Paris 1994

Paris 1994 Album

Quote
"Bouncing out the belly of the beast [prison]. . . . I still hate a devil. . . .representing Allah and I'm raw because I'm god. . . . watch a devil get served. . . . still hitting you with the righteous shit, the funky shit, in the name of Allah. . . . back your devil-ass up off me. . . . Guerrillas in tha Mist with the black fist";
"It's Real," Paris, Guerrilla Funk, 1994, Priority Records, Thorn EMI, now being called The EMI Group.

Article
      The 1994 album, called Guerrilla Funk, opens with Paris describing himself as "the Black Panther of hip hop." ("Prelude.") In the opening stanza of Track 2, he lets listeners know that his views have not changed: "I emphasize that I still hate a devil." He is looking for a way to make blacks rise, he says, for "niggas [are] still dropping dead like flies." He makes a reference to Ice Cube's Da Lench Mob by describing himself as one of the "Guerillas in tha Mist with the black fist," an album that has many kill-the-whites messages. He describes himself to be divine as follows: "representing Allah, and I'm raw because I'm god." He says that his popularity will not diminish, and he threatens that with his music fans may "watch a devil get served." "It don't never stop," he warns, and he gives out a message to whites: "back your devil-ass up off me." A voice that calls for black independence, uses the "Italian community" and the "Jewish community" as examples. Paris shouts out support for Scarface Records. ("It's Real.")

      Paris chooses victimhood when he blames whites for blacks killing blacks and for blacks getting drunk on 40 ounce beers. He describes himself as "a soldier," as a "black guerilla," and as usual as "pro-black." He often makes claims about the influence of his music, and on the track, he says that he is "smuggling the message in a rap." He blames "them devil-ass [record] labels" for violent lyrics of "gangsta" rap, and he says that the labels never "push anything real for the good of the community." His reflex is to give "praise to Allah." The following quote shows some threats: "now I'm capping [discharging firearms]; fucking with them devils every time I starts to rapping. . . . house niggas on the left wanna talk shit; motherfucking devils on the right wanna dump a clip. . . . they wanna hide the truth. . . . I'm leaving shit stains on your Flag. . . . them motherfucking snakes wanna nigga in his place." The track is dedicated to "brothers locked down [in prison]." ("One Time fo Ya Mind.")

      On the very next track, Paris contradicts himself. On the previous track, he blamed "them devil-ass labels" for violent lyrics of "gangsta" rap, but at the beginning of Track 4, he glorifies himself as "creeping in the drop with a .30[6]." He brags about the toughness of Los Angeles gangs, saying the following about gangbangers who pull triggers: "still got to pray, for in LA we play." At the end of the track, after his long harangue directed at whites, he flips back calling himself "the anti-gangsta." He spells out the word "pro-black" to describe his raps, and as usual, we are told that "house niggas" do not put out the truth, that he does, and that he will make listeners "separate the real from the fake." He says that his "militant grooves" will keep fans' "spirits lit." He will "keep serving hip hop," he says, as long as blacks "keep dying." He says that he is "still fucking with the man [whites]."

      A group that ties in closely with hip-hop culture and with Nation of Islam, known as Nation of Gods and Earths, holds that black men should be called Gods and black women should be called Earths, and, in the following quote, Paris refers to black men as gods just before aligning his beliefs with two rap songs that issue forth calls for revolution and for killing whites: "in the name of Allah, the one true God, I stand tall; bringing truth to all gods, so brothers buck-that-devil and pass-me-the-fish. (The hyphenated expressions being references to Da Lench Mob's Buck tha Devil and Arrested Development's Give a Man a Fish, the second group having won a GRAMMY Award.) He uses the first person pronoun to make it seem as if he were personally around during historical slavery: "America still hate black so I got to act; ever since I was three-fifths of a man." "As long as young brothers stay asleep, we born to die," he says, and so Paris does not "wear a smile." ("Guerrilla Funk.")

      Paris, along with guest rappers from The Conscious Daughters, threatens violence and terrorism at peace officers and at "America." Peace officers are referred to as police, Mr. Policeman, cops, pigs, piggies, boys in blue, ghetto Gestapo, Five-O, and po-po. Without naming any good that officers do, the rappers say that officers rob, kill, rape, and act out limitless types of more crimes. The motto assigned to the police by blacks, the rappers say, is "to-serve-protect-and-break-a-nigga's-neck." The rappers choose the following weapons of terror: "so now I got my Molotov cocktail, five grenades; I'm gonna bring it to you; Muslim bombs, [African] People's [Revolutionary Party] grenades, pipe bombs and shit. . . . of course you know I got the Glock 21 semi-automatic." The "soldier was awakened," they say, "where a nigga once slept." They say that time is running out and that they are gripping nine millimeter pistols. "Whitey" never gets tried for killing blacks, they say, and "so we holding court up in the street." To blame for the rappers' attitude, say the rappers, are whites, reasoning that white hatred produced black hatred. "Fuck America," they holler out, "America is a racist country; it was built on racism." The rappers say that "America" wants to see blacks dead. The rappers say that when the police are in predominantly black neighborhoods, they are not protecting blacks there, instead the officers are, as it is implied by the rappers, protecting whites elsewhere. Concerning the presence of police in the neighborhoods, Paris relays the following message to his listeners: "make you wanna take one of them punk motherfuckers and beat the dogshit out of him." Paris ends the track saying "who gives a fuck," and he threatens racial revolution saying the phrase "Nat Turner 1994." ("Bring It To Ya.")

      Black-on-black crime is bad because blacks are "dropping like flies." Paris says that he wants to retaliate against other blacks sometimes, but instead he "swallows it down." He describes himself as "still militant," "never ignorant," and "heaven-sent." He wonders when would "sleeping giants awake." Blacks were "brainwashed" to think that they were "porch monkeys." "All praise are due to Allah," he offers. ("Outta My Life.")

      Paris says that he has the plan, that he will not "perpetrate the gangsta fever," and he dedicates the track to "brothers in the pen'." "Black men is finding out that they got mass appeal," he notifies. With his music, Paris says that he educates, that he is "kicking knowledge," that he builds, and that he provides "true facts for the blacks." Much like the GRAMMY Award winning group Digable Planets, who promote Paris in their music, Paris uses the word "funk" to describe, not only his musical style, but also his influence on listeners, and an example is as follows: "put my funk on your ass quick." He wants them to know that "united we stand, divided is misery." "Gangsta" rappers often refer to themselves as street soldiers, and Paris often does, saying that his music is "real shit coming from a street soldier." ("Whatcha See.")

      A "house nigga" is described as a rapper who does not promote "black power," and as a consequence, is making "slave money." ("40 Ounces and a Fool.") Paris reminisces, telling listeners that he just got out of college in 1990, and that it was then that "Public Enemy [was] hitting niggas up with knowledge." Without the efforts made by Public Enemy, he says, he would not have become a successful rapper, and he "love[s] it." It was then, he recalls, that he heard "Minister [Farrakhan]" speak in Oakland. The following string of phrases show Paris aligning himself with Nation of Islam and associating with Communists: "took a trip down to Oakland; heard the Minister [Farrakhan] speak; fell deep in, and shortly I was NOI; forever down for my people 'till the day that I die; that's when The Devil Made Me Do It was made; I still remember the days; still remember the rage, and I was into everyday-building, trying to be much more; took a trip down to Cuba; met with Assata Shakur; had dinner with Fidel; talked about hard times; and America is steady trying to destroy minds." Listeners are told that blacks are being destroyed by guns, drugs, "pigs," and HIV. As usual, he calls his raps "righteous." ("Back in the Days.") In the second version of "It's Real," Paris adds in more about his claims of divine insight when he says that he comes "with the Revelation for the entire nation." ("It's Real.")

      One side of the CD pamphlets which fold out into six sheets, shows a series of seven photographs. The first two are of a patrol car having lights flashing and of a white and tattooed police officer handcuffing a black male who lies face down on the ground. The third photo shows a gurney with a white male lying on it, with his arm dangling downward, and with his blood in a puddle on the floor of a hospital room. The fourth is of a white male police officer slouched forward in the driver's seat of a black-and-white cruiser, and blood, a coffee cup, and donuts lie on the pavement below his left arm which dangles outside the white door which has been splattered with blood. Several feet away a handgun lies on the pavement, and just beyond the gun there is a man dressed in all black jumping into a black van. Being barely visible in the fourth photo, the fifth photo shows a close-up of the back fender of the police cruiser, having "666" emblematized on it. The sixth photo shows a close-up of the gun on the pavement, a fully spent Glock, and lying next to it is a pair of bloody Laytex-like gloves. The last photo shows the acronym "S.F.P.D." on the door of the cruiser. Large type is printed on the pamphlets amid the series of photos, and the printed words send the following message: if crime leads to arrest then blacks should kill white officers, and blacks should cover their murderous tracks.

      The other side, of each of the long pamphlets, has six pages that outline white conspiracies. The following phrase is written several times as the conclusions to various sections: "WE ARE AT WAR." The title of a section also reads: "We are at war!" First said is that "[r]acism (white supremacy) is practiced mainly through deceit and violence." When "deceit is ineffective," Paris says, violence is used in the form of "lynchings, police brutality, [and] assassinations." Three of the sections are titled after what Paris calls the "chief methods used for Black mentacide," a term that Paris attributes to Bobby Wright, author of The Psychopathic Racial Personality, according to the pamphlets. The first "method" is called "Education," and therein it is said that blacks are "whitewashed in an attempt to regulate [them] to second-class status." Blacks have been "socialized to subconsciously believe that [they] are inferior," and the result is "self-hatred." The second "method," called "TV & Media," says that almost no "positive images" of blacks are shown, and instead the system has "manufactured images designed to portray us in a negative fashion." There has been "deceptive terminology" used, Paris accuses, such as the labeling of the Los Angeles Riots as "LA riots" rather than as "LA revolt." The third "method," called "Religion," conforms with Nation of Islam doctrines about the "evils" of Christianity and about the race of Jesus: "Christianity as it now exists in Amerikkka is false Christianity, the most powerful factor in the maintenance of global white supremacy. It effectively locks people of color, especially black people in Amerikkka and Africa, in mental slavery. . . . in 322 A.D. . . . European images replaced African images of the Madonna and Child. . . . white supremacists. . . . project the image of a white man as 'Christ', the Son of God-even though Jesus was black." In a section called "So What Can You Do," it is told to readers that "AMERIKKKA WANTS TO SEE YOU FAIL."

      A long list is given which gives titles of books by black authors, which gives names and phone numbers for black lecturers, and which gives names and phone numbers for black-interest bookstores, including the phone number for Nation of Islam's weekly The Final Call. As usual, Paris writes in the following: "All praise is due to Allah." He sends out "[p]eace" to the following artists: The Conscious Daughters, Chuck D and Public Enemy, Ice-T, Digital Underground, E-40, The Coup, and George Clinton.

Reference
Guerrilla Funk, Paris, 1994, Scarface Productions, Priority Records, Thorn EMI, now being called The EMI Group.

Posted at http://home.att.net/~phosphor on June 30, 1999.

Last editing was posted on September 1, 1999.

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