...and now, a few words from chuck d

While Bill O'Reilly at FOX News taunts hip-hop artists like Jay-Z, ridicules Cam'ron and Damon Dash on his show and ignores challenges from Nas to book an interview with Young Jeezy, Chuck D is in the UK and Europe, pontificating about the Obama effect and the state of things stateside on high brow chat shows and the like with political pundits and social/cultural theorists. I don't know what's more shocking for me -- the fact that this is an intelligent, thoughtful, opinionated, politically astute hip-hop artist in our midst, or that he is treated with such a high level of respect. Certainly his work as a seminal member of Public Enemy precedes him, especially in other parts of the world where they were wildly popular once upon a time -- and still are.

It should be duly noted that unlike most hip hop artists, Chuck D is a college graduate. He's also written a best-selling autobiography, has been tirelessly involved in political activism in the music industry and beyond since PE's inception (and received awards for it, by the way) and has remained popular on the college lecture circuit -- from Harvard to Howard -- for more than 20 years. One would think that if a tv show/news magazine would want to hear from an artist in the hip hop community, this guy would be on the short list. But he's not. At least, not in this country.

I know everyone in neoconservative America is raising a stink about the Jay-Z/Young Jeezy My President is Black remix but recently, Public Enemy made news when President Obama remarked that on his first date with his wife Michelle, he took her to see Spike Lee's film Do The Right Thing which featured the song Fight the Power. The media kind of ignored this one. If you read any of Public Enemy's lyrics, you'll know why. They started cranking out the jams in the 80s and the stuff is still poppin' fresh like it came out last year. Especially the song Fight the Power.

It's time to play the lyrics. Everyone's lyrics. For now, here's what Barack and Michelle were listening to on their first date.

Fight the Power

1989 the number another summer (get down)
Sound of the funky drummer
Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got sould
(Brothers and sisters, hey)
Listen if you're missin' y'all
Swingin' while I'm singin'
Givin' whatcha gettin'
Knowin' what I know
While the Black bands sweatin'
And the rhythm rhymes rollin'
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We got to fight the powers that be

As the rhythm designed to bounce
What counts is that the rhymes
Designed to fill your mind
Now that you've realized the prides arrived
We got to pump the stuff to make us tough
from the heart
It's a start, a work of art
To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange
People, people we are the same
No we're not the same
Cause we don't know the game
What we need is awareness, we can't get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved lets get down to business
Mental self defensive fitness
(Yo) bum rush the show
You gotta go for what you know
Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say...
Fight the Power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We got to fight the powers that b

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
Don't worry be happy
Was a number one jam
Damn if I say it you can slap me right here
(Get it) lets get this party started right
Right on, c'mon
What we got to say
Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be
Fight The Power
Fight the power
Fight the power
We got to fight the powers that be

By The Time I Get To Arizona

in light of yesterday's post, i think we should all take a moment to watch Public Enemy's video By The Time I Get To Arizona -- a protest song if there ever was one -- about the controversy that arose when arizona gov. evan mecham insisted that martin luther king jr. day would never be celebrated in his state while he was in office. interestingly, he was impeached after serving only a little more than a year, for obstruction of justice and misuse of government funds.

i happen to love Public Enemy very, very much. in a hip-hop world filled with ignorance, sexism, the denigration of women, and the glorification of "bling-bling" materialism and stuff, they are so necessary and they are sorely missed. God knows we need some protest music right about now -- and who's creating it? this video may not have had anything to do with the governor's ousting per se, but it definitely gave arizona a foul rep worldwide that they have yet to shake.

by the way -- the speech that is given in the opening montage are gov. mecham's very own words, taken directly from an announcement he gave to the press.

for your convenience, i've included the lyrics. enjoy!

I'm countin' down to the day deservin'
Fittin' for a king
I'm waitin' for the time when I can
Get to Arizona
'Cause my money's spent on
The goddamn rent
Neither party is mine not the
Jackass or the elephant
20.000 nig niggy nigas in the corner
Of the cell block but they come
From California
Population none in the desert and sun
Wit' a gun cracker
Runnin' things under his thumb
Starin' hard at the postcards
Isn't it odd and unique?
Seein' people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
'Cause I wanna be free
What's a smilin' fact
When the whole state's racist
Why want a holiday F--k it 'cause I wanna
So what if I celebrate it standin' on a corner
I ain't drinkin' no 40
I B thinkin' time wit' a nine
Until we get some land
Call me the trigger man
Looki lookin' for the governor
Huh he ain't lovin' ya
But here to trouble ya
He's rubbin' ya wrong
Get the point come along

An he can get to the joint
I urinated on the state
While I was kickin' this song
Yeah, he appear to be fair
The cracker over there
He try to keep it yesteryear
The good ol' days
The same ol' ways
That kept us dyin'
Yes, you me myself and I'ndeed
What he need is a nosebleed
Read between the lines
Then you see the lie
Politically planned
But understand that's all she wrote
When we see the real side
That hide behind the vote
They can't understand why he the man
I'm singin' 'bout a king
They don't like it
When I decide to mike it
Wait I'm waitin' for the date
For the man who demands respect
'Cause he was great c'mon
I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a gonner
By the time I get to Arizona

I got 25 days to do it
If a wall in the sky
Just watch me go thru it
'Cause I gotta do what I gotta do
PE number one
Gets the job done
When it's done and over
Was because I drove'er
Thru all the static
Not stick but automatic
That's the way it is
He gotta get his
Talin' MLK
Gonna find a way
Make the state pay
Lookin' for the day
Hard as it seems
This ain't no damn dream
Gotta know what I mean
It's team against team
Catch the light beam
So I pray
I pray everyday
I do and praise jah the maker
Lookin' for culture
I got but not here
From jah maker
Pushin' and shakin' the structure
Bringin' down the babylon
Hearin' the sucker
That make it hard for the brown
The hard Boulova
I need now
More than ever now
Who's sittin' on my freedah'
Opressor people beater
Piece of the pick
We picked a piece
Of land that we deservin' now
Reparation a piece of the nation
And damn he got the nerve
Another niga they say and classify
We want too much
My peep plus the whole nine is mine
Don't think I even double dutch
Here's a brother my attitude hit 'em
Hang 'em high
Blowin' up the 90s started tickin' 86
When the blind get a mind
Better start and earn while we sing it
Now
There will be the day we know those down and who will go

I'm countin' down to the day deservin'
Fittin' for a king
I'm waitin' for the time when I can
Get to Arizona
'Cause my money's spent on
The goddamn rent
Neither party is mine not the
Jackass or the elephant
20.000 nig niggy nigas in the corner
Of the cell block but they come
From California
Population none in the desert and sun
Wit' a gun cracker
Runnin' things under his thumb
Starin' hard at the postcards
Isn't it odd and unique?
Seein' people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
'Cause I wanna be free
What's a smilin' fact
When the whole state's racist
Why want a holiday F--k it 'cause I wanna
So what if I celebrate it sta a corner
drinkin' no 40