Category Archives: music

Yeeeaaahhhh, Boy! Cold Me-dina! LOL! (Public Enemy and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Posted on by toddpanther

The Enemy made it! Just shows how old we all are, with Malcolm X being on a postage stamp and all……  🙂

Will Terminator X speak at the induction ceremony? 🙂

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(VIDEOS BELOW ADDED ON JULY 30th, 2014)

Public Enemy – Prophets of Rage – BBC Special… by dreadinny

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DECEMBER 18th UPDATE: From Rolling Stone:

Chuck D on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Of Course Hip-Hop Belongs
‘I’d like to smash the award into 10,000 pieces and hand each piece to a  contributor’

December 18, 2012 12:10 PM ET

Next April, Public Enemy  will become the fourth hip hop act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of  Fame. Right now, however, Chuck D is extremely frustrated. He just wrapped a  grueling cross-country Hip Hop Gods tour featuring Public Enemy, X-Clan, Monie  Love, Schoolly D, Leaders of the New School and Awesome Dre, and he feels it  didn’t receive enough attention.

“I’m perturbed at the major media for not covering us,” he says. “You didn’t  hear about any tours over the last 10 years that weren’t Eminem or Rick Ross or  Dre or Jay-Z or Kanye. The media was licking their ass, but we did quite well  across the country and got no attention.”

Older rap acts are often called “old school,” but Chuck D thinks they need to  be rebranded. “We created another genre called ‘classic rap,'” he says. “I was  inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry  and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the  time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.”

He also drew inspiration from an unlikely source. “I turned on the TV and saw  Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus still golfing,” he says. “I’m like, ‘I thought  they were retired.’ Someone was like, ‘Nah, that’s the senior circuit.’ The same  thing can be happening in hip-hop. To confuse Schoolly D from Drake is  absolutely ridiculous. It’s related, and there can be some interaction there,  but the fan bases are different. The meanings are different. These categories  protect the legacy of hip-hop.”

Classic rap artists have been playing together for years, but Chuck D was  dismayed by the quality of their shows. “They were being treated like shit,” he  says. “They threw a bunch of artists on a bald stage. People would come, see a  bunch of old records and go home. I realized there had to be a better way to do  this. I called up a bunch of people personally and told them the idea for this  tour is that nobody is bigger than anybody else. It’s like what Ozzy Osbourne  did with Ozzfest. We have a great camaraderie between the artists. We put 33  people on two buses and we all had the same agenda.”

The first Hip Hop Gods tour just wrapped with a show in Los Angeles, but  Chuck D is already planning five more for 2013. “I’m not physically going on all  of them,” he says. “I’m going to orchestrate them, and my team will actually be  an integral part of them. I won’t let them become a circus, which has happened  to tours in the past. If you look at hip hop touring now, it’s practically  nonexistent. There’s a lot of one-offs like Rock the Bells, but a tour that goes  east to west, north to south, 3,000 miles, it’s a different kind of animal.”

In the meantime, Chuck D is extremely gratified that Public Enemy are  entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. “I’m very fortunate to be  acknowledged by my peers,” he says. “I take this very seriously. I grew up as a  sports fan, and I know that a hall of fame is very different than an award for  being the best of the year. It’s a nod to the longevity of our accomplishment.  When it comes to Public Enemy, we did this on our own terms. I imagine this as a  trophy made out of crystal. I’d like to smash it into 10,000 pieces and hand  each piece to a contributor.”

Chuck D has little patience for people who say hip-hop acts don’t belong in  the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it  comes from DJ culture,” he says. “DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and  all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.”

Public Enemy will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on April 18th at  a Los Angeles ceremony alongside Rush, Heart, Randy Newman, Donna Summer and  Albert King. “We guarantee we’re going to tear that damn place down,” says  Chuck D. “I might tell DJ Lord to rock the beginning of ‘Tom Sawyer.’ Then  people will be shaking their heads like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ That’s the  ability of what I consider probably one of the greatest performing bands in  hip-hop history. It’s not bragging, because I don’t brag about myself, but my  guys are the best in the business. There’s nobody that can touch Flava Flav.  There’s nobody else like him in the world.”

There’s been no talk of any onstage collaborations with any of the other  artists, but Public Enemy has a long history of working with rock groups. They  recorded a new version of “Bring the Noise” with Anthrax in 1991, toured with U2  in 1992 and recorded “He Got Game” with Stephen Stills in 1998.

“The goal was to enhance [‘For What It’s Worth’], to take it to another  level,” Chuck D says. “I totally hate when somebody takes a classic and  desecrates it. I like Jimmy Page and P. Diddy, but what they did to ‘Kasmhir’  was a debacle. They are giants in their own way – and you can print this – but  that was a fucking travesty. When I get involved with a classic, I knock the  fucking ceiling out of it or I leave it the fuck alone.”

“Save WPFW!” Ulp, Wait, Too Late :(

Posted on by toddpanther

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AT WPFW?!?

Lemme get this straight: the Pacifica Board is taking off Black Classical Music (a.k.a. jazz) so that it can air shows from other Pacifica stations and radio shows from NPR and PRI?!?

I am a fan of some of the shows that are replacing the jazz. But 1) as a NPR fanatic,  I was perfectly fine with WPFW being a REFUGE from that hegemonic view and 2) Black people need to access the Realm of the Ancestors in the morning.

How is a network that is heading toward bankruptcy buying PRI and NPR programs ?????

I hope the current (and now, ex-)staff will do something other than complain. I’m pretty sure I know what would happen if the National Board tried this at KPFA and KPFK.

DECEMBER 1st UPDATE: Check here and here.

What I Said In Full To The Grio

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

The Grio interviewed me about this petition. So I squeezed my entire doctoral dissertation into six paragraphs. 🙂

Here’s what I sent it:

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I am deeply disturbed by this turn of events in New York City. Black radio—particularly when 1190 WLIB-AM had a Black news/talk format in the 1980s, and you could listen to “Nighttalk with Bob Law,” the show created by National Black Network and originating on 1600 WWRL-AM—was a powerful force in the lives of many New Yorkers. Both played an extraordinary role in my political and cultural socialization.

I am a native of Newark, N.J., so most of us grew up on New York City media. When I listened, WLIB was exactly what some Black journalists called it: “The Afrocentric University of the Airwaves.” I was introduced to the concept of Afrocentricity because of WLIB and “Nighttalk.” WLIB taught me about some older men named “Dr. Clarke” and “Dr. Ben,”  and I listened intently to what they had to say about world history. New York’s Black radio identified for me who was out in the street fighting for Black people, and why they were doing it. And who their enemies were. And why, by extension, I now had to consider their enemies my enemies. A Communication major at Seton Hall University, I started cutting class and staying home in the mid- to late-1980s to listen to what the activists, historians and others had to explain about the condition of Black people, and the responsibility of all Black people—particularly those in media—to struggle for Black self-determination and self-definition.

WLIB and “Nighttalk” were living, crackling, commercial-filled, radical street-level HBCUs. They took the historic legacy of Black radio and furthered it. Even KISS, owned by white corporate types, had a brother named Bob Slade who understood this tradition and represented community concerns. I understand he’s now on WBLS, but what will happen if there’s no more WBLS?

Today, KISS is gone, Gil Noble and “Like It Is” are starting to become fading memories, and WLIB is gospel. “Nighttalk” is gone and Bob Law is a restaurateur. Gary Byrd is holding on to his career for dear life.

So losing WLIB and WBLS? New York’s historic Black Liberation Stations? If that happens, it will be a major setback for Black political socialization and community development. New York has always been a leader in Black activism because its radical and progressive traditions—Garvey, Adam, Malcolm, streetcorner speakers, rallies/protests etc.—transferred successfully to radio and television, giving a political and cultural education to multiple generations at the same time. I’m 44, and I remember when New York local television had FIVE local and national Black public affairs shows on weekends. (“Like It Is” (WABC) “The McCreary Report” (WNEW/WNYW) “Tony Brown’s Journal” (WNET/PBS) “Essence: The Television Program” (SYNDICATED, BUT AIRED ON, MADE AT AND BY WNBC) and “Positively Black” (WNBC). Black people in New York were organized in the  late 1960s and early 1970s because they had forums they trusted that told them what was going on. They continued to count on Black radio in the 1980s, 1990s and even the 2000s to educate them politically and culturally, and to organize them.

Regardless of media consolidation, whites have the entire political and social spectrum on their radio dial—from Pacifica to Rush, with NPR and all-news radio in the middle. Historically, a Black radio station had to fulfill all of the functions Black people needed—educator, motivator, activist, spiritual uplifter. What we have now—a (mostly white) corporate abandonment of those ideas—is bad enough. But not to have it at all in the nation’s biggest, most powerful, and politically and culturally Blackest market will show how Black communities once again have been given symbolism instead of substance in the Obama era.

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Lauryn Hill: "Failure To Create A Non-Toxic, Non-Exploitative Environment Was Not An Option"

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

An extraordinary statement about media, society and the role of the artist.  In the tradition.

For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground.  I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.  Having put the lives and needs of other people before my own for multiple years, and having made hundreds of millions of dollars for certain institutions, under complex and sometimes severe circumstances, I began to require growth and more equitable treatment, but was met with resistance.  I entered into my craft full of optimism (which I still possess), but immediately saw the suppressive force with which the system attempts to maintain it’s control over a given paradigm.  I’ve seen people promote addiction, use sabotage, black listing, media bullying and any other coercion technique they could, to prevent artists from knowing their true value, or exercising their full power.  These devices of control, no matter how well intentioned (or not), can have a devastating outcome on the lives of people, especially creative types who must grow and exist within a certain environment and according to a certain pace, in order to live and create optimally.

I kept my life relatively simple, even after huge successes, but it became increasingly obvious that certain indulgences and privileges were expected to come at the expense of my free soul, free mind, and therefore my health and integrity. So I left a more mainstream and public life, in order to wean both myself, and my family, away from a lifestyle that required distortion and compromise as a means for maintaining it.  During this critical healing time, there were very few people accessible to me who had not already been seduced or affected by this machine, and therefore who could be trusted to not try and influence or coerce me back into a dynamic of compromise. Individual growth was expected to take place unnaturally, or stagnated outright, subject to marketing and politics.  Addressing critical issues like pop culture cannibalism or its manipulation of the young at the expense of everything, was frowned upon and discouraged by limiting funding, or denying it outright.  When one has a prolific creative output like I did/do, and is then forced to stop, the effects can be dangerous both emotionally and psychologically, both for the artist and those in need of that resource.  It was critically important that I find a suitable pathway within which to exist, without being distorted or economically strong-armed.

During this period of crisis, much was said about me, both slanted and inaccurate, by those who had become dependent on my creative force, yet unwilling to fully acknowledge the importance of my contribution, nor compensate me equitably for it.  This was done in an effort to smear my public image, in order to directly affect my ability to earn independently of this system.  It took a long time to locate and nurture a community of people strong enough to resist the incredibly unhealthy tide, and more importantly see through it.  If I had not been able to make contact with, and establish this community, my life, safety and freedom, would have been directly affected as well as the lives, safety and freedom of my family.  Failure to create a non toxic, non exploitative environment was not an option.

As my potential to work, and therefore earn freely, was being threatened, I did whatever needed to be done in order to insulate my family from the climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism and ageism that I was surrounded by.  This was absolutely critical while trying to find and establish a new and very necessary community of healthy people, and also heal and detoxify myself and my family while raising my young children.

There were no exotic trips, no fleet of cars, just an all out war for safety, integrity, wholeness and health, without mistreatment denial, and/or exploitation.  In order to liberate myself from those who found it ok to oppose my wholeness, free speech and integral growth by inflicting different forms of punitive action against it, I used my resources to sustain our safety and survival until I was able to restore my ability to earn outside of it!

When artists experience danger and crisis under the effects of this kind of insidious manipulation, everyone easily accepts that there was something either dysfunctional or defective with the artist, rather than look at, and fully examine, the system and its means and policies of exploiting/’doing business’.  Not only is this unrealistic, it is very dark in its motivation, conveniently targeting the object of their hero worship by removing any evidence that they ‘needed’ or celebrated this very same resource just years, months or moments before.  Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego.  Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.

It was this schism and the hypocrisy, violence and social cannibalism it enabled, that I wanted and needed to be freed from, not from art or music, but the suppression/repression and reduction of that art and music to a bottom line alone, without regard for anything else.  Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual.  I Love making art, I Love making music, these are as natural and necessary for me almost as breathing or talking.  To be denied the right to pursue it according to my ability, as well as be properly acknowledged and compensated for it, in an attempt to control, is manipulation directed at my most basic rights!  These forms of expression, along with others, effectively comprise my free speech!  Defending, preserving, and protecting these rights are critically important, especially in a paradigm where veiled racism, sexism, ageism, nepotism, and deliberate economic control are still blatant realities!!!

Learning from the past, insulating friends and family from the influence of external manipulation and corruption, is far more important to me than being misunderstood for a season!  I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities, but I did however put my safety, health and freedom and the freedom, safety and health of my family first over all other material concerns!  I also embraced my right to resist a system intentionally opposing my right to whole and integral survival.

I conveyed all of this when questioned as to why I did not file taxes during this time period.  Obviously, the danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution.

My intention has always been to get this situation rectified.  When I was working consistently without being affected by the interferences mentioned above, I filed and paid my taxes.  This only stopped when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family.

As this, and other areas of issue are resolved and set straight, I am able to get back to doing what I should be doing, the way it should be done.  This is part of that process.  To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue.  I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.