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Jonathan Williams | The Appalachian
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Q&A with Chuck D
Rapper answers questions as part of MLK Day commemoration
by Anna Oakes
Senior Staff Writer
Is this your first time to the area?
I’ve been over it, through it, but I never have stopped in Boone, no. It was interesting to find out that Boone was named after Daniel Boone – that’s a cat I studied about when I was a kid, you know. Daniel Boone was big time when I was a kid.
Growing up in Long Island during the 60s and 70s, who were your influences – musical, political, any others?
Well musical influences – James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, the soundtrack of my household was Atlantic, Stacks, Motown. Politically, Dr. King in my household, Malcolm X, Dave Gregory, Charlie Chisholm – past, present and future – you know, so I was a big admirer of Frederick Douglass, maybe cause my middle name is Douglas – that’s what the “D” stands for – I always used to take a liking about reading about him. And I was always appreciative of my parents for allowing me to be an individual and just search and find it for myself, and helping me along when I got in a kind of quagmire.
How do you feel your influences shaped the music created in the 80s and 90s with Public Enemy?
I feel fortunate that in 53 countries I see that it’s changed a lot of people, not only in America but abroad, to understanding that to “Fight the Power” means that if things keep you from being accepted as a full valued human being on humanous terms then you gotta fight those things that keep repressing. And music of ours is able to bring that across, and people are able to compare their fights against these struggles to what I happen to spew out. I take it as a compliment – although I’m not easy to take compliments – I just think this is something that should be done.
Early hip-hop and rap was very politically charged.
Well, early hip-hop and rap was across the board. It was party, say something, try not to make it offensive, keep it moving. And then it became a little bit more spread out, and political, meaning that it started paying attention to who controlled what. So, I wouldn’t say it started out that way – it graduated to that level, and then it graduated from there.
You’ve called rap music the “black CNN,” and I’ve heard it said that rap music is the only form of protest music still around. Increasingly, however, the voices of mainstream hip-hop perpetuate the same recurring themes: money, women, drugs, fame. When and how did this shift occur in hip-hop?
Those things happen to come from the quote-unquote “urban” black community. I think artists want to be able to say more, but if they know that they say more knowing they’re judged by the quantity of what they do and how much they sell as opposed to the quality of what they have to say, and they’re judged by business standards, then that would actually scare a lot of artists from taking chances. That’s one of the biggest things, in hip-hop, as in art forms, that artists are afraid to take chances. Artists [that] as exceptions take chances – you notice them. Like Outkast, were able to do it commercially and also able to say some things and do some things outside the box. The longevity of any music happens to be engrained in the fearlessness that it has, and the fearlessness that rap music and hip-hop have is head-and-shoulders upon all other music. Now it seems like all other genres have surpassed it because it’s been accepted into the mainstream because of its selling, not because of its sway.
It has been said that our generation is “apathetic” – that people our age are ignorant of and indifferent to larger social, economic and political issues. In a kind of “chicken-or-the-egg” take on this, is the lack of concern among our generation the reason for the lack of important issues in pop culture, or is the lack of political consciousness in mainstream American music the reason for apathy among youth?
I don’t see any changes in young people at all over the last hundred years. Young people are young people, kids are kids. But I think for the first time you have a 25-45 [year-old] adult demographic who basically are afraid to communicate with those younger than them. And you have a 25-45 demographic that’s afraid to really operate outside the box and teach down, at any cost. And you also have a 25-45 demographic that would rather be considered individuals as opposed to knowing that they’re from a collective mass. So therefore, what are young people to think if they have nothing there that looks like it’s of any order at the top of the runnings of government, the holders of big business, the doctrines of principles and spirituality. Those things kind of tell younger people that they should try to go and get theirs, too. So I don’t think it’s young people’s fault as much as it is that faceless demographic that’s above them in age. That has to change. Young people are always going to have problems, and those problems are growing up. I mean, I don’t think a collegian can have the same naive, youthful excuses that someone in the fifth and sixth grade can have. There has to be a time when excuses kind of run their course. And it just seems like, more than ever, people in their late 20s and 30s and 40s have more excuses -- than direction -- than young people.
You were one of the first artists to sample and mix other artists’ music in the late 1980s. A decade later you became active in the Internet music community and (unlike many artists) a proponent of Internet music downloads. Have copyright laws and corporations stifled musical creativity in the last two decades?
Yeah, because copyright laws have been going parallel to technology. And I think in the past, every artist or creator wanted to have a fair shot of being able to audition to the big companies, and those fair shots weren’t being as granted as much as one would have thought. So, copyright law kind of stayed frozen, and technology moves and it gets whatever music or art to people, then you have to have copyright law kind of like a stand that there’s going be some shaping along the way. Yes, I was very supportive of downloading and still am, and I’ve also supported situations where you can download and you’ve got to pay for it. But before there was a solid pay structure, you don’t want the pay structure to be within the same framework of greed that favors the most financed and doesn’t give a new artist any chance. You want it to be fair. And at that particular time I didn’t think that it ever could be fair.
You host a radio show called “Unfiltered.” Why did you get involved with radio?
I started getting involved in radio as early as the early 80s. I was one of the first college DJs of rap music. So, getting involved in radio from a talking standpoint and also from a music standpoint – where I do AOL’s Top 20 Countdown – is just a revisitation into my first passions. It’s nothing new for me, it’s more like a recycling.
How did you come to be involved with academia – giving lectures, addresses?
Started out in 1989 introduced by Sister Soldier – she was doing colleges, I was doing music. She introduced me to the campuses and speaking, and I in turn introduced her to music. Then I was working with a ... youth minister with the Nation of Islam. And he normally spoke at colleges so working with him, also, I began to develop a relationship and a rapport with speaking to those who were able to understand that what I was saying in my music was a great explaining point to students.
About 37 years after the death of Martin Luther King, is the progress we’ve made toward racial equality and civil rights in this country since then an honor to his legacy?
I think the progress that we’ve made has kind of brought people together based on the characteristics of people, especially black people, just having our characteristics recognized by society without it being a way to fulfill itself by understanding where we come from and how we got here to the responsibility to the legacy. Because [the legacy] it lends itself to exploitation in a way, 37 years after Dr. King. So there’s got to be a way that our character is built alongside the historical aspect in order for groups of people to come together on the same or equal terms. That’s quite missing today. You see a lot of black persons on TV, in magazines, radio – whatever. But a lot of these things are synonymous with overnight sensationalism based on celebrity impact. We’ve got to be able to branch out further than that to fulfill the dream of Dr. King. I would say in Dr. King’s case, he wants people to be more than what meets the eye.
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