act together, or else she wouldn’t be able to help her any longer. So when Jac’s addiction caused her to fall seriously ill, she didn't contact her mother. It wasn't until doctors were ready to amputate Jac's legs that Donna even found out how sick her daughter was. It was also around then that she learned her daughter was a diagnosed sociopath, which explained her recklessness, emotional detachment, and her substance abuse problems. Sociopathy is often co-morbid with substance abuse, which means the two diseases often occur together and one can make the other worse.

Jac died last year at 34, taken by the very thing she thought had saved her. But a supervised injection site could have kept her daughter alive, says Donna, speaking at a Toronto Board of Health meeting held earlier in July. Jac would've known that some of the heroin she was taking was actually home-cooked fentanyl that was cut with levamisole, an agent used by vets to deworm animals, which causes flesh-eating disease. She would've also had a clean environment to use and avoided the immune deficiency diseases she contracted. “The supervisors would have been able to see she was slipping, getting worse, and recommended her to seek other options, instead of sending her to a hospital where they drained the abscess and sent her home,” Donna says.  

According to extensive research done on harm reduction, supervised injection sites positively impact public health and safety, and reduce overdose deaths and behaviours that cause HIV and Hepatitis C, like sharing injection supplies. They get more people into detox and addiction services, and reduce public drug use. There's been no indication that safe injection sites make a community more prone to crime, which is supposedly the Conservatives' biggest worry. They also save the health care system a lot of money because running these sites is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for the treatment of expensive diseases like HIV/AIDS and Hep C, the risks of which are significantly reduced by safe injection practices.

The Canadian Public Health Association, Canadian Medical Association, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Canadian Nurses Association, and the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, among other organizations, support access to supervised injection sites.

In short, they are awesome, and there's no logical reason to stand in their way.

One needs to look no further than Vancouver to see an example of a successful one. Insite, located in Vancouver's downtown east side—one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada, home to about a third of the city's 12,000 injection drug users—averages 1,028 visits per day. In 2012, 9,259 unique individuals visited the site, and 51% of the time, they were injecting heroin. There were 497 overdose incidents that year, but not a single death; no one has ever died at Insite.

Victoria Baker has been working as nurse at Insite since 2007 and has helped countless patients who've overdosed and stopped breathing. She says almost always, after they wake up from an overdose, addicts are terrified, but they'll always refuse the hospital, where they're judged and treated like the scum of the earth. Addicts need people they can trust, and Insite provides them with that. This is why, after they've established a relationship with the addict, Insite staff can look for indication that they are ready for recovery and convince them to get help at Onsite, the detox service just upstairs. There is research to back up her claims: safe injection facilities are simply better at getting people off drugs.

Victoria, of course, thinks Bill C-65 is bullshit. “It's technically legal, but ideologically twisted. It's obviously based on [the Health Minister's] ideology, or she doesn't want it to happen on her term, but the evidence shows that supervised injection facilities have worked, not just in Vancouver, but internationally.”

Insite has done some remarkable work, and the world has taken notice. A few weeks ago, Brazil and Colombia sent delegates down to Insite to see how it works; both countries hope to start a similar harm reduction initiative.

While the federal government remains opposed, a number of cities have expressed interest in opening up their own safe injection sites, including Victoria, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. Most recently, a report was presented to the Toronto Board of Health, which recommended that the board ask the provincial government to fund the integration of supervised injection sites into existing harm reduction services on a pilot basis, and that they register their opposition to Bill C-65. Not a single person spoke out against the idea, and the board passed the motion in a 6-2 vote.

But despite their glaringly obvious advantages, many people, including Toronto's beloved mayor and chief of police, still publicly oppose their establishment of supervised injection sites the city. In the grand scheme of things, Toronto's desire for safe them means very little. Bill C-65 went through the first reading stage before the House of Commons broke for its summer recess, and a lot of public pressure will be needed to challenge the Conservatives' holier-than-thou position on drugs.

At first, I was confused by the government's stance on this. Safe injection sites don't increase crime, do improve public health, and cut costs. It's kind of a no-brainer. But then I realized that if this government doesn't agree with what you're doing, they don't care about your health at all, and we know this from their similar positions on sex work and medical marijuana. It must be nice to sit in positions of privilege and pass judgment on people whose lives you don't understand.

So here's a news flash: denying addicts a place to shoot up safely with clean equipment isn't going to make them disappear. It will only push them to do it in alleys, under bridges, in playgrounds, and lead them no closer to recovery. Many of them will die this way. Addiction is a public health problem, not an issue of politics, but it becomes one when you've turned your back on a group of extremely marginalized people. When you're making decisions on matters of life and death, which drug use often is, it's time to get off your ideological high horse. It's harm reduction, not more policing, that improves health and reduces crime, and when scientific evidence says safe injection sites will reduce overdose deaths and drug-related diseases, everyone needs to step back and let them happen.

Previously:

Oxycontin in Canada: Wildly Addictive and Barely Regulated

Michael Mayer's first feature-length movie has been dubbed the "Brokeback Mountain of Israeli film." Which isn't too inaccurate of a comparison, in that it's about two men having a romantic, sexual relationship in an environment where you might not typically expect two men to have a romantic, sexual relationship.    

But Out in the Dark—a story about a Palestinian student named Nimer and his Israeli lawyer lover, Roy—is more of a gay Persepolis to Brokeback's triple-denim Disney drama. Set against the backdrop of Israeli-Palestinian relations—historically, not the best of relations—it explores the stigma of gay, inter-faith relationships between men from perhaps the two most notoriously opposed countries in the world.    

I gave Michael a ring to speak about his film, being gay in Palestine, and Israeli police corruption.  

VICE: Hi, Michael. What inspired you to write and direct this story? 
Michael Mayer: I met a friend for dinner who was volunteering at the gay and lesbian center in Tel Aviv, and he told me about the support they offered to Palestinians hiding illegally. First of all, I never knew about that. We chose to tell this story very intimately, about people who aren't politically involved until they're forced to confront and take sides and actions. They try to float above it, like a lot of people in Israel do, out of exhaustion in dealing with the conflict over the years. I’ve become more politically aware through the process of making this film.

Was your intention to make more people politically aware, or did you just want to tell a good story?
My first priority was emotional impact. To assume that the film will actually create change is pompous. Even if one person goes home after the movie, googles "gay Palestinians” and reads an article, that’s more than I could’ve asked for.

Has the audience response in Israel been different to the response in other countries?
Yes. The reactions at home were surprisingly embracing for a niche film. Some left-wing Israelis felt I didn’t push the political envelope enough. But the movie opened in Israel on 18 screens, which was a big surprise to me because of the gay subject matter. Obviously it played much better in Tel Aviv.  But it also had to do with the success we had internationally. It made Israeli audiences curious.

Did any Palestinians attend the Israeli screenings?
There was a nice turnout of Palestinians, yeah. The film probably won’t be released in the Palestinian territories since there’s no theater in Ramallah right now. But some people were trying to organize a Palestinian screening in a public space, like a university, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Michael Mayer (left) on set.

Have you had many negative reactions?
During casting, there was a Palestinian actress who refused to audition because she felt that the script didn’t portray Palestine in a positive light. It was funny, because two days earlier I had an Israeli actor show up who threw the script on the table, pointed at me and shouted, ”You’re an Israel-hater!”

Did he just storm out?
No, he read for a part, which was kind of surprising. The fact that people from both sides of the political fence were unhappy with the film actually reinforces the feeling that we’re telling a balanced story. We’re not trying to piss anyone off—there are good guys and bad guys on both sides in real life and the film.

Is this kind of inter-faith gay romance common between Israelis and Palestinians?
In 2006, a BBC radio show estimated that there were 350,000 gay Palestinians hiding out in Israel, mostly single, but these things do happen. Obviously things have changed—the openness and attitude has really improved over the last decade. I think wherever you go, the gay community tends to be more accepting of differences, whether inter-faith or interracial. There’s a line in the movie: "A dick is a dick.”

What was your greatest challenge in shooting the film?
The biggest risk I took was casting Nicholas, a non-actor, in one of the leading roles. But obviously it paid off.

Were there any locations that were difficult to shoot at?
One night we were shooting in a village outside Jerusalem when a street was being fought over between two clans, so the military, border patrol, and police came. We were blocking the road and got kind of caught in the middle.

Is there a gay nightlife scene in Palestine?
No actual gay clubs, but there are house parties. A few years ago, there were only completely underground Palestinian gay nights in Tel Aviv, which are now fairly popular. They started at 5:00 PM and ended by 11:00 PM so that people could make it home in time without having to answer for where they’d been.

I found the sex scenes surprisingly discreet—is there a reason you exercised so much restraint as a director?
Relationships—including gay ones—are not just about the sex and passion. Yes, it was an important part of the movie. But I felt Roy and Nimer’s love story would be so much stronger if it was more than just another gay romance. There’s a connection that goes beyond the physical. Those are the moments I wanted to show—intimacy and tenderness, loving and caring. Yael and I discussed it a lot while we were writing the script. I was like, "They can have sex on the second date, but not the first."

One of the Israeli cops in your movie tries to blackmail Nimer into becoming a collaborator. Does that happen much in reality?
The Israeli cop and a lot of people wouldn’t think he was being corrupt or abusive in any way—they think they’re protecting Israeli lives against terrorists and extremists. These things do happen. A cop tried to recruit one of our Palestinian camera guys when he was in college. What happens to one of the characters—who is murdered in the film for being a gay Palestinian—has happened in the past. Although, not counting the Gaza Strip, things have been fairly quiet between Israel and Palestine, in terms of collaborator revenge killings.

Thanks, Michael.

Follow Christine on Twitter: @ChristineCocoJ

More gay stories:

Photographing the Loving Gays of Vietnam

An Interview with a Gay, Russian Neo-Nazi

The Meth-Fuelled, Week-Long Orgies Ravaging London's Gay Sex Party Scene

Hip-hop is having a renaissance right now in the city of New York, where it seems like every other day a new MC rises up out of the five boroughs with an even more unique style and approach to the music than what we thought was possible before. Motley crews like the A$AP Mob, the Beast Coast, and World's Fair have given us a reason to love rhymes again. We've written a lot about this stuff, but sometimes words don't do it justice. So, we've linked up with scene insider Verena Stefanie Grotto to document the new New York movement as it happens in real time, with intimate shots of rappers, scenesters, artists, and fashion fiends.

This week, Verena headed overseas to catch the Underachievers, the Brooklyn hip-hop duo comprised of Issa Dash and AK, play a sold-out show in London. In addition to the performance, she also snapped some shots of the group giving back to their fans by autographing some gear and sharing a few drinks. 

Photographer Verena Stefanie was born and bred in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. The small town is not known for hip-hop, but they do make a very tasty grape-based pomace brandy there called grappa. Stefanie left Bassano del Grappa at the age of 17 to go and live the wild skateboarding life in Barcelona, Spain, where she worked as the Fashion Coordinator for VICE Spain. Tired of guiding photographers to catch the best shots, she eventually grabbed the camera herself and is now devoted to documenting artists, rappers, style-heads, and more. She recently directed a renowned documentary about the Grime scene in UK and has had photo features in GQ, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and many more. 

Check out her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

@VerenaStefanie 

Previously - A$AP Ferg and A$AP Nast Got Jiggy in Great Britain, Bruh Bruh

It’s one thing to have to have your life under the microscope of the public eye, but it’s another to offer it up voluntarily. Celebrities, politicians—they are constantly under the public gaze without much of a choice. Quebecer Guillaume Simoneau is neither celebrity nor politician. Guillaume is a photographer, who recently published a new book of photos titled, Love and War, about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Caroline Annandale (also not a celebrity).

Guillaume’s book examines the on-and-off again relationship with Caroline in a fragmented, memory-induced series. The photos aren’t in chronological order, but the few words help give context and understanding to the events. The story, as seen through the eyes of the photographer, shows the affair from his perspective: blissful years together before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Caroline’s eventual enlistment into the American army, their break-up, her marriage to another soldier, her service in Iraq, her divorce, the short time in which the photography and his subject were together again.

The story is strikingly intimate, yet subtle in its approach. You feel like you’re crossing into the bedroom of the two ex-lovers, reading his text messages and pulling old photos from his computer.

The idea came as an accident to Guillaume who had received funding to work on a project about Caroline’s reinsertion into civil life as a veteran of war. When she broke up with him that final time, Guillaume was forced to reconsider his options. He found himself looking through old photos and saved text messages from his ex-girlfriend and what he compiled from there, he said, was too strong to not share with the public.

What he compiled is now a book, published by Montreal’s Les Territoires publishing and Dewi Lewis, a UK-based publisher and curator. I called up Guillaume after he returned from his book launch in Arles, France and we talked about the book, his relationship with Caroline and the use of different mediums in the project.

VICE: Hey Guillaume! How did the launch go?
Guillaume Simoneau: Well, we did the launch in Arles with almost no publicity in the sense that copies arrived to the publisher and the publisher had to leave a couple of days later for Arles. So we didn’t send it out to blogs or curators. We just made an event on Facebook and used word of mouth and the response there was incredible.

What was the feeling you got from the piece when you looked at the finished product? What resonated with you?
I went back into my archives and I dug in and put this body of work together. At the time I was shocked. I did not expect that.  The feelings that I had right away were too strong. I was like, okay buddy you’re going to have to deal with this shit. What you have in front of you right now, you know you’re going to want to show it to people because it’s too strong. It’s your personal life that you’re going to have to put in the public sphere and you’re going to have to deal with that because it’s a story that needs to be told.

To me the piece is a reflection on memory. Most people will experience conflict or a situation by not being at the centre of it but by being in the peripheries. You accumulate visuals; you accumulate sounds; you accumulate your memories and they stay with you. They’re totally partial and objective. To be able to tell this love story in the sense that it’s a reconstruction and yes it’s totally impartial and objective was very appealing. If you were to ask Caroline about this book, or tell her to tell her side of the story, it would be a completely different story and probably with tons of contradictions.

When I put the piece together it was able to bring the subject matter of our conflict and war to the public’s attention to a super intimate and personal story, which we don’t see much of. If anything VICE is doing it more and more and it makes journalism so much more interesting to just admit right off the bat that it’s subjective because a person does it.

Has Caroline seen the piece?
She has seen the body of work, yes. She had to agree to allow me to go ahead with the publication.

Did she tell you what she thought about it?
She was okay with the body of work but she wanted to make sure the body of work, the introduction, nothing was dissing the army or soldiers. It was important to her that I hold respect for that, which was a no brainer for me. It was never going to be a piece against war or soldiers. From that I can deduct that she feels, from the body of work itself, it’s respectful and I feel like it can be pretty flattering (again I’m speculating) that someone would do a similar body of work about your life at the time. It must be an intriguing, flattering and mysterious thing to have done.

For sure. It must be interesting for the subject to get to see how the photographer sees you (as the subject)?
Yeah, absolutely.

Did your perception of war change over the time of your relationship?
Oh drastically. It’s not even being with Caroline. The ocean of war material that comes to us every day through media is really what changed my perception the most. Traveling back and forth from Atlanta, Georgia and spending time with soldiers there, spending time with civilians there, spending times in the suburbs of Atlanta and realizing how much being in the military means something and is a viable and totally legitimate option for someone growing up and coming of age there. When you’re there, man, you realize there is no option. Either you work at Starbucks or you drive your car or you join the military. And oh look, this option, turns out you gain an incredible amount of respect from your community when you get back. These guys are treated like Kings back home around the community. It provides a lot of answers to kids that need a lot of answers to problems they have in their life. It gives you structure; it gives you money; it gives you a purpose; it gives you eventual tons of respect and attention.

Spending a lot of time there made me reconcile with it because obviously when I heard that Caroline was joining the army I was completely judgmental like most people, but spending time there, I have the most respect for soldiers. Now my anger is towards the decision-makers not the soldiers. Anyone put in these insane positions would behave insanely sometimes. It’s madness. If there’s a war there’s a need for soldiers. The problem is with the decision-makers and not the guys on the other end of the stick.

Did you see a change in Caroline’s perception of the military?
I haven’t been in touch with her enough post breakup and really that’s when her reinsertion happened. If I was in touch with her today I’m sure I would have a good idea of that. What I can tell you is that I’ve noticed changes in Caroline, pre and post-war. That’s for sure.

You make a point show that the photos aren’t placed chronologically. How did you decide on the sequence?
It was important to not go chronologically. I did try it out to see what would happen and it becomes really uninteresting. I think, fundamentally, when people read a story they like not being served the whole platter full for them to just eat. They like the mystery, they like piecing it together. In the same way, you can make a parallel to our relationship, you don’t just drop all your cards in the beginning, it’s a mystery game so you give and hold some of your cards.

In the book, the titles are very calculated in the sense that what I give in terms of information and what I don’t give. I give just enough info to help put the puzzle together but you’re going to have to put in an effort to figure it out. That’s definitely something I wanted and I’ve been given amazing comments on. Good sequencing is about heightening the charge of your work just by the sequencing and the information you give.

The two text messages especially, when I read them, they really pulled on my heartstrings. Did you always know you had to have the messages in the piece?
No I didn’t. When I had that phone (the one in the images)—and because I’m a stupid romantic—I would keep the communications between Caroline and I saved on my phone. So when it came time to put the body of work together I put all the images together first, extracting images from my phone as well, I was searching through my phone and I saw these messages and was like, wait a minute… I knew I could take a picture of the texts and use them. Right away I was like, there’s something there for sure. So I included them and they became crucial to the sequencing and how this story was told.

Those messages are what I hear the most about in the work.

Follow Ken on Twitter: @kjrwall

More on Canadian photography:

Tristan Casey's Photos Make B.C. Look Like the Earth's Most Wonderful Place

Jean Francois-Hamelin Takes Beautiful Photographs of Rural Quebec

Kristie Muller's Peculiar Still Lifes and Body Part Portraits

Photos by Dave Schilling

The aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict has been a stew; a goulash of slow-cooked racial tension that seems to have hit a boiling point. While this crock pot of civil unrest (Jesus, I’m really hungry) hasn’t yet been weaponized, the ingredients are all there to for it to turn into a full-on riot bomb. While the majority of the protests have been entirely peaceful, there have been some small bursts of vandalism and even alleged violence in Oakland and Los Angeles. Not entirely sure what would happen last Tuesday night, I headed over to Los Angeles’ Leimert Park, the de-facto ground zero for the protests, to witness it firsthand.

Los Angeles is incredibly segregated. Even as a lifelong Angeleno, I’d never driven through the intersection of Vernon and Crenshaw, where the park is located. As I neared the park, I noticed boarded-up windows with “BLACK OWNED BUSINESS” frantically spray-painted as a preemptive defense. The air was electric with uncertainty, anything could happen. I parked my car next to a row of news-vans, eagerly deployed to tell the same exact story to an audience of old people waiting for Leno, and walked into the park. 

I was met with what I should’ve been expecting the whole time: roughly 50 people, mostly black, getting motorists to honk their horns. People are mad, and they’re showing it, but they’re not exactly sure what to do other than publicly display outrage. However, I was approached by one young woman, Tiffany Hobbs, handing out flyers. You often get flyers at protests or gatherings of dissent, distributed by large charities or unions, but here was one woman, not affiliated with anyone else, trying to educate and channel the anger into action. Tiffany is working to amend two California state laws: the Provocative Act Murder Doctrine and the Castle Doctrine. These laws allow for the same sort of violence that was perpetrated by George Zimmerman.

VICE: First, tell me a bit about your upbringing.
Tiffany Hobbs: After moving here from New York as a child, my mother and I settled into South Los Angeles, where we stayed for three years. After that, we relocated to a small suburb of LA called Gardena. It’s located in the South Bay, and afforded me an upbringing saturated with cultural diversity.

I went to a predominantly white high school in Torrance, CA, before ultimately switching to and graduating from a predominantly black high school in Westchester, CA. I decided to switch high schools in 10th grade due to a few factors. While I enjoyed my time at Torrance High, I felt a bit out of place, and encountered some prejudicial views that offended me and encouraged me to settle on a more comfortable setting. I was 16 and not at all interested in living out one of the happiest and most formative periods of my life at a place that didn't love me as much as I wanted to love it. Westchester High School was different. Again, predominantly black, but still included a multitude of other races, and was situated near the beach. It was more conducive to my emotional well-being as well as my social life. I felt alive and at home. I graduated in 2001 and continued on to the University of Southern California (Fight On!), where I earned my degree in 2005. I'd had visions of attending an HBCU (Historically Black College or University), or studying in NY, but I stayed closer to home, and I'm glad I did.

When the Zimmerman verdict came through, how did that make you feel? What did you do?
I watched 95 percent of the trial, so I was up to date on all things case-related. I'm a reader and a researcher by nature, so I was trying to prevent the shock that I subconsciously knew was inevitable, by arming myself with as much proof to the contrary as possible. He had to be convicted. Everything I'd read said so. But somewhere deep down, I knew disappointment was coming. I just didn't expect it to be an all-out acquittal. A conviction on a lesser charge? Begrudgingly accepted. At least it would be something, even though the idea of a consolation was still unnerving. But to give him no penalty other than inconvenience was a huge blow. I was saddened. I was angry. I felt helpless because I knew, I could feel, the despair in the community, and I didn't immediately know how to offer anything that would assuage that. We all know someone who could've been Trayvon Martin. Hell, that someone could be you or me. It hit too close to home. An hour after the verdict, a group convened in my neighborhood's center, Leimert Park. Leimert has long been a meeting ground for the community. It's where people go when they need to share feelings, celebrations, and otherwise. I went, and brought my boyfriend's 16 year-old nephew with me. He wanted to be there, too. He needed some sort of comfort. We both did. And for the next two hours, we rallied peacefully in Trayvon Martin's memory. We took to the main street, Crenshaw, and marched, peacefully, within a temporarily broken community. I was given a megaphone, and asked to lead. I did. And it helped me cope at that moment because it reminded me that the fight for justice is an ongoing one, and fatigue has no place in its success. It wasn’t the time to be tired. We had/have work to do.

Where did you get the idea to pass out the flyers? What was the process of researching and making them?
After reading and hearing so many people virtually begging for a resolution to the injustice of George Zimmerman's acquittal, I began writing out the main problems I had with the overall case. Many of the problems were legislative, and knowing that these laws are written by people, the reality is that they are subjected to scrutiny. I spent hours on law texts and op-ed pieces, and literally, a voice popped into my head. It was the voice of a police officer I'd spoken to at the rally right after the verdict. I was talking to him at the time and reviewing our assembly rights so things didn't get out of hand. He was friendly enough, if not a little agitated by me, this woman in front of him, checking and double-checking the rights of the crowd around me. I'll never forget what he said: "Why do you guys care, anyway? It happened in Florida!" Fast forward back to me in front of my computer pouring over ways to answer the pervasive questions looming. I hear that officer in my head. It was at that moment that I realized, hey, we're here in California, why is it relevant to us? Are we governed by the same laws? So, I began researching California's laws, and found that while we don't have Stand Your Ground here, we do have two extremely problematic doctrines that were sisters to it, and allowed for the same injustices to happen when invoked. I found cases within each law. Statistics. Op-ed pieces. I summarized the most pertinent parts, called a friend who's good with marketing, and our flyer was born.

What are the two doctrines and why are they flawed?
The Castle Doctrine lets you protect yourself if you feel threatened while in your home. Sounds good, but it's tricky. It’s loosely worded. When analyzed, it disproportionately affects minorities like Trayvon who are often misjudged as criminals, and due to the assumption that the shooters’ lives are threatened, it allows the acquittal of law abusers like Zimmerman. This doctrine is dangerous to everyone and takes advantage of self-defense.

The Provocative Act Murder Doctrine is part of Second Degree Homicide. It’s often used when criminals encounter police during a felony act, officers pursue them, and one or more are shot during the encounter. If one of the citizens dies (even if the police officer kills them), it allows the survivors to be charged with murder for provoking it! The law targets gang members, but we know that's code for a specific sector of the population. In addition, while designed to protect the police, all citizens can attempt to invoke this law to justify a killing.

At the rally, you mentioned that you were approached by someone who wants to set up a meeting between you and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Has that happened?
Not yet. That meeting is being organized by a woman I met who took great interest in my flyer. I was supposed to be contacted but haven’t been yet. If you see my flyer at a press conference with Congresswoman Waters, let me know. I do, however, have a couple of news organizations who believe that these doctrines, as I've outlined them, make for a great side-story to the rallies and marches. We'll see. Regardless, I have a team of distributors passing out the flyers to educate Californians on these two doctrines. 

A lot of people right now are angry and don't know how to channel their anger, how would you organize all the passion? Where would you direct it?
I'm angry, too, so I get it. It's hard being fed bullshit. But the key is to educate the community on how legislature works, how it often does sustain systematic -isms and -phobias, and how they can be amended or even repealed, when necessary. Ignorance is a weapon that too many hold steadfast to. The information is accessible and free and yours for the taking if you're concerned with the way things are. Direct the passion there. Petition to have your congresspeople investigate these problematic laws. New Hampshire as a state is working to repeal Stand Your Ground. Many other states have launched investigations into their self-defense laws due to their large and dangerous loopholes. Attorney General Eric Holder has denounced Stand Your Ground and called for the law to be repealed. There are definite flaws within these doctrines and they cause grave mishandlings of justice. Marching is understandable and appropriate, but don't let it be all you do. And for damn sure don't riot and disturb the peace. We can't afford to be negative displays of irony.

Do you have anything else to say about the trial, and the reaction of the community?
If I may quote Tupac, this is essentially, "The rose that grew from concrete." Change often comes from tragedy, and that’s difficult to see. The peaceful rallies and marches have been beautiful, and to see how many people care about what happened to Trayvon Martin reaffirms that humanity isn't as apathetic as it sometimes seems. The people who have brought havoc to the peaceful gatherings have no interest in honoring Trayvon Martin's memory. They are opportunists who looked for a reason to behave badly, and should not in any way be associated with those people, across the country, who are convening to share positive energy. What's being encouraged is legislative reform so that these murders stop occurring, and stop being subsequently justified by taking advantage of messed up self-defense laws. And still, regardless of one's personal feelings on the law, or Zimmerman, or racism, a young man lost his life, and a family is forever changed. I encourage everyone to show their sympathy to Trayvon's family by donating to the fund that they've set up through the Trayvon Martin Foundation. You can do so at TrayvonMartinFoundation.Org.

@ShutUpAndrosky

More on Trayvon Martin:

Lots of People Protested for Trayvon Martin in Los Angeles  

How to Cash in on Trayvon Martin 

The George Zimmerman Trial Reminded Me of Who I Am in America

Last weekend was Lovebox festival in Victoria Park and it was a bloody hoot. Noisey had their own tent on Friday, which got everything off to the best possible start a festival could want (you're welcome, Lovebox); Saturday saw Mark Ronson getting A-Trak, DJ Drama and Darq E Freaker up on stage with him and the Big Night Out Sound System making their festival debut; and Lil Kim cancelled on Sunday, which sucked, but Kelis more than made up for absence.

Here are a bunch of photos taken over all three days so you can either spend the next few minutes writhing in jealousy or nesting in a fog two-day hungover nostalgia.

The author with U-God outside of the VICE offices. 

U-God is a tried and true veteran of the rap game. Unlike quasi-members Redman and Cappadonna, U-God is one of the original nine brothers of the Wu-Tang Clan. Over the past 20 years he’s played a part that’s been a bit bittersweet and understated due to some stints in prison that pulled him out of the spotlight. But on his new record, Keynote Speaker, he’s finally at the podium speaking his piece.

He stopped by the VICE offices and shot the shit with us about the state of rap, the paradigm shift that the record industry is undergoing, squashed beefs, life on the streets, and what the future holds for himself and the Wu-Tang Clan. We even got into the subject of gun violence in the wake of the George Zimmerman acquittal, which was a deep subject for him considering his own son was the victim of a senseless shooting. Check it out and don't forget to pick up  Keynote Speaker today.

VICE: Wu-Tang Clan sold millions of records, yet artists today are relying on YouTube hits and car commercial features to get paid. What do you think about that?
U-God: You have to understand something. The system is re-adjusting and we don't know where it's going. A new system is coming into play. In five years they could shut down YouTube. You might have to pay to get on there, and all that sly shit. It's already set up to where the government can come in and say "You know what? No more illegal downloading." In France, they’ll throw you in jail for an illegal download. The game is in re-construction. Adele was the last artist to put out serious numbers, so that tells you that real music always prevails.

It seems as if this generation of rappers aren't selling drugs, but taking them. How do you feel about that?
I'm glad you asked me that. The problem right now is that street raps are trying to come back because that’s what’s missing in the game. Everyone right now is bougie and on mollies. That’s not street. Either the streets take you out of the game or they make you into a crazy ill legend. Allen Iverson was a street baller and Basquiat was a street artist. Mobb Deep were street dudes. That element has to come back in the music and that's a reason that sales are down. These dudes who are coming out can’t fake it. I can see it in their eyes, how they walk and how they talk. No disrespect to J. Cole and them little niggas, but they don't have that experience. I got a little upset when Cole said that he let Nas down. You’ve got to earn a little more street cred before you name drop the god. You need to get your weight up a little more because you're still a little youngster and you are trying to fuck with a triple triple triple triple quadraple OG and that's not a good look. He kind of lost some fans with that. A lot of dudes make songs that I call "star sandwiches." You put a star on the hook, a star on the verses, and a star on production, and you got a whole star sandwich. They expect people to eat it right up.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty embarrassing.
You're never supposed to go up against the grand master. He's a dragon. Even in the Kung-Fu flicks you don't go up against the guy with the white beard. He just touches you and BLAOW. I've been in the temple studying for years. I'm a Venom and also a Grand Master. They shouldn’t even be fucking with a Venom.

We're not talking about any real martial arts. I assume these are Shaolin rules?
I’m speaking on hierarchy within the Shaolin infrastructure. Dudes like Nas and Jay-Z are Grand Masters. Those are the dudes with the white beards. Some of these new guys think you can just come up and talk to a Grand Master? They're not even in the building yet. They're just getting at the door.

One of my favorite tracks on Wu-Tang Forever was "Black Shampoo," yet you're always catching shade because of it. Why is that
To me, the whole album was a rugged Yin and I wanted to put a Yang in there. Queen Latifah actually loved that song, she approached me and said "U-God, 'Black Shampoo'… Mmmmm." That was a RZA beat too.

Let's talk beef. Nas talked about a beef Raekwon and Biggie had around the time Ready to Die dropped. Did that beef involve the rest of the Clan members? 
Nah, you know what that was? Back then, he was a hood nigga and we were hood dudes. We started a little ruckus with each other but it was nothing. If B.I.G. were still around we would have kept doing songs with him. I'm mad we never got a chance to do that. Meth was the only one in the crew who did a song with both Biggie and Pac. When I said "Put a Ruff Rider on my dick, and bust right through em" that was directed at The LOX when they were down with Ruff Ryders. I didn't mean anything by it, it's just what it was. But see how times change? I had Sheek on my last album, and I have Styles on this one, and I'll probably get Jada on the next album.

On "A Better Tomorrow" you imply that your son was hit by a stray bullet. Can you shed some light as to what happened that day?
Yeah, he was hit by two stray bullets. He lost his kidney and dislocated two of his fingers. I wasn't there since I was in California at the time. He was with his babysitter. That’s how the Stapleton Housing Projects are. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He's making music under the name INTell. Are you glad he’s following in your footsteps?
He's gonna do what he wants at the end of the day. I tell my son he could do anything he’s wants to do, as long as it’s to the best of his ability. I just tell him that this rap game is rough and that what his father achieved and what his uncle Meth achieved might not happen to him. So I make sure that he has a back-up plan just in case.

Speaking of stray bullets, Zimmerman was acquitted and got off scot-free. What's the U-God verdict on him?
He made a bad decision. If he went to jail he was going to get torn up. Now that he's out on the streets, he better change his identity because motherfuckers are gonna get him. Any which way, he's fucked. When I’m in a situation like him I do the Ghandi. You should let people cross the line first and provoke you, and then do something about it. In my career I've mastered the Ghandi. I've had to. I'm not going back to jail. I had anger issues and went through a lot of shit in these past 20 years and I never had therapy or any of that. Black people don't do therapy. We just smoke a little weed and handle it.

You released your last album under the moniker U-Godzilla, is that more of a permanent name change or just an alter ego like Tony Starks or Bobby Digital?
My nickname is Zilla because I'm a beast on the mic. I have a whole bunch of names now. I've got Billy Gramz, and I had Hammer Jack back when I was on my gun shit.

What gun shit?
You don't wanna talk about that. When I was your age, boy, I was a terror. I was a totally different person. I come from a time when New York City was so wild you couldn't wear your chain out. Just tell Guiliani thanks. They cleaned this shit up. It was a pig-sty. I carried a gun on me since I was 14 until I was 22 years old and thought nothing of it. When crack hit, it made it even worse. It was a crazy time. I'm just glad this shit is behind us. The streets will always be there and depending on how you're taking it and how you're moving, it could wipe you out or elevate you to a higher plane.

And you prevailed through that?
I had to. I've got bullet wounds and war scars, but now I'm a civilized man. I've grown a lot. When I was growing up, I thought everything was whatever. I thought it was OK to have a gun, and I didn't realize I was a menace to society. That's the mentality of the poor, deprived, and disenfranchised neighborhoods. You don't realize how fucked up you are until you leave. It's impressive to see how VICE moves in one unit, and for one common cause. And Wu-Tang is the same shit. But if I came in here back in the day I would of probably been like, what the fuck is all this bougie shit and all these white people. I was ignorant, man. Super ignorant. I was in the dug out for three years. Know what I mean?

You took a trip up north?
Shit, I've been everywhere, man. I've been in Brooklyn House, Rikers, Manhattan House, Bare Hill, Franklin, up-state, and down state. I've been all over. It ain't nothing.

This was around the time that 36 Chambers was being produced. Were you afraid you missed the boat in terms of production?
Oh I missed a lot of production. I fucked up. I'm kind of mad I didn't get on a lot of beats. If I was around I would have been on a lot more joints. I haven't been in the spotlight. My brothers were in the spotlight. There’s only room for one at a time and there's too much artistry among us to always keep it together. We all have to let it out through other outlets. When I'm with my brothers, all I have do is 16 bars. No matter how much exposure each of us are getting, every time we're up next, we make it count.

And you're OK with that?
Hell yeah. I'm a team player. I win. If my jump shot is off but your jump shot is on, I'm gonna pass you the ball, ten out of ten times, but you better make it. Right now, they're passing me the ball. They know I’m nice, and they see me open.

You're all winning at the end of the day.
Exactly, my G.

Keynote Speaker drops today on Soul Temple Records.

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By Bridget Collins, Margot Holtman, Kate Kornberg, Byrthe Lemmens & Karoline Swiezynski

All images made during a monthlong residency on the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira.

Click through to the next page for more images.

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Exogenesis

Photo by Dogu Eroglu, Stories of Violence from Turkey

On June 1, the second day of Turkey's nationwide protests that began in Istanbul's Gezi Park, Ethem Sarisülük, a laborer and human-rights activist, was shot in the head by a policeman in Ankara. After spending 13 days in intensive care, Ethem's heart stopped, and his family announced his death on June 14. Ten days later, Ahmet Şahbaz, the police officer who killed Ethem, was released from jail by a judge on the grounds that he acted in self-defense, a move that was greeted with a lot of anger on social media and in the streets. (Ahmet's trial was suspended by a judge last week, and advocates criticized this as another way the government was helping to protect the police.)

For the past few weeks, demonstrators have been gathering at Taksim Square in Instanbul every Saturday to demand justice for Ethem, and the cops have been responding with tactics reminiscent of those that led to the deaths of Ethem and two other protesters. Recently, I talked to Ethem’s brother, Mustafa Sarisülük, about the day Ethem was shot, the government’s response to Ethem’s death, and Turkey’s long-standing tradition of state terrorism.

VICE: Police violence in Turkey got a lot of attention in the international media thanks to the Gezi Park demonstrations, but it's not a new phenomenon—over 140 people have been killed by the police since 2007. What was your point of view on the subject before the current tragic string of events?
Mustafa Sarisülük: “State terrorism” would actually be a better way to put it than “police violence.” With the current turn of events, many think the police are in favor of the AKP [the political party that has dominated Turkey for a decade], hence the violence. It’s not as simple as that—the police are an armed paramilitary force used by the state. From the beginning of the Republic of Turkey, the state has employed despotism, violence, and massacres. Thanks to the Gezi Park protests, the oppression is now seen by the whole society.

Did you or Ethem have to face this kind of state-sponsored terror before?
After the "deep state" events in the 90s [that revealed the existence of shadowy paramilitary groups within the government], I felt an urge to be involved because of the level of human rights violations, violence toward the people, and extrajudicial killings. Even as a kid in junior high, Ethem used to join me at the protests. Since then, we exercised our rights and freedoms of assembly, protest, and expression. We both faced violence and custody repeatedly.

Before AKP came to power in 2002, the originator of violence was mainly the military. But now that the AKP has been in power for ten years, the violence is often perpetrated by the police. How do you interpret the changes over the last decade?
Even though the AKP has been claiming that they are defending human rights and dissolving the deep state, they have never been up to that task. There has been no change concerning the police-related extrajudicial killings or tortures. For me, the killing of Uğur Kaymaz summarizes the decade best—when that alleged terrorist was found dead with his father, there were more bullets in his body than years of his life; he was 12. The fact that his murderers still remain unknown shows that the AKP continues the state tradition. Today, people who shout “solidarity against fascism” in the streets direct their anger not only against AKP policies, but also to the state tradition that lies behind them.

Photo by Adnan Onur Acar, Nar Photos

The police crackdown at Gezi Park against the peaceful protesters on May 31 triggered protests in other cities, including the one you joined in Ankara. What was that experience like for you?
I heard about the police attack in Gezi Park on May 31, but because of work, I had to wait until Saturday, June 1, to join the protests. I was at Kizilay Square that day when the police started to attack people with extreme force. Some children who got head injuries or were blinded by tear gas were protesting for the first time in their lives. In that turmoil, I started to protect the people around me. The police were aiming at civilians’ heads and upper bodies while shooting tear gas and rubber bullets. I helped people with broken arms and legs as the police terror continued through the morning. Then I heard several gunshots around 1 PM.

Throughout the protests, the government tried to justify the police brutality by saying that the officers had been working under poor conditions for very long hours. However, on June 1 the protests in Ankara had just started, and the police weren’t tired or sleepless.

I really wish I had a camera on me that day so that I could've documented what I saw. The police were trying to kill people—I carried dozens of seriously wounded people just by myself. I saw several policemen lying down, positioning themselves like snipers. After taking their time to aim, they would shoot gas canisters directly at people’s heads. As soon as I arrived on Saturday, I knew that police brutality would lead to grave consequences and deaths. 

When did you find out that Ethem was shot?
About an hour before the police shot him, Ethem had already been wounded while trying to protect a woman wearing a headscarf—he was using himself as a shield against the gas canisters. One hit him at the back of his head. Ethem would always be on the front lines in such events, so he was on my mind while I was at the square. Just as I started searching for him, we heard a few gunshots. Since I had seen the police shooting in the air a few times, it didn’t occur to me that someone could have been hit by those shots. Then I saw a stretcher being taken to an ambulance in the distance, but again, it never occurred to me that it could have been Ethem. It was only when we received a call from the hospital that we understood the situation.

Photo by Esra Kocak, BirGun

What happened after you went to the hospital?
I knew my brother wouldn’t live as soon as I saw him. I went to the doctors and asked them for the results of the brain scan. They were surprised that I made such a specific demand instead of just asking how the patient was. When we examined the images with the doctors, we saw the bullet still deep in Ethem’s brain. It had ripped a hole in both hemispheres.

One of the government's claims at the time was that Ethem had been wounded by the stones thrown by the protesters. How did the truth get out?
The footage showing the incident is nothing but hard evidence. The police officer, Ahmet Şahbaz, kicks a protestor, calmly draws his gun, and fires several rounds. One of the bullets hits Ethem in the head. The murder is crystal clear, yet, at the time there was a nationwide censorship campaign going on. We counteracted the censorship by spreading the images of the incident on social media and getting into contact with NGOs. Ethem’s brain stopped working a week after he was shot, but we waited for a few days, hoping that there would be an improvement. On June 12, when we told the public that Ethem’s brain death had occured, the Ministry of Health contradicted us and said that Ethem was in a coma and that his situation was improving. We lost Ethem on June 14.

On June 24, Prime Minister Erdoğan said, “The police have stayed within the limits of the law, and written an epic tale of heroism.” On the very same day, the police officer that killed Ethem was released from jail. Did this verdict lower your expectations for the judicial process to follow?
The prime minister had declared at the outset that he would not “let anyone bully [his] police.” We therefore predicted that the judicial process would unfold the way it did.

The investigation at the site of the incident, expert reports, eyewitness statements, and footage all point to [what the officer did being] murder. The judge didn't consider any of that, nor did he think my brother’s autopsy report and the ballistics report counted as hard evidence.

Do you think there are any set of circumstances that would have justified a self-defense claim by the officer?
Not at all. While other police officers were retreating under their chief’s command, the one who killed Ethem charged forward with great hatred, kicked one of the protesters, and got in the middle of the crowd. He then calmly drew his weapon and fired it.

Dogu Eroglu is an investigative journalist for Stories of Violence from Turkey (site in Turkish), where he publishes the stories of individuals who have been subject to human rights violations. He is also a staff writer at BirGun, a Turkish daily, and a founding member of the Conscientious Objectors Association in Turkey. 

More on Turkey and its discontents:

Could the Turkish Uprising Be a Breakthrough for the Country's Kurds?

Istanbul Police Tear-Gassed a Memorial March This Weekend

Talking to the Bulldozer-Hijacking Soccer Fans About Their Role in the Turkish Uprising

Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader in a spanking scene from The Secretary.

A surprisingly large amount of porn involves death, destruction, or violence—but then so does a lot of film. Vore fetishists fantasize about people eating each other, and Anthony Hopkins acts out a similar fantasy in 2001’s Hannibal. Macrophiles might imagine giant women rampaging through cities, leaving carnage and crushed bodies in their wake. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is tame in comparison, but city-smashing violence is featured in every other film these days.

In porn, rape fantasies are far more common than any of those scenarios, but depictions of rape have also appeared with some degree of regularity on the big screen. Take Irréversible, for example, which the late Roger Ebert described as, "a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable." At times, the only difference between cinema and violent porn is that one has to pass under the eyes of a censoring board and the other gets instantly pressed to DVD or uploaded to the seedier corners of the internet.

Soon, though, those seedier corners may be off limits to people in the UK. David Cameron announced yesterday that he is working with ISPs in England to implement a blanket ban on violent porn. (He will also be making it compulsory for adults to actively "opt in" to internet porn access.) The prime minister's declaration comes after sustained pressure from both the Daily Mail and a coalition of groups and individuals led by End Violence Against Women. EVAW drafted an open letter to David Cameron calling for a ban on what they call "rape porn." To accompany it, they wrote a briefing paper that sets out their reasoning, with links back to some academic research that they think supports their campaign. It’s a serious issue and their overall mission is one that needs as much support as possible—if there is a link of causality between rape porn and real-life rape, then any sane person would find it hard to dispute that its presence in the media should be minimized or completely eradicated. However, as much as there's a need to protect children and adults alike from sexual violence, that link has yet to be detected by anyone.

Their main claim is this: “That sexual violence as a form of 'entertainment' causes a huge cultural harm to our society.” Unfortunately, nowhere in any published document is there a shred of anything that might support that idea. And, in fact—as pro sexual liberty campaigner Obscenity Lawyer’s blog has pointed out—they outright admit that science has never been able to show a causal link between violent porn and sexual violence.  

Instead of changing gears and campaigning against legitimate causes of violence toward women, like cultural practices and legislative complacency, they hand-wave at “rigorous research in the US” that has apparently “long found a significant link between arousal to rape material and a ‘propensity to rape.’" This turns out to be a paper dating from 1981, which showed only that rapists may be slightly more likely than non-rapists to find porn depicting rape arousing. More recent research doesn’t help them much, either; in-depth reviews by Malamuth et al in 2000 and Ferguson & Hartley in 2009 failed to find any meaningful link.

Rape is a terrible thing, and obviously not something that should be defended in any imaginable shape or form. But it seems odd to undermine an entire campaign from the get-go by citing inconclusive and outdated scientific research.   

Another elephant in the room is the question of whether sexualized violence in porn is different to sexualised violence in any other form of entertainment. Malamuth’s paper makes the point that it isn’t really possible to separate "pornographic stimuli" from the effect of mass media images, generally. To the viewer, does a sexualized image of a 14-year-old girl posing in a bikini published by Mail Online suddenly become "different" if it is posted on an internet forum for pedophiles?

Take the new Superman reboot, Man of Steel. It’s a pretty good film, but one of the most striking features for me was the Kryptonian villainess, Faora. Hailed by some as a feminist icon, this is a woman who can beat up Superman. In one scene, a general empties first his machine gun then a hand pistol against her body, the bullets “ricocheting impotently off her chest.” She could stop him at any moment, but she just stands there and lets him see exactly how superior she is. And it’s insanely hot—the ultimate dominant power trip. 

Scenes like this are a classic example of "fetish fuel." The TV Tropes website used to list examples of this from film and TV, but the page now carries a disclaimer: “We no longer collect examples of fetish fuel. We did so for long enough to establish that literally everything is someone's fetish fuel, and that some individuals are quite willing to go on about theirs at length.”

People can find pretty much anything sexy, and given the close ties between kink, domination, and control, it’s not surprising that a lot of fetishes involved physicality and violence. But they’re fantasies, and people older than single digits generally understand the difference between fantasy and reality. On leaving the theater, I didn’t feel compelled to pick up a gun and shoot a strong-looking woman in the boobs; and yet to some people the mix of guns, violence, a woman being shot, and mild sexual arousal would be evidence that I’m a sick deviant and a potential danger to society.

A much more disturbing scene in recent cinema was the rape of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. I found it incredibly uncomfortable to watch when I first saw it. Natasha Vargas-Cooper at the Feminist Film blog took a rather different view, choosing to examine the degree of eroticism in the movie: “The scene will be at best forgettable and at worst arousing. It’s a scene played out thousands of times on porn sites, its called ‘rapeplay’… everyone there is professional and they are ‘playing’ with the notion of rape—rough sex, resistance, and force, saying no no, while everyone looks great.”

The problem here, as with anything else involving sex, violence, and a video camera, is that human sexuality is a lot more complex and diverse than people are willing to admit. When one person’s "ew" is another’s "ooh," what does it mean to try to "ban" scenes of violence because they arouse people? Should the Dragon Tattoo scene be banned? What about Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader's spanking scene in The Secretary? Why is a ban necessary for porn, but not for film or TV productions that many will find equally arousing? What exactly about a particular scene makes it harmful? Is it the nudity, the violence, the context, the objectification, or some other factors? I believe misogyny in porn is a problem, just as I believe misogyny on TV and in newspapers is a problem, but how does banning or restricting arbitrary categories of media produced by and for consenting adults deal with that?

And how does any of this tackle the monsters among us? Using a real-life case study, EVAW's idea that Stuart Hazell behaved the way he did because porn exists is just misguided. Let’s leave aside the fact that the images of child abuse Hazell downloaded are already illegal—a point confusingly glossed over in EVAW’s letter. The man didn’t do what he did because he was just a normal guy who was suddenly "provoked" by lust, he did it because—in common with the average rapist—he was a serial abuser who coldly controlled and manipulated his victims over many years.

The truth is that I don’t know the answers to a lot of these questions, but it frustrates me that so few campaigners are willing to tackle them. The ill-defined spectre of "extreme porn" has been built up into a looming evil, casting its shadow across society, arousing such strong emotions that it’s hard to have any sensible debate about the topic, especially when, as Laurie Penny points out, campaigners are using “the bodies of murdered women or children as emotional pawns.”

And it’s hard to escape the feeling that this is a bit of a culture-war-by-proxy. The response to porn versus endemic misogyny in other media—the Sun's Page 3, for example, which Cameron has so far refused to publicly condemn—is so inconsistent that it’s hard not to see an element of sexual policing at work here—people trying to censor things that offend them. While EVAW and the Mail will be celebrating their "moral victory" today, I’m right with Penny when she says: “I do not want to live in a world where the government and a select few conservative feminists get to decide what we may and may not masturbate to.”

Martin Robbins is a writer and talker who blogs about weird and wonderful things for the Guardian and New Statesman. Here Be Dragons is a new column that explores denial, conflict and mystery at the wild fringes of science and human understanding. Find him on Twitter @mjrobbins, or email tips and feedback to martin@mjrobbins.net.

Follow Martin on Twitter: @mjrobbins

Illustration by Rob Ondzik.

This story is based on an interview conducted by Bita Joudaki. She hasn't dated any crack dealers, as far as we know.

Just last week, I was at a trap house with my ex, in Cloverdale, British Columbia. The front door was covered in what looked a lot like bullet holes, but I'm not sure. There were a lot of unexplainable holes in the wall. Some of the holes were so big I could almost fit through them. The whole place smelled faintly like ammonia and dirty laundry. I was hanging out in the living room while they were all in the kitchen. On one burner they were cooking crack and on the burner next to it, they were cooking dinner. I think that's kind of funny, but I also couldn't help but wonder why I was there? I mean, it's not like I seek this shit out, or anything. I think I just attract it.

Crack dealers tend to approach me. I'm not chasing them down. It's not like I ever said to myself, “I'm going to date crack dealers, now!” That's not what happened, but when you meet one, you meet a lot of others. And then you just start dating.

I’ve met some of them through friends, some I’ve met randomly at the club, or at a bar, or on the street. I don't smoke crack. I'm not about that. I've never tried it, probably never will. I guess I date them because I like their personalities. Maybe it’s because I thought it would be exciting—but it’s actually kind of boring. They always want to chill at home. They're always so tired. They don't want to do anything. They barely have time to sleep, let alone have fun.

The first time I was approached by a crack dealer, I was 19 and at a party somewhere in East Vancouver. He was a friend of a friend. I thought he was really tough. He had muscles and he was wearing a shirt with no sleeves. I liked that. We dated for a couple of years. He was actually my last serious boyfriend. No one's held me down like that since.

He was a full time dealer and worked on the streets, mostly around the Downtown Eastside, but it was nothing huge. Dealers can't make that much money here in Vancouver. If you want to make real money, you have to leave. You have to go to Saskatchewan. That's where the money is. I hear it's tough work. A lot of it is on foot, and you don't sleep for days. But you come back with tons and tons and tons of money. Like, you can make 10 or 20 thousand dollars a week, something crazy like that. The people out there have nothing to do. After work they just want to hit the pipe. I guess there’s less competition out there too, because Vancouver is a bigger place. Plus it's a port city. All the drugs come here, so there are a lot of dealers.

Illustration by Lindsay Pomerantz.

I used hang with a guy who would go to Saskatchewan and sell drugs all of the time. He was ballin'. He made tons of money. On our first date, he spent well over a G. He was just throwing it out like it was nothing. He was buying me anything I wanted. We rode around in a limo… It was crazy. We would go out to all these fancy-ass restaurants and all the white people would stare at us like, “Who let these hood rats in?” That was fun. He's never really in town though, so I only got to see him a few times a year. I think if I ever decide to just settle down and be a housewife, I'll marry him.

But even with him, it wasn’t all limos and fancy dinners. He was really violent. He would tell me stories about how, when he was in jail, he was talking to some guy who was a rapist or a child molester or something really horrible like that. He says he almost killed the dude. According to his story, he slit the guy’s throat with a knife. He was crazy. And he was fucking huge.

I dated another crack dealer who I liked to call “art school boy.” He was a sensitive thug. He wasn’t cut out for the crack dealing game. You have to have a certain personality to succeed and make a lot of money. Like, at one point he tried to break out of it and was hired to work a regular job, then he got into school, but eventually he got pulled back into dealing. I guess when you’re surrounded by other crack dealers it's hard to get out. It takes over your whole life, all your friends are doing it, and your whole lifestyle is centred on crack. If you don't know anything else, what are you going to do?

You want to get a regular job but you can't, because you have a criminal record. No one's going to hire you. So, what do you do? You go back to crack dealing. It's a cycle and it sucks. Plus, these guys are addicted to the fast money. You can’t get that same sort of satisfaction from a regular job.

Everyone always asks me about the crazy shit I must witness, but none of the really crazy shit goes on when I'm around. I've seen a lot of fights, and I also saw one guy package heroin… I suppose that was pretty crazy. He would cut up lottery tickets and fold the heroin into the makeshift envelopes. I helped him do it, actually.

Illustration by Lindsay Pomerantz.

For a while, I was a driver. I would drive my man and his friends around in my mom's Toyota Sedan while they made deliveries. That was when I didn't have a lot of work. You'd be surprised who smokes crack! Most people might assume that a crackhead is generally the type to live under a bridge, but we would deliver to totally normal people who live in really nice places. I remember one time I had nothing to do, so I helped deliver all night, and we went back to this one guy’s house like three or four times. He seemed pretty normal. He was so polite. You'd be surprised. Regular people like crack, too.

Of course, I was worried about the cops pulling us over while we were delivering, but it never happened. If they did, I knew I wouldn't be the one getting in trouble. I never had anything on me. I've never had to hold anything before. Sometimes, when the cops came around, I was passed a cellphone to put in my purse. But I don't think they would ever put me in danger by giving me drugs to hold or anything. They wouldn't do me like that.

Ultimately, none of these relationships worked out. These relationships don’t fail simply because of the crack dealing—since that's what they were doing when I met them—but some of the other stuff that comes along with the drug trade does become an issue. Like, finding out that the guy has violent tendencies. I don't want to be with someone who is violent.

A lot of these guys don't have much time for me either, which is fine because I like my own space, but sometimes it bothers me. And I hate to say it, but if one of them went to jail I just don't think I could wait for them. I've never had to wait for someone. We break up before they get locked up.

There is this girl I used to know, her boyfriend went to jail for a year and half, and she waited for him. She was a real ride or die kind of girl. She was so devoted to him, visiting him everyday. When he got out, she realized she was trapped. She was living off of him and wanted to do all these things... but he wouldn't let her. He didn't treat her very well, even though she waited her him. I heard she's an escort now. I wouldn't let that happen to myself.

I'm trying to get out of the game. I'm in school again, and I'm dating this totally normal dude right now. He's a customer service rep who listens to Drake. We're just hanging out, it's nothing serious; but it feels weird to date a normie. It's hard not to text back the old guys when they text me, and it really annoys me when dudes can't afford to take me out to nice places and buy me dinner. I guess I'm addicted to that fast cash, too.

Dating a crack dealer isn't glamorous, but it used to feel that way. I used to feel like one of those girls in a rap video, a down chick, standing by my man who buys me clothes, and takes me out, and pays for everything; I was the kind of girl a rapper would write a song about. But I don't think it's glamorous anymore. It's dirty. I feel like I'm stuck in a myth I don't believe in anymore. The only appealing part about it all is the money. I'll never forget seeing all that money. Some guys keep their money in a sock drawer. Some guys keep their money hidden in the back of a closet. But sometimes when I would get to see the cash, seeing stacks of money like that, thousands of dollars, it's just like… whoa. Just being in the same room as all that money made me feel important, as if I don't just work as a cashier. It make me feel like I was doing something right.

Follow Bita on Twitter: @bitabitabita

Also by Bita Joudaki:

I Took a Female Ejaculation Class

On June 30, Egypt erupted in civil protests in opposition to President Mohammed Morsi and his aggressive consolidation of power. The military threw its weight behind the grass-roots movement, ultimately forcing Morsi out of office on July 3 and arresting some of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that backed him. The fighting that started between the military and Muslim Brotherhood rapidly turned into divisive clashes between Egyptian citizens. The battles in the streets have left so many dead and wounded that families are having trouble claiming and burring their loved ones. To get an understanding of what is happening in Cairo, VICE linked up with activist Gigi Ibrahim for a grand tour of the chaos. 

More about the uprising in Egypt:

Egypt After Morsi 

Hanging with Morsi Supporters at a Muslim Brotherhood Rally in Cairo

Video from the Clashes on the October 6 Bridge in Cairo

We Saw the Egyptian Military Stage a Coup

The VICE Podcast is a weekly discussion which delves inside the minds of some of the most interesting, creative, and bizarre people within the VICE universe. This week, Eddy Moretti speaks with Nicolas Winding Refn, director of the new film Only God Forgives, a polarizing work starring Ryan Gosling that explores the most primal and depraved desires of human nature. Delving into the art and the act of genesis, Refn distills his filmmaking to the essentials of image, of pinup.

When the first wave of punk hit the Bay Area, it signalled that the tired reign of the long-haried, hippie counterculture was coming to an end; in it's place were young, angry, shorn kids shouting about nihilism and death to corporate America with an energy you couldn't get by vibing with crystals. In the world of marginalized scenes, San Francisco provided space for the punks who never made it in the big three of New York, London, and Los Angeles. Ruby Ray, who shot photos for the legendary zine Search and Destroy, documented the disenfranchised punk world at exactly the right moment, capturing the rapid rise and fall of that initial wave; from the birth of the Dils before they ran off to Los Angeles to the death of the Sex Pistols when they crashed into the Bay.

Now, three and a half decades later, her photos are gaining newfound recognition among both the newly rebellious and the depressingly nostalgic. I came to check out her book signing in Oakland at Stranded Records, which was atteneded by Penelope Houston of the Avengers and John Doe of X. Although time has stripped the older punks of some of their energy and anger, their youthful selves live on in  records and snapshots. Stranded was crowded by middle-aged white people with sagging tattoos, so to learn more about the woman behind the camera, I sat down with her at a gay bar across the street.

VICE: How did you get started?
Ruby Ray: I was working at Tower Records and I used to see [Valhalla] Vale of Search and Destroy wandering around North Beach and I always wondered who he was. I mean, he’s Japanese-American, very intriguing looking, you know? So, one day he had a stack of magazines under his arm and I thought, There’s that guy! I’m gonna find out who he is.  I asked him, and he showed me the first issue of Search and Destroy, and I was like, “Wow this is so cool, but don’t you need more photography?” A week later I did my first photo session with the Dils, and I was just blown away, I just knew that this was my life from here on in. I was already into Patti Smith and the Ramones and Lou Reed, so it was a fertile ground, and it just went from there. I became a part of the Search and Destroy team, and I got to meet everybody. Vale really had his finger on the pulse, he knew how to galvanize people.

How old were you then?
Twenty-five. I started in ‘77, but by ’79, Search and Destroy had stopped publishing. It was like punk was dead two years later, and we were like, “Oh, fuck.” But still, bands were playing and new bands were forming and there was really still a strong scene, although it wasn’t considered the kind of punk it used to be. So Vale and I and some other people started RE/Search Publications.

That’s the one with a William S. Burroughs issue, right? I have that photo saved somewhere, it’s electric. How’d you get Burroughs?
Well, at that time he had come to San Francisco to do some performances where he would read and there would be music, and we were going to do RE/Search issues four and five on him. So we had the interviews that Genesis P-Orridge did with him and Brion Gysin, and we had some unpublished material that Bill had given us, and then Vale asked me if I wanted to do the cover shoot, so of course I did. We brought some guns, actually, and since he loved shooting and shooting practice... I mean, everybody knows that story about his wife, right?

He shot her, didn’t he?
Yeah, well, a lot of the Beats had been in Mexico getting pretty wild, drinking, doing mescaline and mushrooms and probably heroin, you know, and they were really wasted one night and they were playing William Tell, so [Burrough’s] wife put an apple on her head, Bill shot at it, and, well, he did kill her. But he got off, because everybody that was there said it was an accident, a stupid accident, a wretched accident, and I believe he was tormented by it his whole life.

How did you capture the sort of energy that was in the punk scene in your work?
Well, I feel like I was an actual part of it. The punks didn’t want to just pose, they were all my friends and we were all collaborating, they knew I was a photographer and they could trust me, and we were trying to do something different.

What did you do differently?
It wasn’t like, “Everybody line up and I’ll take your picture.” it was like we had to have an experience. Once we just played around in the dump. It was really a kind of situationalist idea, you know—walk around and see something that sparks your imagination. We didn’t want to take conditional photos, so we took photos at the dump, at Tire Beach where it’s all polluted, but at the same time as we were mocking it, we were saying, “This is beautiful, this is real, this is our world right now, and this is how we’re going to show you what the world is.”

Did that define you as punks? 
We didn’t necessarily want to be called punk, we were just the rebel underground and it was other people calling us punks; that’s just what we were. It was an incredibly exciting time, there was stuff going on almost every night: movies, rock shows, bands were starting up—some were shitty and some were like, amazing, and everybody had the opportunity. Like, the fans were on equal footing because the fans would egg on the bands and force them to be more real and it was like we were all in this big way where we were pushing each other and teasing each other so little by little it grew and grew and grew. But then, after about two or three years, we started to have problems because the police were always trying to stop the shows, and the punks were never really accepted in San Francisco, so we used to get beat up a lot. It was very dangerous and some people started to die from heroin. It was a short-lived thing, but it was so intense while it was going on, we were all learning from each other, learning about politics in the world and the media and how everything was so controlled. We saw how vibrant and fun our scene was, but we couldn’t get anybody to cover it. There were no records being played on the radio, we couldn’t get records out, and any media coverage was just to ridicule the whole thing.

What did you shoot on?
I had a manual Nikon FM. Is yours a manual?

No, this is some shitty DSLR I picked up for 30 bucks. I love color film but it’s too hard to develop.
Yeah, I developed all my own film and prints in my bathroom or in the closet.

So you only shot black and white?
Occasionally I shot some color pictures. The night after the Sex Pistols played at Winterland, for some reason I just took color film. The Sex Pistols had just gone to Texas where they got beat up and spit at by all these cowboys, and [manager] Malcolm McLaren had planned it like that. By the time they got to San Francisco, everything had imploded. Johnny Rotten always said that Malcolm caused the breakup of the band and that he tried to separate Johnny and Sid [Vicious] from Steve [Jones] and Paul [Cook], so finally the band broke up, and the next night at the Mabuhay [Gardens] all the punks showed up, and we just figured the Sex Pistols would come because this was THE punk club, you know? So Darby Crash was playing that night with the Germs, and so Sid came during the show, and he was really out of it, and he got on the stage while the bands were playing and grabbed some broken glass and started to cut himself. But everyone’s just like, “Siiiid, come on, let the bands play!” like, “Don’t be an asshole,” and you know, he was an asshole. Then he just went backstage and passed out. That’s when I snapped that photo of him with Helen Killer.

There was a punk band in the 70s out of Seattle called Helen Keller and there’s a punk band now out of LA called Heller Keller. The spirit of punk hasn’t changed much, I’m guessing; it's still got same old influences, still unknown and marginalized.
I’ll have to check them out. You know, Green Day was asked in an interview, “How do you compare to the old-school punks?” and they said, “The old guys were political, we’re not.” That’s fucking crazy—being a punk was political even if you didn’t overtly say you were an anarchist or whatever. I do notice now with the newer generation, your generation, they are waking up to see how fucked up everything is. Because you are getting the brunt of it, my friend, and I feel so sorry for young people right now, I mean what the fuck are you going to do? You owe money for college, you can’t get a job. We didn’t have any money either, so that should be inspiration for you. We published a magazine, we wrote living on minimum wage, and we managed to do it. We were able to reach people across the world like that, we sold Search and Destroy in Paris and London, Berlin, and of course New York, so I support any young people that want to try to make a statement. If you have the rebel sprit, you can make a certain way.

What have you been doing since RE/Search?
Well, in ’81 I moved to New York City and they didn’t care about punk photography, nobody even wanted to look at it or hear about it. New York was moving on. So my work became very symbolic and I used the naked body to represent different symbols and information. I called the work “Archaic Revival.” Then I got started with this band called the Saqqara Dogs, they were like a Middle Eastern psychedelic band, and I produced a multimedia show for the live shows, and then in the late ‘80s I had a son and I gave up photography for about 15 years and studied healing.

So what brought about the publication of this new book so long after you stopped?
Well, in 2000 this friend of mine was looking for a photo of Chrome that he knew I had, and we were looking for the negatives, which it turned out I didn’t have because Chrome stole them from me, but he saw my negatives and said, “Why don’t you do a book?” I’m like, “Nobody cares about this anymore,” but he convinced me, and it took me eight years to scan all my negatives. Then I had a show in San Francisco and 10,000 people came during the three months it was open, so that was a start. Then I did a show in LA and in Denver, and now the book, From the Edge of the World, is out.

From the Edge of the World is published by Superior Viaduct.

@jules_su

More on punk icons:

We Talked to Lydia Lunch and She Didn't Seem to Like Us Very Much

The Art of Punk with Bryan Ray Turcotte

Pretty Much Every Single Black Flag Flyer Designed by Raymond Pettibon

Israel is the world's biggest exporter of military drones, used around the world for everything from surveillance to precision rocket attacks on speeding cars in remote locales. Israel's drone program hasn't stirred as much controversy as its American counterpart, but not because their targeted killings are any less fatal. VICE sent Simon Ostrovsky to a drone testing airfield in Israel to find out what their latest eye-in-the-sky can see.

A couple of years ago, in a dumpy discount grocery store in Cleveland, Ohio, you might have seen Jimi Nxir stocking shelves with crap like antiperspirant deodorant and mothballs. The singer-songwriter was probably filling those racks to the fine tunes of groups like Dexys Midnight Runners and Wham! But even then, in full-fail regalia with the employer-provided polyester polo shirt and flat-front pants on, he had a different song in his head—one of psychedelic soundscapes where electronic vibes become soulful and hot-buttered soul becomes ones and zeros. You might not have recognized it back then, if you saw him among the rows and aisles of processed food and useless knick-knacks, but Jimi has always had his own song to sing. And his song would take him from the sleepy streets of Cleveland to the vanguard of a new movement of black artists in New York City. 

Joshua Kissi, who is the co-founder of Street Etiquette, discovered Jimi's work randomly on SoundCloud while he was in a hunt for something new and experimental. Excited by what he heard, he reached out to Jimi via Twitter and eventually they met up when Jimi finally made the plunge to come to New York after being accepted in the Red Bull Music Academy. Josh, who is probably the only person I know who I would seriously call an "arbiter of taste" without a constipation-face, was so inspired by Jimi's music and mission, he's taking time from globe-trotting and showing dweebs how to dress to help spread the word about Jimi's music.

And that's how I heard about Jimi, from Josh, who spoke about sharing Jimi's music with me the way someone would share a precious secret or a tab of Yellow Sunshine LSD with you. When I first listened to "Thundher," I have to admit I was underwhelmed. It was short and the lyrics weren't about big butts or selling drugs. But like all great things, such as a tab of Yellow Sunshine LSD, it took time to settle in. It crept up on me—the emotive love lyrics, the crooning vocals, the bumbling bassline. Before I knew it, "Thundher" was in constant rotation. It was the only thing I was trying to hear.

As someone who loves the song, is a fellow Clevelander, and is excited to see young brothers use their creativity to step outside the bounds of hip-hop into other arenas, I'm super proud that VICE has the opportunity to debut the music video for "Thundher," which Josh produced and J. M. Harper directed. To commemorate the drop, I linked up with Jimi and Josh for a chat in a place that probably looks like a hobo's living room. We talked talk about Jimi's creative process, leaving school to ultimately pursue music, the vast spectrum of blackness that isn't being presented in popular music, and how the love of women can inspire so much creativity and so much bullshit. Check it out and be on the look out for Jimi's debut EP, GXLD, dropping later this year.

From the left: the author, Wilbert L. Cooper; the artist, Jimi Nxir; and the producer, Joshua Kissi. Photo by Christian Storm

VICE: Before you were in New York doing music, you were in Cleveland. How'd you get to Cleveland from Howard University, where you went to school?
Jimi: I didn’t graduate. I couldn't afford it at all. I left after my first year. I went straight from Howard back to Cleveland. And I lived there for, like, two years.

What were you doing in Cleveland?
I worked at Marc’s and lived with my mom. I was working and working and then I realized that music was my shit. I knew that before I left for Howard, but it became more prevalent when I got back to Cleveland. So, I saved up enough money to go back to school... Let me rephrase that. I earned enough money to go back to school, but I didn’t spend shit on going back to school. I just bought music equipment instead.

How’s New York going for you?
I love it man. I’m just broke as fuck.

Unfortunately, I can relate. Where are you living at in the city?
I’m living with a friend in Bushwick. But I might not be there for much longer. I have no idea what I’m doing at all, because I’m not working.

What made you come?
I came here for the Red Bull Music Academy. I was coming one way or another, though, because I was really into the New York scene at the time. I loved it all from Street Etiquette to the Flatbush Zombies. Finally, I was just like, “I have to stop doing this bullshit I’m doing and make it happen. I need to be a part of it.”

What was the process like getting into the Red Bull Music Academy?
It was a long-ass 25-page application.

No shit? What’s the program involve?
It’s like a summer camp for grown-ass people who love music. It’s set up like school. Every day we had lectures. They’d give us stories about their lives and musical tastes. Then, we’d have a show later on that night, where one of us in the Academy would perform. In between all of that, we’d work on our own music.

Josh, you guys met for the first time in person while Jimi was in the Academy. What attracted you to his music? 
Joshua: I was at a brunch, and I invited him to come. We just talked it up that whole day and got to know each other. More than anything, we’re friends, we support each other, and that’s how it really started. We just started to build. I saw his vision, where he wanted to bring it, and I was like, "Yo, we could really make something incredible that hasn’t been done before."

Word. Jimi, how’d you get into making music?
Jimi: I grew up with my dad listening to like jazz and the classics, the Isley Brothers, the Dramatics, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. But we didn't listen to rap.

You weren't allowed to listen to rap? Was your family real into Jesus or something?
My family just didn't fuck with it. We didn't watch BET or any of that stuff.

You’re lucky you’re parents spared you Cita's World. That shit was the worst.
When my parents split, my mom became way more lenient. That’s when I started getting into groups like Outkast. But the music that I'm listening to now, I got into in college. At Howard, one of my boys put me on to groups like the Police and Led Zeppelin. College really broadened my shit.

What seminal records put you on the track to where you're at now?
Before I got to college, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Voodoo by D'Angelo. Those two albums were really big in my life. Then in college I discovered Funkadelic's Maggot Brain and Standing on the Verge of Getting It On.

Would you say your music is psychedelic?
Absolutely. I make music that is for your own personal trip. I get into bouts of sadness sometimes over bullshit and life, and it's hard to find music that will fit my mood. To a certain degree, I make music that is for that purpose. If I'm sad, I can put it on and dance.

Tell me about the song “Thundher.” What was the inspiration behind that?
It's about two girls that embody one specific thing for me. And it's about me not being around them.

Does romantic stuff always inspire your music?
Yeah, it inspires everything. The new shit that I'm working on is specifically about women.

What is it?
It's about women.

Right, but what is it about women that inspires you? Is it the love? Is it the beauty?
It's the bullshit. That's what inspires me. The bullshit and the love. I'm getting' so much of that in New York.

That's nice. You’re getting a lot of love?
Nope, a lot of bullshit.

Unfortunately, I can relate to that as well... Josh, what attracted you to Jimi’s sound?
Joshua: For every movement there’s some type of music that comes with it. You need a sound, because you can’t march without a band. The movement needs to move. There’s a lot of talented people in my circle, but Jimi’s music is special.

Tell me about the visuals you put to the video.
I listened to the song and I was crying in the room. It just felt like this emotional journey, which is crazy because the song is not too long. But, it’s one of those songs you put on repeat. It’s addictive. So in the video, he’s on this emotional, space journey about a girl.

It always comes back to the girls.
Right? Men, we look at women and there’s a lot of thought that goes into it. But it’s only singers that actually get to put it to down on paper and make it into a song that makes both females and males thrive. So the video is naturally trippy. It has a whole space-galactic psycho aspect to it.

Jimi, since you’ve linked up with Street Etiquette, has your style changed?
Jimi: I’m at a point now where I wear whatever I want. I used to not be able to do that.  

Joshua: He’s a hat guy.

Jimi: Yeah, I love hats, bro. When I see one I like, I have to have it. I like floral patterns, too. I have these dope-ass floral-pattern leggings.

Photo by Christian Storm

As you guys build in conjunction with the movement that is SE, do you think you’re fostering something people are going latch on to later? What kind of effect do you want to leave on people or the world around you?
Jimi: I’m trying to change some shit.

Joshua: We want to change the world, really. I love seeing my peers doing what they’re doing—people like the Flatbush Zombies and A$AP Rocky. When you have an idea of how you can change the world or people’s perception of things, it’s all about just getting it moving.

Jimi: I want to do things that let my little brothers know that they can do whatever they want.

Josh: People are going to reference this moment later. They will talk about this movement.

Jimi: Definitely, because we are trying to bring something real to the table.

And what's that?
Joshua: Rapping is cool and all, but there’s so much more to black culture or African-American culture than rapping and people don’t know about that. We want to bring it back to the essence of playing instruments and really learning shit.

Jimi: When I grew up, it was not an option. I had to play an instrument. But now they’re closing all the music programs.

Have you guys seen the videos of Unlocking the Truth? It’s real inspiring.
Joshua: To me, that’s the next level of what we’re all doing. There’s different ways and definitions to what it means to be black in America, to what it means to be black in this world.

How do you combat those close-minded notions?
Jimi: You know what's wild? Back in the 60s and the 70s, no one said phrases like “that’s some white people shit.” Black people were listening to rock ’n’ roll all the time—like Funkadelic. But that’s missing today. There’s no place for eclecticism right now. They’ve divided us. I want to break away from that. I want to start my own version of house music. I want go to UK so that I can understand and hear real dubstep. I want to feel and hear all kinds of new ideas and music and see the way my mind and my art evolves and grows.

Word. I'm excited to watch it happen. Thanks, fellas.  

Follow Wilbert on Twitter: @WilbertLCooper

Follow Joshua on Twitter: @StreetEtiquette 

And follow Jimi on Twitter: @JimiNxir

More from Wilbert:

The George Zimmerman Trial Reminded Me of Who I Am in America

The RZA and Adrian Younge Are Supreme Mutant Beings

Big Booties Don't Get into Rap Videos Without These Guys

Earlier this year we broadcast ten episodes of our show VICE on HBO. Those were heady days, when Shane Smith and our intrepid correspondents appeared on television sets across the country, carrying VICE's immersive reporting into millions of homes.

And guess what? The members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences thought Shane's efforts, along with those of everyone else working on the show, merited an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series category. While we are elated by the news and buoyed by that sense of unbridled optimism that comes with the plaudits of your peers, those of us who’ve been watching Shane and the rest of the VICE crew churn out kick-ass doc after kick-ass doc aren’t particularly surprised. Getting out there and covering things that boggle the mind has been our m.o. for years.  

Shane Smith, VICE’s co-founder and executive producer of VICE on HBO, has been at the helm of some the most harrowing and bizarre adventures we’ve ever taken. So in celebration of our Emmy nod, and in anticipation of more great stuff to come (our show was picked up for a second season) we thought we’d assemble three of Shane’s signature pieces that we’ve aired here on VICE.com and on our massive YouTube channel. Enjoy.