I Mix What I Like!: A Mixtape Manifesto

"Jared Ball is determined to rescue hip hop and left activism from increasingly subversive corporate control. This book is a manifesto that needs to be read, argued about, and yelled from the rooftops. Let the bricks fly!"—Todd Steven Burroughs, co-author of Civil Rights Chronicle

"The Funkiest Journalist breaks it all down for all servants of Soul/Funk music and Art in the 21st Century. His Mixtape Manifesto explains what we are up against battling corporate empires that control the coveted consumer-merchant access points, and offers us an option to distribute, connect, and popularize our culture."—Head Roc, political hip-hop artist

"The revolutionary power of this book lies in its capacity to interrogate staid constructs of thought and re-pose vital questions pertaining to 'emancipatory journalism.' For the power to pose the question is the greatest power of all."—Frank B. Wilderson, III, author of Incognegro

In a moment of increasing corporate control in the music industry, Jared A. Ball analyzes the colonization and control of popular music and posits the homemade hip-hop mixtape as an emancipatory tool for community resistance. Equally at home in a post-colonial studies class and on the shelves of an indie record store, I Mix What I Like! is a revolutionary investigation of the cultural dimension of anti-racist organizing in African America.

Jared A. Ball, PhD, (a.k.a. The Funkiest Journalist) is the host of FreeMix Radio, and assistant professor of communication studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.