388 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
388 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
the
|
||
-=*/> Buzzz Bros. <\*=-
|
||
present
|
||
|
||
*=-- --=*
|
||
{ 20 Questions for Chuck D }
|
||
|
||
Public Enemy's No. 1
|
||
Raps about race, groupies
|
||
and why he doesn't sing
|
||
{ his daughter to sleep }
|
||
*=-- --=*
|
||
|
||
*=-- --=*
|
||
{ A Playboy interview conducted by Bill Wyman }
|
||
{ Originally appearing in Playboy, November 1990 }
|
||
*=-- --=*
|
||
|
||
Text Entry By
|
||
Major Havoc
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
From it's inception, rap was one of the most potent musical forms of the
|
||
Eighties. At its slightest, it was filled with sexual braggadocio, and almost
|
||
obsessive self-absorption: The subject of most rap music was, in fact, rap
|
||
music. But groups such as Grandmaster Flash and the furious Five, who recorded
|
||
"The Message," and Kurtis Blow, who hit the charts with "The Breaks,"
|
||
demonstrated that rappers could be articulate and stridently political.
|
||
|
||
Public Enemy's leader is the stentorian Chuck D, whose deep-voiced
|
||
preaching is pitted against the chirpy tenor of his clownish co-rapper, Flavor
|
||
Flav. The group enjoys muddy politics: To a core philosophy of black
|
||
self-help, the band adds various strains of black radicalism, most pungent
|
||
amoung them an admixture of uncritical Farrakhanism. Yet Public Enemy has
|
||
achieved massive, cross-racial success, selling millions of records and filling
|
||
arenas across the country. The band's third album, "Fear of a Black Planet,"
|
||
is, in addition to rap, riveting rock music. Chuck D was born Carlton
|
||
Ridenhour 30 years ago. Bill Wyman spoke with him at Public Enemy headquarters
|
||
on Long Island and at the offices of Def Jam Records in Manhattan. "The
|
||
shouted slogans and ragged beats are for the stage and the studio," reports
|
||
Wyman. "In person, Chuck is personable and quiet, with, as he puts it, 'a face
|
||
to fit in.' It turns out that the fiery radical would rather talk about his
|
||
family and his business than about politics: He and his partner and producer,
|
||
Hank Shocklee, employ nearly 30 people; he's proud of the fact that they
|
||
practice what they preach."
|
||
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 1. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Rap music can be jarring and harsh, almost antimusic. What sort
|
||
of music was around the house when you were growing up?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: My mother and father were record collectors. My pops was into
|
||
jazz; to this day, I don't have a sharp liking for it, though I
|
||
guess it's in me. My moms played all the soul. She'd play Al
|
||
Green over and over and over - the same record, over and over
|
||
again - and then Stevie Wonder over and over, and then Aretha,
|
||
Aretha, Aretha.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 2. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What was your road to rap?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: I would go to clubs and check out the rappers, but it got to the
|
||
point where they were using too much echo chamber and the words
|
||
were muffled. I wanted to hear straight-out rhymes. I thought
|
||
I could do a better job. And one day, I did.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 3. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Your observations are of an artistic nature and they're being taken
|
||
very seriously. Do you consider yourself a black leader now?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: I'm a switchboard and a dispatcher of information. But I want to
|
||
be in a a position to encourage black people to be leaders, and
|
||
when you set some sort of exaple, you have to take on some of the
|
||
responsibilty. There are about 30 people in our structure, and
|
||
there's never going to be a situation where me and Hank are walking
|
||
around like Donald Trump. Being a black leader is not just saying,
|
||
"Well, I'm Nelson Mandela." A black leader takes care of his kids,
|
||
endorses some sort of family structure and keeps his family
|
||
together. I think my father is a black leader.
|
||
|
||
Not many black males are men. We have boys who are sixty years
|
||
old. What makes a man is accepting responsibilities and having a
|
||
low tolerance for oppresing forces.
|
||
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 4. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What's the difference between Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Michael Jordan's face isn't shifting. Michael Jackson you feel
|
||
sorry for. Michael Jordan you don't feel sorry for, because he is
|
||
doing exactly what he wants to do on his own terms. People are
|
||
crossing over to -him-. Michael Jackson feels that he'll get more
|
||
acceptance if he changes his face so it looks nicer to white
|
||
people. He failed to understand that people liked him as he was,
|
||
and motherfuckers don't like to see him with a lack of respect for
|
||
what God gave him. Back in the early Eighties, Michael Jackson
|
||
could have really changed the way white people looked at black
|
||
people. It's not what's outside you. It's what's inside you. The
|
||
music comes from within.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 5. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What did Carlton Ridenhour do before he became Chuck D?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: I was a messenger for a black company, delivering Government
|
||
photos. The people who owned the place gave me a lot of
|
||
inspiration, because it was netirely a black-owned operation, with
|
||
a lot of white people working for it. I just loved working there.
|
||
I wrote Yo! Bum Rush the Show [Public Enemy's first album] while I
|
||
was there. Also, me and Flavor used to drive these U-Hauls for my
|
||
father's business, and that was some trick. People in New York
|
||
would crowd the street. But they wouldn't crowd the street when
|
||
Flavor was driving.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 6. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Can you explain Flavor's clock?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Back in '87, people were wearing those stop watches, and one day,
|
||
one of the boys brought up this clock. I thought it was hype, and
|
||
I started wearing a bigger clock. He just kept getting bigger and
|
||
bigger clocks. I took my clocks off.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 7. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: You make some of the hardest rock records ever made - they're
|
||
dissonant, loud and challenging. Does this approach make it
|
||
difficult to get your message across?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: One of our objectives is to uplift our race and rebuild the black
|
||
structure, rebuild the black man and woman. A lot of us are
|
||
hardheaded about it. But if I smack you on the head with this
|
||
newspaper, you'll definately listen up. Bang! "Yeah! What's Up?"
|
||
Rather than just me saying, "Yo, check this out."
|
||
|
||
Originally, we wanted to make a record that would stand out
|
||
from all the others sonically. We made our first single, Public
|
||
Enemy No. 1, in December 1984. I liked that particular sample, but
|
||
there was another consideration: We could monitor who was
|
||
listening. My parents lived on the corner, and I could listen to
|
||
what the cars were playing on their systems as they drove by. If
|
||
you just heard a beat, it could be any record. But if it had the
|
||
noise on it, then I knew they were playing the jam.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 8. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: In May 1989, your former band member Professor Griff announced that
|
||
"Jews are responsible for the majority of wickedness that goes on
|
||
across the globe." The predictable brouhaha ensued, you apologized
|
||
and Griff ultimately left the group. Around that time, you played
|
||
*(see note) a concert in Chicago, and you sought the advice of Louis Farrakhan.
|
||
What did he say to you?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: He said, Chuck, what you got to do is, you got to lead. And if it
|
||
doesn't go your way, you've got to put your foot down. For the
|
||
sake of being right against what's wrong. The Spike Lee movie
|
||
[Do the Right Thing] came out, and the media were at the starting
|
||
gate. I was trying to handle the internal situation [with
|
||
Professor Griff], but if I had the chance to do it all over again,
|
||
I would have told -him- to handle it, or else.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 9. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Do you rap your daughter to sleep at night?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: No, my daughter sings to me. Shit, I can't sing a lick. When I
|
||
off stage, I can't rap, and I can't remember lyrics too well. I
|
||
try to sing a little reggae to her. But he's singing off the
|
||
radio already. She's into some other shit.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 10. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: How did you acquire your penchant for sloganeering?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: It's our background in the black community. We always saw that
|
||
black people bought shit that was not marketed to them.
|
||
Corporate America does not understand this. If you want to sell
|
||
to black America, all you got to do is sell to the whites. Black
|
||
people don't seperate things into black and white; everything in
|
||
the country is white. If we just said, We're only going to buy
|
||
shit thats marketed to black people, we wouldn't have a fucking
|
||
thing. [Holds coffee cup up] What, a mug for blacks? [Mocking]
|
||
"I'm not going to buy Cheerios until I see a black logo on it."
|
||
That's the background me and Hank had. We weren't selling
|
||
Cheerios.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 11. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What hero broke your heart?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Ralph Abernathy went out like a cold-ass wig. [Abernathy's book,
|
||
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, contained a brief reference to
|
||
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, last night, supposedly shared with
|
||
at least two women, which provoked furor amoung black leaders.
|
||
Abernathy died of a heart attack a few months later.] And it's sad
|
||
to see people of that stature disappear with no tears. The things
|
||
that happened on the inside should have stayed on the inside. It
|
||
shouldn't have become public discussion, because it clouded
|
||
Abernathy's objectives, and people wanted to dwell on those
|
||
negative points. It's like with us: Public Enemy can talk about
|
||
eighty positive things, but people will always dwell on the
|
||
anti-semitism or racism from 1989.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 12. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Public Enemy belittles gays in its lyrics. Isn't that a form of
|
||
prejudice?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Not really. Like I sing in my song: "Man to man / I don't know if
|
||
they can / From what I know / The parts don't fit." Love between
|
||
two men shouldn't involve sex. People don't know what true love is
|
||
- even a man and a woman shouldn't just say, I'm going to sex you
|
||
out and that's going to be love. There are gays in the black
|
||
community because black women are not being loved from the heart,
|
||
and black men are feeling alienated. This causes people to
|
||
withdraw from the normal man - woman relationships.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 13. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What are Public Enemy groupies like compared with, say, Motley Crue
|
||
groupies?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: [Laughs] They're a lot neater. They're more correct, they got
|
||
their heads together, they want to learn more. They're just
|
||
happy that we're some brothers taking a stand. When we first came
|
||
out, our whole thing was not to appeal to women. Every time a rap
|
||
group would come along, they'd turn into sex symbols. I said that
|
||
when I started Public Enemy, it was going to be the best group in
|
||
the world, and I'd look out for the brothers first. Our program
|
||
is to -rebuild- the black man so he's got respect for himself, and
|
||
for the black woman too. You're not going to see us singing songs
|
||
like [falsetto] "I love you baby, and let me get you in the back
|
||
and sex you in the corner." Our song Revolutionary Generation is
|
||
about true love for our sisters. If you have children, take care
|
||
them. Help your sister out, help your community out by being a man
|
||
leading that community. 'Cause our sisters have been holding the
|
||
weight of the community for so long.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 14. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: The Professor Griff controversy sidelined Public Enemy for months.
|
||
During the hullabaloo, you made the almost plaintative remark, "I
|
||
was looking forward to spending a summer talking about Elvis
|
||
Presley and John Wayne." You were referring to the calculated
|
||
insults from Fight the Power: "Elvis is a hero to most / But he
|
||
never meant shit to me, you see / Straight out racist that sucker
|
||
was simple and plain / Motherfuck him and John Wayne." We'd like
|
||
to give you the opportunity now to tell us what you have against
|
||
Elvis.
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Elvis' attitude toward blacks was that of people in the South at
|
||
that particular time. The point of the song is not about Elvis so
|
||
much, and it's not about people that idolize that motherfucker,
|
||
like he made no errors and was never wrong. Elvis doesn't mean
|
||
shit. White America's heros are different from black America's
|
||
heros. John Wayne could go around in these movies and kill
|
||
Indians and he was all right. But a black man like Louis
|
||
Farrakhan comes out for the uplifting of black people wand whites
|
||
pick at things and throw shit at him. The people I look up to are
|
||
[Illinois Representative] Gus Savage, Farrakhan, Angela Davis, and
|
||
even Jesse Jackson. Nat Turner - who went into Virginia and
|
||
wreaked havoc on its oppressors - was righteous. You know who
|
||
meant shit to me? Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey is -not- an
|
||
American Icon. He was dogged by the American Government. You
|
||
know what I'm saying? Not John Wayne. Not Elvis Presley. Not
|
||
Marilyn Monroe. I give less than a -fuck- about those
|
||
motherfuckers.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 15. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: One of the things Public Enemy does best is manipulate the media by
|
||
making deliberately controversial statements. At the same time,
|
||
there's a risk of going too far: Your account of the Griff
|
||
contorversy in Welcome to the Terrordome started a new round of
|
||
anti-Semitism charges against the group. Would you give us an
|
||
explication of those lines?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: A lot of times, I'll say something just to make people jump. Then
|
||
I can say, "See, I caught you offside." I plan the dangers of it.
|
||
This time, everyone was accusing me of bringing back Hitler's
|
||
reasons for killing the Jews, something that I never heard of in my
|
||
life. Now, out of one hundred lines in the song, they looked at
|
||
four. The lines go like this: "Crucifixion ain't no fiction." I
|
||
believe that Christ was a brother who got crucified. "So called -
|
||
chosen frozen." That was my only reference to the Jewish
|
||
community, which was appaled by the remarks in the Griff article.
|
||
"Frozen" means stopped in their tracks. And I said "so-called
|
||
chosen" because I don't think that one group of people are God's
|
||
chosen people. "Apology made to whoever pleases." That's what I
|
||
did in 1989 after all this happened. "Still they got me like
|
||
Jesus." My whole point is that the media is still taking me out.
|
||
|
||
And the response was, "Well, I don't believe it." What's your
|
||
criteria for not believing me? A lot of people were mad because I
|
||
put Griff back in the group after taking him out. But then again,
|
||
it's my group, and this is the black community I live in. I could
|
||
live down the block from this man, but that's not white America's
|
||
concern. I said that this was wrong, and now let's move on.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 16. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Once and for all, explian what seperates blacks and Jews today.
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: It's bullshit. No one in the black community gives a fuck about
|
||
Jewish people. The issue with black people is when do I get paid,
|
||
and why are these white motherfuckers fucking with me? Black
|
||
people do not seperate Jews from gentiles. Really I don't
|
||
understand it.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 17. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: You've said that you have no problem with whites; it's just "acting
|
||
Caucasian" that causes problems. Are you using the word Caucasian
|
||
in the same way some whites use the word nigger?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Historically, acting caucasian hasn't done one motherfucking
|
||
positive thing for black people. If whites want to do something
|
||
positive, they can realize that they're a small part of the human
|
||
family and not the big part of it that they think they are, trying
|
||
to convince the world that they are.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 18. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Who can tell you you're full of shit?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: [Laughs] Oh, shit, man, yeah! I got some parents who put me in my
|
||
place. Hank will put me in my place. That's what happened last
|
||
year. Hank said, Listen: Give a fuck. You're responsible for
|
||
thirty motherfuckers. Family and structure are important.
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 19. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: What is the proper target for black rage? Are you advocating hate?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Hate is not a nice word. You got to hate your oppressor, but you
|
||
have to know who your oppressor is, and your oppressor is not an
|
||
individual. It's a collective train of thought; it's a collective
|
||
state of mind. You should hate that shit. But you shouldn't hate
|
||
a person.
|
||
|
||
Although, if that person claims that he is at the steering
|
||
wheel of that force of oppression, then you make your move, you
|
||
know what I'm saying? [Laughs]
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Question # 20. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
PLAYBOY: Arsenio Hall has not yet asked you to come on his show. How come?
|
||
|
||
CHUCK D: Arsenio has a lot of pressure on him. He's got to please
|
||
everybody, but at the same time, he has a black responsibility. He
|
||
shouldn't be so scared to put us on. Public Enemy has a larger
|
||
white audience than any of the rappers who have been on Arsenio's
|
||
show.
|
||
___________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
* Havoc's Note: (From Question # 8.)
|
||
I was at that show in July of 1989. It was an outside show
|
||
at Farrakhan's Nation Center. Myself, and the two others
|
||
that I went with were the only whites there. I have to admit,
|
||
we were treated with more respect than I got at the Grateful
|
||
Dead show the same month.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-=*/> Buzzz Bros. <\*=-
|
||
|
||
To all racists, bigots, and those with hatred in your hearts:
|
||
Gas Face Given
|
||
|
||
|
||
___________________
|
||
|
||
Special Thanks to:
|
||
|
||
Lorraine Olivia (The Playmate of the Month - who happens to be from Chicago)
|
||
___________________
|
||
|
||
(c) MCMXC -=/*> Buzzz Bros. <\*=-
|
||
|