Chuck D's 1996 Album
Quotes
"My war council coming, smashing. . . . Uncle Sam make brothers Uncle Tom in Vietnam. . . . the 85'ers [reference to the militant black group 5 Percent Nation] eat the ham. . . . crackers be dropping a lot like Saltines out the box";
"Endonesia"; Chuck D, Autobiography of MistaChuck, 1996, Mercury Records, PolyGram, Philips' Electronics.
"My own kind blind, brain-trained on the devil-level. . . . chasing down loot, Dole or Newt, who do you shoot. . . . rough stuff to the babies, spread like rabies";
"Niggativity . . . Do I Dare Disturb the Universe"; Chuck D, Autobiography of MistaChuck, 1996, Mercury Records, PolyGram, Philips' Electronics.
Article
In the year before Chuck D's solo work, an album came out in 1995 as an effort to boost turnout for Nation of Islam's Million Man March in Washington DC. Chuck D contributed to three tracks of the album which calls on blacks to direct all crime at whites. (One Million Strong.)
Released in 1996, Chuck D's solo album begins with a description of himself. He says that he has enlightened listeners while playing rap music all across the world, and yet "some counterfeit click" judges like "some bell curve shit." Chuck D makes rap rhymes that educate even though some blacks are bored with songs that explain how the urban ghetto "is a fish tank [created] by the hated." Rap music is "black CNN," and he wants to be called "Mr. Chuck." Chuck D does not drive fancy cars, and he does not care for rivalries among rappers who base their tribalism on geographical regions such as West Coast versus East Coast versus North versus South. Chuck D condemns whites as follows: "504 to the cracker, so for all y'all I gets blacker." ("Mistachuck.")
The word "no" is applied to a long list of items, and a selection is as follows: "no drug users . . . no crackers . . . no niggas for no blackers . . . no accusations, cop chases, or court chases, no rape charges . . . no sellouts . . . no more shows calling women bitches and whores . . . no killers, no vanilla . . . no justice--no peace . . . no struggle--no progress." ("No.")
Chuck D says that he is a great rapper who is better than other ones and that his music is "Cinemax to the black." He tells his listeners that some of them are afraid to believe in his messages. ("Generation Wrekkked.")
Chuck D says that he still raps with "anger" and that he will not play mainstream music, for he will stay "rooted." "Only the [record] labels can explain" how it started that rappers talk of "niggas and bitches," he says, and yet the record labels "play dumb." He says that, while he does not drink alcohol, many blacks do, and the beer and liquor they drink, Chuck D continues, is harsher than the gasoline they pour into their Mercedes. He says that he has always been a "rebel" and that his "own kind [is] blind, brain trained on that devil level." He claims to have control over listeners. For example, he says that his raps are "rough stuff to the babies, spread like rabies." He asks the following question: "everybody . . . chasing down loot; Dole and Newt, who do you shoot?" ("Niggativity . . . Do I Dare Disturb the Universe.")
An excerpt from a radio station disc jockey gives praise for the album. Chuck D says that he "shoulders the burden [and] smells between the white sheets a hell of a beast in the back lurking." Some of his statements are as follows: "never like no Guliani"; "I fear only the one upstairs"; "disgusted at the other folk laughing at us"; and "entertaining is today's way of picking cotton." Critics, he says, " don't realize we are all under a microscope of a nation of other folk." The chorus chants the following: "it's a plan of that man, no doubt; although I'm feeling all right, it's feeling funny feeling left out; another one falls the big Willie because to some it's a dream but to the rest it's a nightmare." He says that while some find him "prophetic" and others find him "pathetic," he "led a movement of mental's against the feds." He boasts of having many rap hits, and he praises "the styles of KRS and Rakim" who brought rap's messages "to a different level against the so-called devil, [the ones] who had the nerve to throw a bell curve." It bothers him that blacks "pay the price" while "knowing that God don't like ugly." ("Free Big Willie.")
Professor Griff joins in on the album to give a message to Chuck D, telling him that "brothers and sisters [are] napping," and so as a consequence, they are "losing this war to this new world order whore." He charges that "this beast prepared a horizontal feast [with a] 666-bag of COINTEL tricks." (COINTELPRO, or Counter-Intelligence Program, was initiated by the FBI against domestic extremist movements. Not only were white militant leftist groups and white militant rightist groups infiltrated, but so were black militant groups.) Griff complains about the "brain [being] on a white soulless train." ("Horizontal Heroin.")
Chuck D advises listeners not to watch talk shows on television because the shows, in his opinion, delude and feed minds with "poison." Talk shows put across to viewers that it is all right to be lazy, to be fat, to be a "slob with no job," and to be dysfunctional, claim Chuck D and guest rappers. A guest rapper says that the "black man is infinite potential wise." ("Talk Show Created the Fool.")
Chuck D boasts of his skills and accomplishments in the rap industry. He complains about "self-haters" and "traitors," who are the "g.'s [that] ain't real," and he says that he "brought the noise on the R&B boys." He says that it is "after the math [that] the drug lords brought the wrath." ("Underdog.")
Excerpts from what sounds like characters in an old movie features men talking of the difficulty of tracking down English indentured servants who run away because they fit in with the general population, and then one character points out as a distinction that unlike white servants black slaves are always black. Chuck D says that many blacks cannot be trusted, and he reprimands black listeners telling them that they are "afraid of the noise [he] made about their master crackers giving out disasters in the 'hood" and about phony women who care only about money, breast implants, and fake hair. He is not pleased that "niggas is back to perms and relaxers" and that when "Simon says: 'niggas jump'. . . they jump for these Hilfigers." Chuck D follows up with: "Tommy hates niggas,". He finds fault in the following behaviors: black entertainers on television embarrassing blacks even though they may be funny; blacks desiring "high priced styles" when blacks are "dwelling in hell"; blacks praying for heaven when preachers do not really "reach"; blacks dealing narcotics but not getting the money, the women, the fame, or the "game." Blacks are forgetting about "those slavery ships," he says, and even though blacks today were not around during slavery they should still "bring the pain." We are told that it is time for blacks to stand up and be men, to study their history, to learn to love again, and not to believe that they have "the rock" when they really have just "the pebble," because doing all such will free them from their "misery." Chuck D says that people want to kill him because his lyrics are the truth. ("But Can You Kill the Nigger in You?")
Chuck D introduces guest rappers as part of his "war council." One guest rapper, Dow Jonz, says that he writes the meanest rhymes, and he uses violent imagery to back up the claim. Underage women want him but he will "take" their mothers, and in the next phrase he announces that "Uncle Sam made brothers [act like] Uncle Toms in Vietnam." Dow Jonz makes a reference to 5 Percent Nation as follows: "like the 85'ers eat the ham, I'll eat up weak mc's [rappers]." Others will be "incinerated" in a cataclysmic event. Chuck D says that "crackers be dropping a lot like Saltines out the box." ("Endonesia.")
Chuck D remembers when Martin Luther King was killed, and it happened when he was in the third grade. The 1960's were a time when blacks "had to fight for [their] rights" when there was "black power for the powerless." Chuck D says that James Brown sang about being black and proud. He remembers eating food given out in school lunch programs, but he worries that today's youth is strung out on drugs. He praises Black Panthers, Woodstock, and remembers the Kent State incident. The Black Panthers educated blacks and went to jail protecting "the black and the brown." He reminisces about "Dr. King, Malcolm, Medgar, Hampton, riots, and rebellions, Newark, Watts, Uptown, Harlem that is, black gold, ghetto steel." Blacks must learn history and must have pride. ("The Pride.")
On the last track, rappers declare their greatness, using violent imagery as their proof. They make money, get sex, and outdo other rappers. The track ends officially at the time listed on the back of the CD, being 5 minutes and 41 seconds, but the track continues with almost four minutes of blank time, filling the CD's space until at 9 minutes and 23 seconds when a disguised voice makes a list of complaints about the music industry. Typical of "gangsta" rappers, the complaining voice blames anybody but rappers themselves for problems that black rappers face, and it makes race an issue, as if to push the idea that musicians who are not "of color," therefore white ones, do not face the same difficulties. Instead of focusing on making opportunities happen, Chuck D is upset that black musicians are not handed opportunities by executives.
The resentments are summarized as follows: 1) blacks in the entertainment industry are not "presented the options of how they can participate in" ownership and creativity; 2) Public Enemy spread hip hop around the world, yet the "American and black media" downplay the global hip-hop culture and emphasize its negative aspects which has caused youth to become "disillusioned about the art form"; 3) "blacks place too much emphasis on current culture and trends, material items, when are all controlled by others from the outside;" 4) too much emphasis is placed on stardom which is not right when, after all, one considers the fact that the word "'star' spelled backwards is 'rats'"; 5) black music benefits too much "those who [are] on top"; 6) lawyers and accountants never lose their careers in the music industry; they exploit black artists; and lawyers save companies and artists from problems that were created by lawyers in the first place; 7) record companies do not contribute enough to black communities; they twist black history and culture; plus they have a "domesticated lack of respect for other cultures and people of color around the globe;" 8) because there are so few black women who are in positions to make decisions within the industry, the ones there are forced "to adopt the same cave-like attitudes of their white-Anglo-male slave masters;" 9) blacks who are in leadership positions are cowards who do not speak out on real issues and who do not give recognition to "real leaders" lacking the spotlight; 10) because blacks do not assemble information about blacks, "others . . . create facts" about blacks which steer black youths towards two goals only, to be an athlete or an entertainer. ("Paid.")
References
Autobiography of MistaChuck, Chuck D, 1996, Mercury Records, PolyGram, Philips.
Posted at http://home.att.net/~phosphor on June 30, 1999.
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