SEE ALSO:

Chuck D. Takes on the “Obama Deception”

VH-1 Says PE’s Fight the Power is Best Hip Hop Song Ever

The Operation: Skid Row street festival is an attempt to benefit the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an organization that aids the area’s homeless and provides low-income families with housing. The concert will also feature performances from the X-Clan and the Freestyle Fellowship.

Chuck D spoke on Skid Row and the importance of why the neighborhood shall be brought to hip-hop’s forefront:

Skid Row has been called ‘the dirty secret of L.A.’ for, like, forever. And so, I’m gonna be loud about it…[Outsiders] look at rap music and artists in Hip Hop as being as elitist as the power structures that keep them down. You’ve got organizations in your city that are trying to say and do the right thing — who are practically invisible — fighting for some media time. What other place do I have? My place in hip-hop is not to be a tycoon, making trillions with a yacht. That’s not my place. My place is maybe bringing people together and me being able to identify and illuminate a cause, and we’ll make it comfortable for them to be themselves but say what they’ve really been wanting to say all along, you know, with my protection.

In the midst of build up for the Martin Luther King, Jr. eve festival, the controversial group  announced two new LPs for this year. Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp, featuring production from long-time collaborator Gary G-Wiz, is slated to release in June and The Evil Empire of Everything in September.

Read more over at Billboard.

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EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Chuck D

Has Hip-Hop Activism Made A Comeback?

We racked our brains trying to come up with a list of the greatest music videos of the 1980s. While some of our picks are painfully obvious, there are a few that we felt flew under the radar.

9. Public Enemy “Night Of The Living Baseheads”
More effective than any D.A.R.E. class you were forced to sit through, Public Enemy’s “Night Of The Living Baseheads” video managed to both make you laugh, while scaring you away from the evils of freebasing cocaine. “Night Of The Living Baseheads” was a rather unorthodox video, cleverly interrupting Chuck D’s performance scenes to a mock newscast (Flavor Flav as co-anchor? Genius!).

8. L.L. Cool J “I’m Bad”
LL Cool J’s girl gets kidnapped while posting anti-drug flyers on the street. LL assembles his posse who take out the bad guys (who all just so happen to be rich white guys… MESSAGE!). The video’s narrative, coupled with LL’s iconic performance scenes make this one of the best videos of the 1980s. “Gimme that walkie talkie!”

7. Prince “When Doves Cry”

Is there a more iconic moment in a music video than a camera passing through two stained glass doors into a room with flowers scattered about the floor and doves flying around while a man sits in a bathtub? Prince & The Revolution’s “When Doves Cry” music video is one of the few truly memorable videos that the Minneapolis genius ever released, not to mention a hell of a song.

– When Doves Cry
Uploaded by tressage. – Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

6. Run DMC “King Of Rock”
Two black men wearing all black leather and white adidas walk into the Museum of Rock N Roll and are told immediately as they enter that they “don’t belong in here.” Run DMC’s “King Of Rock” video served as a powerful statement of hip-hop’s arrival and intent to takeover mainstream American culture. 22 years after this video’s release, the first rap group, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Run DMC to be inducted 2 years later.

5. Janet Jackson “Pleasure Principle”
The public had already fallen in love with Janet Jackson by the time her “Pleasure Principle” video debuted. We all knew that Janet could had some moves, but it wasn’t until she flipped the light switch at the beginning of this video that we all learned that Michael’s little sister could give him a run for his money.

4. Janet Jackson “Rhythm Nation”
The black-and-white “Rhythm Nation” video was a dancer’s wet dream. The tightly choreographed military-inspired dance routines coupled with the song’s message helped establish Janet Jackson as an artist whose music video releases became events, just like her brother.

3. Michael Jackson “Beat It”
The red jacket. The knife fight. Need we say more?

2. Michael Jackson “Billie Jean”
If anything planted the seed for Michael Jackson’s almost superhuman persona, it was this video. Only a man that was 100% magical could dance like Michael did, not to mention cause the sidewalks to light up with each step he took.

1. Michael Jackson “Thriller”
In the 80s, the music video experienced a period of rapid growth and innovation as musicians pushed the limits of what could be done in the span of a three and a half minutes, or in the case of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, fourteen minutes. There’s a reason why “Thriller” often takes the number one spot on lists of the greatest music videos of all time. To repeat these reasons would be overkill. All it takes is one viewing to know that this was a monumental moment in music and film history.

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Related: 25 Reasons We Love Blaxploitation Films!
Related: Top 9 Music Videos of the 1980s!

The Washington Post is one of the most esteemed newspapers in our country. But like all journalistic operations, they make mistakes. They recently wrote a piece about the rap group, Public Enemy, in which they claimed the Public Enemy said that 9/11 was a joke(meaning the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001). The song they were referring to was “911 Is A Joke,” which came out in 1990 and referred to the 911 emergency phone number service. Here’s their retraction.

A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.

RELATED STORIES

Chuck D. Takes on the “Obama Deception”

VH-1 Says PE’s Fight the Power is Best Hip Hop Song Ever

I used to keep a tight look on my face whenever the intro to Public Enemy’s “Night Of The Living Baseheads” played because they start that song with audio from Louis Farrakhan who’s saying about Black people that we’ve “lost our religion, our culture, our God…”

Well, yeah, we lost all those things. We’re still losing things to this day. And I mean, not just misplacing them, we’re losing them like we never even had them.

Enter James Marshall Hendrix.  He’s gone too. So gone, that I was once listening to one of those moronic music video television channels that was not BET and they were saying something along of the lines of “Jimi embraced his white side…” I started screaming “What white side??? The (N-Word) had TWO Black Parents!”

But that’s part of the brilliance of American Racism, I guess. It pulls the old George Orwell trick on you of making you believe that the thing you had up until five minutes ago was never yours to begin with. So when we go to mixed college parties and we hear Bob Marley (also gone) and Jimi, we might recognize Bob as the guy that made good “high” music for white boys but we don’t know Jimi at all. And who’s fault is that?

Oh, but I haven’t even told you who Jimi Hendrix is yet, huh? Google him, for Christ’s (also gone) sake! Check out his Wikipedia page. The man was the greatest guitarist of all-time and he was Black and if you can name more than three of his songs you either grew up around white people or you have really, really eclectic taste.

I’ll give you a few videos here at the bottom to get you started, but you’re really gonna have to do the bulk of this assignment on your own, friends. It’s worth it. At this rate, somebody like Zac Efron is gonna star in “All Eyez on Me-The Story of Tupac Shakur” and nobody’s gonna think there’s anything wrong with that at all.

If I were gay, I’d hate today’s heterosexual Black men for being so, well, gay. I would never be sure who to hit on. Back in the days, looking good for a man meant a wild afro, a nappy beard or butcher-block sideburns, a leather coat, leather shoes and possibly even leather pants. Now, looking good for a man means skinny jeans, loud colors, funny sneakers, plucked eyebrows, “manscaping” and more gels, creams and products than a prom queen.

What happened? Where did all our heroes go? I miss the men from my pop’s and my uncle’s generation. Men that smoked “cheeba” and drove Cadillacs; men that always bordered on sexual harassment but usually ended up scoring anyway; men that you had to apologize for at dinner parties because they were brutish and socially inept and always ready to fight about it.

Today’s men are way more polished and refined. They’re like girls, actually. Debutantes. I don’t know, maybe it was the times. The men of the times that I miss had just come out of the 60′s and were still looking for revenge. Everything about them was hard. Even the R&B of the time was hard. These guys that we’ve got gallivanting around today don’t even have hard hip hop!

Now don’t get me wrong; nobody’s happier than me that the thug movement is dead. Nothing, not even a “flaming bottom” was gayer than a post-Tupac Shakur thug. But Public Enemy was hard. X Clan was hard. NWA was hard. Weezy is king, but is he…? Forget it.

It’d be dismissive and counter-revolutionary to blame the women. To suggest that Black women have somehow “held back” or retarded Black male development is absurd; it’s bogus. The only thing that women can do is ask themselves if they’re happy with these weirdly dressed things that expect them to always make the first move. As an Econ major, I know for a fact that supply will eventually follow demand.

Ladies: demand better!

From HipHopandPolitics.com

By Chuck D.

In the day where acts say “nothing” and get talked about PE will bring noise without really trying. Professor Griff was mentioning the upcoming Alex Jones film documentary he and KRS are featured in called the Obama Deception. He mentioned it several times. The press seemed to jump all over it. Coupled with the press continuing to pin “reality TV star all over Flav , some media are foaming at the mouth to position this on Public Enemy 20 years after the PE-Griff-semetic scandal of 89.

Flavor and Griff are the energy of Public Enemy like it or not…at this juncture I could care less about what opinion thinks of the “PE Perception, on stage myself, DJ Lord, the banned, S1Ws gotta play our zone. The energy Griff and Flav bring has never been duplicated by any other rap act to this very day because they’re beyond definition. The press has really very little to say beyond the music of many acts today and their transparent ‘opinions’. Thus they’ve welcomed the rap worlds tendency of crime and the brush with law to be the biggest reason to cover a ‘rap’ act . Not their music nor their show.

While I detest reality shows and am a President Obama supporter, the theme I stuck to that came out my grill was to tell all to ‘pay attention’. Pay attention is what we all could afford to pay, if we take the time to comprehend what we see and hear. Sht, the coachella crowd couldn’t really take it all in what they’ve heard about good or bad all these years, by watching and hearing the stage. Many were too young or media be it radio- viacom chased them away with their perception of us. Too deep.

Cool, my take on the Obama Perception in one big swoop. We been saying the New World Order has been taking place the entire span of our beats and rhymes. The governments responsible is underlined on Yo Bum Rush The Show. The presidential position has been a glorified showcase seat for over 50 years. The world is run by banks and bankers who stir the masses into them asses having people believe false gods, borders , orders, philosophies, controversies and conspiracies. There’s political ‘duct tape’ on the wrists and grill of the USA President that will make the position support Israel not Palestine, not attend the Racism Conference in Durban South Africa, and have tentative discussion with Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela while having both the Prison and Military Industrial Complexes respectively swell on his watch.

But those of us that ‘know’ knew this coming in. Looking realistically at ‘hourglass’ change, not some on off switch effect here. Cool then ..I say ‘pay attention” regardless… to the planet as well as the beat of your inner self. I have already stated my reasons why I like this man Obama as president knowing damn well that his job is ‘Posiition Impossible’. Beyond this perception being a weapon of mass distraction, there is always the chance of some good coming out of it via some default. As with the Flav situation some blackfolk woke up in anger but never knew Viacom existed or the New Whirl Odor. They asked silly questions about Flavs character which many knew was crazy from minute one while clueless on how media, government, and technology worked, while being consumers to the end for each respectively never respectfully.

Truth is truth it belongs to everybody. Recognition of it is the task. It falls like rain on all below it. The perception of effect is the trip, some gonna think the god for the blessing of the water, others gonna complain about getting wet. Some gonna protect their head yet enjoy being within the element, while others will tell all the worry of drowning in it.

Read the Whole Story

Let the debates begin: VH1 has compiled its list of the 100 greatest hip-hop songs, and Public Enemy’s black power anthem “Fight the Power” tops the list.

The cable channel will count down its list in series of shows starting Monday. At No. 2 is the Sugar Hill Gang’s groundbreaking song, “Rapper’s Delight,” followed by Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin but a ‘G’ Thang” at No. 3. Run-D.M.C.’s “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message” round out the top five.

Salt ‘N Pepa was the only female act in the top 10, with their early hit “Push It.” Two of rap’s biggest names — Jay-Z and Eminem — didn’t make the top 10, though they are in the top 20.

Other acts on the list include the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Biz Markie, Black Sheep and J.J. Fad.

The list comes as VH1 prepares to honor the pioneers in rap once again as part of its annual Hip-Hop Honors show, which this year celebrates Slick Rick, De La Soul, Cypress Hill, Naughty by Nature and Too Short. That show airs Oct. 6.

Watch Fight the Power