About Me

The Basics: Who: Lynx. I’ve had a few other names in my life, but that’s the main one and the one most people know me by.  Emceeing is what I do, Lynx is who I am.
What: Your friendly neighborhood Anarcho-bard.
Where: Vallejo, California
Why “Lynx?” I get asked this one a lot so here’s the official answer: Way back in 1999 I changed my name to Lynx because I was very involved in anti-capitalist direct actions and protests.  Like many of the people involved in that movement, my friends and I  used aliases not only at actions but in our day to day lives.  That way if a friend slipped up and called me by my normal name it was still an alias.  Paranoid?  Sure.  But we had good reason to be.  Over time it just sort of became my name.

On my music:

I’ve released 7 independent albums since 2001 and the most recent 2 of those have been with my band, Beltaine’s Fire. You can get both of them, along with my two most recent solo albums, from BeltainesFire.com.

I rap about real issues in my music because it’s music for real life.  Some of it’s angry, some of it’s sad, most of it’s at least somewhat hopeful for the future. I’ve done a few love songs and a couple songs about partying, but I don’t drink or go clubbing so I don’t make music for that scene.  That’s not intended as an insult to gangster rap or street rap or anybody else; but the rap game has enough studio gangsters without me adding my face to the crowd.  I’d rather leave it to people who’ve actually lived that life and might have something intelligent or insightful to say about it.  The first rule of Hip Hop is  “don’t do wack shit” and the second rule is  “don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”  Fact is I’m a working class Celt who’s spent most of his life involved in radical politics and mass movements of various sorts. That doesn’t make me better then anyone else, it’s just who I happen to be.   So that’s what I make music about.

About the Celtic Anarchist Logo:

I use an anarchy symbol inscribed in a celtic cross as my logo for my music. The celtic cross is an ancient symbol that represents harmony, balance, and the joining of elements from all four directions – unity in diversity. The anarchy symbol, an a inside an o stands for ‘anarchy is order’. if you wanted to get mystic with it it could also represent alpha and omega, or even infinite (the circle) beginnings (the a). combining the two is a way to combine my identity as a Celt with my commitment to building an egalitarian anarchist society. as a logo, it represents the two most visible parts of my public identity and makes them one.

History:

I’ve done a lot of things, been a lot of places. I’ve been releasing my music as free mp3 downloads online since 2001 – way the hell before any of the big-name artists who’ve made headlines recently by following my lead were even looking at the internet as a viable means of distribution. I’ve done shows all over california, oregon, washington, parts of the east coast, ireland, and the uk;  and rocked open mics, ciphers, and freestyle sessions all over the USA.

I wrote and performed my first rap song in 6th grade, I was 12 years old and the year was 1992. I sucked. I’ve been performing spoken-word poetry and hip hop ever since. I like to think I’ve gotten a bit better in that time. If nothing else it’s helped me understand and relate to the world around me.

As for my background, my ancestry is mostly scottish and irish but with 18 generations in north america (8 of those in California) trying to claim “scottish american” would be kind of silly.   So if anybody asks I’m a celt and a californian.   Growing up my family was intensely religious. I wasn’t.  That created conflict. It sucked. I’ve got my own ideas about what life is and what it means, but I intensely dislike organized religion and you’ll hear that in my songs.

Politically Speaking my affiliations are as follows:

I agree with the Declaration of Independence which declares that Revolution is an inalienable human right which can be exercised at will by any population whose system of governance that fails to meet their needs, and our government is failing on just about every front.  So I am a Revolutionary.

I believe that ‘we the people’ have the right to control our own communities and workplaces directly  so I am an Autonomist.

One of the most basic rights that goes along with a belief in localized self-governance is the right for indigenous/native people (Celts, Africans, Aborigines, Basque, Chechens, Tibetans, Palestinians, Native Americans, and many others) to retain and re-assert control of their homelands and to realize political, religious, and economic self-determination. so I am an Anti-Imperialist and an Indigenist.

I believe that it is essential for people in different communities to stand up for each other and set up syndicated networks of mutual aid and solidarity both in the workplace and in the community  so I am a Syndicalist.

I believe that the only way to make sure these networks and localized governing systems work for the people is to make them non-hierarchal and fully accountable to the people, so I am an Anarchist.

I believe that people have the right to absolute ownership of everything they create and ONLY what they create, so no one has the right to own the earth because none of us created it and everyone has the right to the full value of the wealth their labor produces. It’s not communism, it’s not capitalism, it’s something else entirely.  My ideal economic system would fall somewhere between Mutualism and Anarcho-Syndicalism.  Someday I’ll probably write a book about it but in the meantime you can read more  on my blog.

I know that the Race system is one of the most powerful tools that the ruling elite has to separate working class people from each other, and – to put it bluntly – I’m sick of seeing my friends and neighbors get abused; so I am Anti-Racist.

My mother and my sisters are women (as I’m sure yours are too), and it would be stupid of me to ignore the bullshit they have to deal with in this sexist society, so I do my best to be a Feminist (or at least a strong ally, depending on your definitions).

I am keenly aware of the incredible environmental devastation and loss of bio-diversity that results from capitalism and the very real ecological collapse that is currently under way as thousands of species are driven to extinction; and more importantly I’m not content to just sit by and do nothing as it happens so I’m working to stop that devastation by every means available to me. Most people would say that makes me an Environmentalist, but really I think it’s just common sense. Anyone who can look at the way the icecaps are melting and glaciers are receding and not realize that something is very very wrong needs to stop pissing in the gene pool.

I also recognize the fact that the “environment” is not just some nebulous thing that exists outside the cities, but is all around us all the time and that the issues of environmental racism and classism that plague working-class communities are very real, so I am a Social Ecologist.

Most of all I’m a human being, just one out of however many billion, and I’m doing the best I can to live a decent life and make a positive impact on the world.