Amen to my brotha Chuck D (March 2012 HHDX Interview Excerpts)

[BiggBoogaBiff]

DX: Speaking of, you just did on March 2nd via Twitter [@MrChuckD]. I gotta ask you about your tweet, “Ye is a Hip Hop God as Jay is, but their bases are corrupt to Rap.” Were you saying their fanbases, their corporate bases, or both?

Chuck D: Their corporate bases are corrupt to Rap.

I mean, why would you think any different? Listen man, in any kind of business what you want is fair trade. This is what people lobby for, this is what people protest for, fair trade. And fair trade is actually saying that, Alright, you have somebody who comes up in a local [scene], at least they should be heard on local radio. But corporate radio and corporations have dominated over that existence, wiping out that foundation [for fairness]. And therefore the little business can’t even start up right, unless it’s corrupt and just totally, violently opposed to what the community is evolved from. So you gotta be national to even make it locally, where you should be local to make it locally. And even down to speaking to a school or whatever, if the local artists at the top of the local pack aren’t revered as being some sort of heroes, then who you gonna get to talk to the kids at the schools and all that? You gotta wait for a national hero, who might never come? So, too many people are focused on national [artists] who never will come in front of their own eyes and face on a one-on-one relationship. It’s almost like people are screaming at a dream.


[So if] Somebody does an independent video, they can’t get it on Viacom networks, unless they deliver it with closed caption, high-definition, and also it has to be sanctioned, it has to be agreed upon. It’s a game, so … the Internet is an ally, and it’s supplementary, but it could never be a main venue for your local survival.

DX: I wanna get more into that discussion about corporate control here in a minute, but I do have one more question regarding that tweet I asked you about. You additionally tweeted that Kanye and Jay’s song, “Ngs in Paris appeals to who? Black folk in France? USA White kids? Black kids who probably never learn further about it, perhaps never go there?” Can you elaborate on that tweet for me a little bit?

Chuck D: I think it’s self-explanatory; it’s more like a statement. It’s like, appeals to who? It’s also a question, maybe you can fill it [in]? ‘Cause it’s like, Black kids who would never know about a Paris or a France … “Niggas In Paris” means what? Who’s happy about that at the end of the day? Niggas in Paris? [Laughs] Is that what they saying? Or, White people in the United States who are happy to just say, “Well, yeah, there’s a bunch of niggas in Paris”? You tell me. I mean, don’t ask me, tell me. What do you think?

DX: I just presume that they – This is a presumption, obviously, that Kanye and Jay thought that was a progressive statement in some way.

Chuck D: Alright, in what way? I mean, it ain’t like you in fifth grade, maybe you can tell me...

DX: I’m as frustrated as you are, honestly.

Chuck D: I mean, I’m not mad at them, I’m happy that they’re great artists. But at the same time, I’m always gonna be mad at the machine. I’m always gonna be angry at corporations. And I’m always gonna be angry at people that show off their money to the poor and the growing poor in America and across the world. That’s just how I am. Why wouldn’t I be angry at that?




                                                




HipHopDX: I recently did an interview with Too Short, in which he revealed that Jive Records explicitly told him to be explicit and to strip the social commentary from his music

Chuck D: -- And you know what? He shoulda said who.

DX: He said Barry Weiss. He said him by name. [former Jive Records CEO and current Island Def Jam Records CEO]


DX: I wanna go back to one additional thing Too Short said. After he put Barry Weiss on blast he went on to say that he believes there was a meeting of the minds amongst the major labels to shut down conscious Hip Hop. Do you believe such a collusion happened, or was it more likely that Bill Clinton’s Telecommunications Act of 1996, that consolidated radio ownership, was the real nail in the coffin to message-driven music?    

Chuck D: Yeah, the latter was the real nail in the coffin – not so much to message-driven music but to local music being able to have a chance to independently breathe. The consolidation of radio stations was like the worst thing ever done to music.

And, look man, conscious record versus unconscious record, political record versus street record, that’s a bunch of bullshit really. [On an artist’s album pre-consolidation] there were always two to three songs for the hood, for your mom’s or whatever – by every artist. I think when it became formula to continue to just cut joints and you’re pressured to sell – Understand this, niggativity has always been popular and has always been a money-maker in America. Blacks looked upon at our lowest has always sold – just like slavery itself – more than something that happens to be high standing on its own two feet … to this day. So we shouldn’t be surprised if somebody makes a conscious move to make a quote-unquote positive record and that doesn’t fly out of the record stores, and you make something that might just be talking about stripping or drug-dealing in the year 2012 and it happens to rise because it [works] in the club. I don’t think it’s unfair to measure the music by its quantity instead of its quality …. And too often Rap music and Hip Hop is weighed in bubblegum type standards.

Yeah, but Bill Clinton’s Telecommunications Act was cancerous to local, independent, room to breathe [music] so to speak.  



   



DX: And, my last loose question for you is a much, much heavier one, but one I feel compelled to ask you. You’ve been a longtime supporter of President Obama – I voted for the President in 2008, but after the Osama Bin Laden murder fantasy and some other questionable moves I’m finding it hard to be motivated to vote at all in 2012. What would you say to somebody like me should be our motivation to re-elect the President?  

Chuck D: To not let that other dude get in, because most of the masses around us are not equipped to respond when you have somebody who’s in favor of eliminating you off the face of the earth. That’s usually what the Republican Party deep down kind of feels, that young people with a sort of Democratic sense of thinking, Black people, people of color, people they deem as being immigrants who get here illegally and undocumented, they really want us people to kind of like not be here. And that’s the element that would be coming in if Obama is not President.  

So it’s almost like a default type of thing. … I’m just saying that if you don’t and the other guy gets in, you’ll be surrounded by a constituency, who fell asleep when Obama was in, who will be unequipped to deal with life from 2013 to 2016 in an area of desperation.

We went from a recession state – Black folks in this country went from recession into depression. The rest of the country is in recession. When the rest of the country eases into the depression, when all kinds of things start happening like the currency doesn’t seem to work anymore [and prices] go sky-high, people are losing their homes at even an accelerated rate – especially in the hood – when America eases into a depression.







Chuck D: So, yeah, it’s definitely unsettling what happened in North Africa where NATO says to the world it was giving Africa a haircut but really gave it a decapitation. And, President Obama is sandwiched between a whole bunch of agendas that will propel him further and further away from the needs of the people. And when he first comes to the aid of the people it’s gonna come to the people who are ready and who are equipped, and people of color are not ready and we are not equipped to handle what comes down.

We got to sometimes get out of the emotional handling of the matter and try to figure out what’s gonna actually be the realistic handling of the matter.





DX: Just playing devil’s advocate, what if President Obama never comes to the aid of the disenfranchised in a second term?


Chuck D: I’m just saying that having the tools to overstand what’s going on are important. And it’s not enough of us that have the tools to overstand what would happen if Obama didn’t get in and you saw a wave of animosity towards certain demographics. It’s like, “Yeah nigga, what you gonna do?” Go to Paris? [Laughs]

A lot of times when people say, “Well, Chuck, man, you getting deep.” I ain’t getting deep. Matter fact, I’m not getting deep, that’s the problem. 35 years ago this would of just been written off as common sense.

how could you not hate certain things that are smacking you in the face? What are you gonna be like, “Okay, I’m getting smacked on the left side, smacked to the right, but I shouldn’t hate it"? And like I said earlier, I’m privileged but I recognize my privilege and at the same time I think it’s disgraceful to see the rest of the people thrown under the bus.

[Nate Dogg's Rotting Corpse.]

bruh be real none of us reading that long ass shit. none of us youngstas listening to chuck d neither.

[BiggBoogaBiff]

yeah they do.  you can't save everybody

[virtuoso]

Holding on desperately to this notion that Obama will save anyone, why doesn't he call them all out (Obama included) for what they are? evil, egotistical minions serving a despotic agenda.

[BiggBoogaBiff]

Did u know that most oil companies have US soil that's been brought up and ready for drilling?  They've had that land for YEARS and yet they talk about domestic drilling like they can't already do it by themselves (without the government). 


seeing as how u brought Obama into this

[Black Excellence]

yeah they do.  you can't save everybody

preach

[TraceOneInfinite]

bruh be real none of us reading that long ass shit. none of us youngstas listening to chuck d neither.

I read it.  It was a very thought-provoking interview.  Props for posting

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

Real talk. People ask who killed hip hop? The answer is Bill Clinton.

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

Holding on desperately to this notion that Obama will save anyone, why doesn't he call them all out (Obama included) for what they are? evil, egotistical minions serving a despotic agenda.

It's the lesser of two evils.