"Revolution Rap' and Public Enemy: Their prediction came true in L.A

Scan page 16

D stands at left. "The clock is ticking." MARK SELIGER 'It's not surprising that the young people in rebellion made use of a hardcore rap music composition a: their hymn and rally cry. Nor is it surprising that the predictions of Chuck D-along with other rappers like Ice-T, KRS-One, and Ice Cube16 SOCIALISTACTION DECEMBER 1992 This is the first in a series of articles on rap music, focussing on the rap group Public Enemy.

"There is something changing in the climate of consciousness on this planet today. Need for change brings on revolution. To revolutionize, make a change, nothin's strange. What we got to say/ Power to the people, no delay/ To make everybody see/ In order to fight the powers that be."—Public Enemy, "Fear of a Black Planet"

"Burn Hollywood burn!" That's what crowds of young Blacks, Hispanics, and even whites chanted at the time of the Los Angeles uprising. They were thus replaying in their own way a "revenge fantasy" created by the rap band Public Enemy: "So step and fetch this shit/ For all the years we looked like clowns/ The joke is over, smell the smoke from all around/ Burn Hollywood burn."

Chuck D, leader of Public Enemy, explains: "That record is about the movie industry and how corrupt it is in its depiction of Blacks. I never said 'Burn Hollywood burn' was burn Watts or South Central down."

But Chuck D did not condemn the seeming misappropriation of his song by the L.A. rebels. He pointed out: "The South Central fires were precision hits. They only burned down what they wanted to burn down. It was calculated. There was just as much precision in the bombing of Los Angeles as there was in the bombing of Iraq."

This analysis is confirmed by James Bernard, senior editor of The Source, in his own first-rate analysis of the uprising. The Source is the only independent Black magazine of hip-hop music, culture, and politics.

Bernard writes in the August 1992 edition: "Since this was a rebellion and not a riot, businesses were hit; homes, schools, or churches were not hit. In this way, this was class warfare—get the property owners. ... As the most articulate and dramatic cry for sweeping social change since the late '60s, April 30, 1992—the rebellion's apex-cracked the door through which we could finally finish the healing sparked by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements."

A political platform It's not surprising that the young people in rebellion made use of a hardcore rap music composition as their hymn and rally cry. Nor is it surprising that the predictions of Chuck D—along with other rappers like Ice-T, KRS-One, and Ice Cube-were vindicated.

"Long before 58 people were killed and racial issues dominated the national news, rap was the sole media outlet through which millions of listeners could hear the anger, frustration, and confusion of America's Black underclass," writes Alan Light, associate editor of Rolling Stone in the magazine's June 1992 edition.

For his part, Gregor Ehrlich writes in the August 1992 issue of Pulse! magazine, "Rap's current popularity aside, the music has long provided a platform for people who feel they lack any other political voice. The hip-hop community categorizes such policy-minded rap as Afrocentric or Black nationalist."

And in the British i-D Magazine (August 1992), Kodwo Eshun writes: "Rap scripted the riots many times before Public Enemy: Chuck the events in Los Angeles actually occurred on April 29. "Burn Hollywood Burn," from Public Enemy's third album, "Fear of a Black Planet," is only one example of an audiodramatic inferno which was regarded as yet more hyperbole when it was released in 1990. Now it is that very excessiveness, that sense of being 'too Black, too strong' which is being quoted by conservative magazines like Newsweek and Time for its prophetic force.' A common ground John Leland, who edited a long background dossier for Newsweek, pointed out that for over four years, hardcore rap anticipated the Los Angeles "riot"-and it did so in the most graphic images of violence and civil war. He compares the role rap plays today with the one played by rock music during the previous period of "radical integration."

Leland writes: "During periods of inte gration ... the common ground shared by white and Black listeners was rock and roll. ... Now, as we pull apart, and our were vindicated.' insecurities focus more and more on violence, the shared ground is the often violent frontier of rap.

"If the heart of the culture in the '60s was a fascination with youth, the heart now is a fascination with race. Race has replaced the generation gap as the determining force not just in what music says and sounds like, but in how it is promoted and what it means to different listeners.

"Rappers are the musicians leading the change. ... Popular music is now reflecting deep changes in American society better than any other form of public discussion—just as it did 30 years ago. When Los Angeles boiled over in response to the Rodney King verdict in April, the last people surprised were the fans of rap music, Black and white."

Likewise, it was the rappers who were among the first to work up a balance sheet of the L.A. uprising-like one made by Ice-T. He hoped that "Black people realize it's more a poverty-versus money thing than a Black-and-white thing" and that "the shit would be on until we got to the White House."

Several rappers also raise burning questions about the effectiveness of the Black political leadership. "Now is the time for us to start demanding more from our leaders and find out who can lead us more effectively," declares Yo Yo.

But according to Public Enemy's producer, Hank Shocklee, the uprising showed that it's not possible to count on the current Black leadership: "Those community leaders-the whole of Black America was saying it's the first time we've ever seen them."

Rap won't be the same again Havelock Nelson and Michael Gonzales, authors of a guide to rap music and hiphop culture, consider that the first album of Public Enemy, "Yo! Bum Rush the Show," which appeared in 1987, constituted the first product of the new school of "radical rap." In addition, they say, it was one of the most relevant and ambitious products ever committed to vinyl.

The meteoric rise of Public Enemy deeply transformed rap music and the whole of hip-hop culture and raised them up to a new level. "Between noise and information, sound and sense, Public Enemy conceptualized rap, gave it sense of itself as a total art form, " says Kodwo Eshun.

The main personalities in Public Enemy are rappers Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) and Falvor Flav (William Drayton), disk jockey Terminator X (Norman Rogers), and producer Hank Shocklee. A fifth member, Professor Griff (Richard Griffin), the "minister of information," was obliged to separate from the group in 1990.

The group is made up of two specialized teams. One team is called the Security of the First World. The other is called the Bomb Squad. "This Bomb Squad isn't destroying property, but conceptions of music-the way it's played and listened to," explains Scott Poulson-Bryant, staff writer for Spin magazine (October 1991).

David Dufresne, the author of the French-language book, "Yo! Revolution Rap," comments: "It's understood that we're dealing with a different [kind of] group. Above the crowd; on the one hand, musically, on the other, philosophically."

Dufresne was the one who coined the term "revolution rap." He was no doubt inspired by the term "revolution rock," which was utilized by the British group, The Clash, a decade ago. And this term describes Public Enemy above all-within both of its domains, that of music and that of ideas.

James Bernard writes concerning Public Enemy: "They have fucked with shit in a major way. They restored faith in music; it still matters. They have changed the way people think. They showed us that rap is a voice for a generation's rage, hopes, and dreams. They demonstrated that a pop group could address issues that torment our society's soul. Public Enemy is not just the most important rap act of our time; they are the most important popular music act of our time."

European critics are just as laudatory. In their analysis of the group's second album, "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back," Georges Lapassade and Philippe Rouselot affirm that "the technosound of Public Enemy constitutes a model of the genre; throughout, their sophistication is at the service of the stress, the shock they wish to create. Their rhyme is a perfection." ("Le rap ou (continued on page 8, in “Who Killed Malcolm X?”)