From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Crunk conscious

As Que, Kijani Amari is waking rap fans from their street daze.

by Kamila Pritchett

May 3 2006

"That's my best friend up there!" Jacquelyn "J" Denson squeals. "Oh my God, I'm so nervous."

Goose bumps cover Denson's arm as her "best friend" -- who, in fact, is also her husband, Kijani Amari -- takes the stage at Revolution nightclub in Fort Lauderdale. Denson has every reason to be nervous. Amari, the Miami-based rapper behind the independent label Handsome and Ruthless, is about to perform in front of one of the largest audiences of his 14-year career. Problem is, none of the people in the audience is here to see him.

Amari, who performs under the name Que (pronounced "K"), is the opening act for hip-hop icon, movie star and frankfurter impresario Snoop Dogg. The crowd of mostly white, college-age kids this night in January wants to see the man responsible for both "Gin and Juice" and Soul Plane, not some relatively unknown rhyme spinner from their own back yard. Nevertheless, when Amari demands that audience members throw their middle digits into the air, they immediately oblige. "We ain't looking for no problems!" the 34-year-old Amari shouts. "But we can get it crunk if you want to!" This audience, he quickly discovers, wants him to get it crunk.

When Amari began rapping in the early 1990s, crunk was just a twinkle in the eye of Lil Jon's dentist. Miami bass was at the peak of its popularity, and Amari placed himself right in the middle of it. He signed to Pandisc Music Corp., the label that also included on its roster raunchy Miami R&B singer Blowfly and DJ Laz from Power 96 (WPOW-FM, 96.5). Since then, Amari has recorded with The Wailers, Mr. Cheeks of The Lost Boyz and Mark Curry of Bad Boy Records. In 2001, he contributed a verse to JT Money's "Where My Thugs At," which resulted in an invite to tour with his fellow Miami rapper.

These days, the insistent thump of the bass scene and songs about bitches, guns and drugs behind him, Amari has become what some people may term a "conscious rapper," delivering, among his beats, messages to ghetto youth to get more involved in their communities and fight the negative forces that have contributed to the decline of their neighborhoods. Such positive yet street-savvy messages fill Amari's latest album, The Minority Report, on which he also targets rappers who glorify murder, drug use, misogyny and other things that have a detrimental effect on the African-American community.

"Que is a person I've been watching for years, and I wish I could have worked with him more," says DJ Jam, who has manned the turntables for Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre since 1990. "I really like that he's able to keep that street edge musically but with a very straight-across message. He still keeps that conscious vibe."

Amari did not come by his anti-thug stance lightly. While growing up, he saw people close to him sell drugs and commit other crimes. Eventually, he got caught up in the life himself. "We'd get in trouble, get involved in selling drugs and hanging in the streets and all that," he recalls.

It took two incidents for Amari to realize he was headed in the wrong direction down a one-way road. The first happened when he was a 19-year-old high-school senior and became a father. The second came two years later when a childhood friend was sentenced to 65 years in prison for drug-related charges.

"I thought, 'If I get locked up, who's going to raise my son and teach him to be a man?' " Amari remembers. "I went through the whole phase of the thug mentality and that reactionary-suicide-type of lifestyle, and I decided to change my life for myself and my son."

Amari began studying African-American history and the teachings of black revolutionaries. He discovered the term reactionary suicide in the book Revolutionary Suicide by Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton. Amari says the term describes the abundance of negativity caused by a lack of opportunity, which leads to self-destructive behavior such as drug abuse, violence and criminal acts.

"I did a lot of reading and studying, and through that, I evolved out of that thug mentality," Amari says. "Now, a lot of the people I grew up looking up to are in jail or dead."

As Amari began to focus on his career, he realized he had to separate himself from his old crew if he wanted to change his life. "I had a rap partner and people around me still in that lifestyle and doing that type of music," he recalls. "It was painful to break that bond. But then, this light in your head goes on, and you change your life forever. It's like jumping off a train you know is going to crash."

Although his songs speak of reaching a higher level of consciousness, Amari frowns at the conscious rapper label. He jokes that even gangsta rappers are "conscious," because otherwise they'd be unconscious.

Amari aims to deliver the message that what today's culture glorifies as cool is actually what is tearing down the African-American community. He hopes his words can encourage others who grew up as he did to see the error of their ways. In one song, "Crunk," Amari targets wannabe thugs: "This is a serious issue/I'm praying niggas understand/How you hide behind pistols/And then, you call yourself a man?/This the way we been livin'/I think it's time we change our plans/Time to wash your brother's blood off your hands."

Amari believes a rapper doesn't have to talk about bitches and hos to gain respect. In his songs, he lets listeners know that just because he's from the streets doesn't mean he has a street mentality.

"I think a lot of people are sleepwalking," he argues, "and this is music to wake up their souls."