Shahid Buttar

Who I am

I'm a hip-hop and electronica MC, civil rights lawyer, poet, national non-profit leader, dancer, independent columnist, and grassroots community organizer committed to helping kickstart countercultural evolution. Hopeful voices across cultures and ages have shared a vision of a brighter day for humanity, and I do my best to reflect it for the people with whom I'm blessed to share time.  

Where I come from

From Rosebud to St. Louis…

My family hails from Pakistan-via-England, and after immigrating to the U.S. in the late seventies, camped out in rural Missouri until I turned ten.   

…to Chicago…

Six years in a suburban oasis recalled shades of Different Strokes, after which I moved to Chicago to start a personal crusade for my undergraduate education that lasted ten years.  The first several years were painfully challenging: I didn't have a place to stay for about a year, relied on the kindness of my friends to survive, often ate food that would repulse most people, and had just about lost my last vestiges of hope in my future before stumbling into a career in investment banking that funded my quest for an undergrad degree. During my 20s in Chicago, I discovered multiculturalism, struggle, the third and fourth of my periodic vaults across the socio-economic continuum, hip-hop, the urban melting pot, electronic and house music, party & rave culture, and my identity. 

…to Northern California…

The U.S. Department of State recruited me to serve in the Foreign Service shortly before I graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2000, but I ended up attending Stanford Law School instead.  Before graduating in 2003, I served as a Teaching Assistant in Constitutional Law and a political science course focusing on International Security in South Asia, as well as Executive Editor of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal.  I also received an arts award & grant with which I started the first of several artist collectives I've organized since, as well as the Fourth Annual Asian-American Graduate Student award for my combination of scholarship and community organizing.  

Each autumn seemed to flip my world upside down. Bush v. Gore was decided over the course of my first semester in 2000; the 9-11 attacks literally woke me out of bed in 2001; and the neoconservative fascists who hijacked the U.S. started beating their war drums in 2002. By 2003, I'd more or less ditched law school in favor of organizing non-violent resistance to the corporate war and colonial occupation of the cradle of human civilization. On the west coast, I honed and expanded my skills, overcame the shame and disappointment I'd internalized from my struggle for my undergrad degree, fulfilled various fantasies, and enjoyed the wild & wacky campus experience I never got when I was younger.  These were three of the best years of my life so far….

…to Washington, DC…

After graduating from law school in 2003, I moved to Washington, DC.  I worked at a law firm for two years, where I organized the first impact litigation seeking marriage equality for same-sex couples in the State of New York (which the New York Court of Appeals ultimately rejected, to our surprise and disappointment), and worked on behalf of the campaign finance reform community on (an ultimately successful) appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging lax federal regulations. I left private practice in 2005 to join the public interest community.  

Until early 2008, I ran the communications and outreach operations of The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a national non-profit network of lawyers, law students, legal scholars and judges dedicated to defending principles including human dignity, individual rights and genuine equality.  My job at ACS included several components, including legal journalism, media outreach, non-profit management, launching and managing the groundbreaking ACS ResearchLink program and liaising with other legal organizations.

When I originally moved east, I conceived my mission as helping to build an assertive politicized counter-culture, of the sort that dominates places like Northern California.  As it turned out, it was already in full effect by the time I arrived. We even dominate the local political landscape, but because D.C. is denied democracy, we have no voice in the federal debate and are cursed with having to watch its disgusting innards churning in our midst.

…back to Cali…

I moved back to San Francisco in February, 2008 to launch a program addressing racial & religious profiling.  It offered a welcome opportunity to defend the canaries in our social coal mine at a time that I happen to be one of them, and I enjoyed both diversifying the methods I employ as a lawyer, as well as focusing my legal work on substantive issues relating to civil liberties and religious freedom. I wrote a FOIA request seeking a then-secret FBI policy which ultimately confirmed systematized racial & religious profiling by federal authorities, and organized a national coalition to stop COINTELPRO 2.0

Returning to SF was also one of the best things I've ever done for my music.  The scene there is incredibly energetic and supportive, I started recording again, and I was privileged to perform with some mind-blowing DJs for crowds as energetic as I imagine I'll ever see. Moving back also offered a chance to reconnect with my many old friends in the Bay Area, whom I missed dearly while on the east coast.

And, of course, SF rocks.  I had a lot of fun and felt blessed to meet amazing people every day.

…and back east again

I moved to Northampton, Massachusetts in May, 2009.  Coming back east was somewhat terrifying, but the opportunity to lead The Bill of Rights Defense Committee was too scintillating to pass up.  I'm fascinated by the issues we address, my astounding colleagues, the tremendousopportunities the organization offers to the public at large, and the always inspiring energy of our grassroots supporters and allies across the country.

DC opened its arms to me again that fall, when I returned after having been gone for 18 months.  Living in the Montessori Monastery after four years in the Belmont House, and a year in SF in between, offered a new lens on the city.

Tearing my achilles tendon playing capoeira offered another new lens, this time on my mortality. I'm back on my feet after a year recovering and as thankful as Eddie Murphy's character in Trading Places that I have legs.

What I do

I basically yap and write…a lot.  In addition to my commentary, I also reach out to allied groups and organize coalitions, manage projects, craft opportunities for grassroots activists to raise their voices, and support their efforts.  

As an artist, I feel most comfortable on the mic and love to rhyme and beatbox.  I can spin vinyl passably well, and capoeira has led me to pick up some basic breakdancing.  Paint feels increasingly comfortable in my hands, so I feel like a bona fide hip-hop generalist…even though I don't really listen to the genre and may be the world's most essentially illiterate MC.

My grassroots work has focused on creative popular education; reclaiming public space; building (generationally, ethnically, and occupationally) diverse communities; and organizing performance artists to serve as art-tillery in the battle for hearts & minds against agents of violence and oppression. Here's a random tidbit to tickle, tantalize and testify to how I — and other Guerrilla Poets around the country — roll.  It's from a "lyrical ambush" on my front porch in 2006.  

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