He's Down With The Digital Revolution p.5

ATN: You've talked a little bit before about these messages that Public Enemy was sending and then how gangsta rap has taken over.

Chuck D: Well, gangsta rap didn't take over. Gangsta rap was highly financed and endorsed more than Afrocentric rap.

ATN: How did that make you feel, when that happened?

Chuck D: I never got mad at my peers. I just got angry at the puppeteers. And then I see this overproliferation of the word "nigga" or 'I'm gonna kill the nigga rat-a-tat-tat, never hesitate to put a nigga on his back.' Whole bunch of white kids cheering with it. Black kids yelling. And then when I ask a question about it, they say, 'Well, it was black kids talking about it.' Yeah, but it's a white company endorsing it! 'Oh well, it's not censorship.' Yeah, you say it's not censorship because you don't come from our community. But you're endorsing it, financing it. And who else would let an 18-year-old person be a voice of the community without any accountability or responsibility attached to it?

ATN: What about things like [Southern rap labels] Cash Money and No Limit? Black people presenting that same message presumably for other black people ...

Chuck D: I'll tell you, Cash Money, I love them. I love No Limit. But you know what? Universal came in and they couldn't buy out [No Limit founder] Master P. So, they took the second competitor in the marketplace and financed it. A white corporate-owned financial plan to back a situation versus Master P's black-owned [company], built it out of dirt and scratch. Almost like a regional war.

ATN: Was there ever any pressure on you to turn that page to gangsta-ism from the label?

Chuck D: I always have ownership, creative mentality, that integrity. I've always told people: 'I'm gonna take that $10 million job, but I'm gonna be me.' And they say: 'Well, no thank you, Chuck.'

ATN: How do you think a band like Rage get away with having such a strong message and being on a major label?

Chuck D's manager, Walter Leaphart: They are the epitome of an anti-establishment within the establishment.

ATN: But how does that flourish?

Leaphart: Because it's fuckin' making money. [laughs]

Chuck D: That's it.

ATN: Is that really it, though?

Leaphart: That's it. They don't care what they're saying.



(( "I look at art the same way Picasso would look at art." ))

ATN: Their company can go along with them talking about cultural imperialism ...

Leaphart: Right. Because they're selling two million units.

Chuck D: Yeah, but if Rage would've came out in ... Rage sent me the demo in 1989.

Leaphart: Yeah, but if Rage was black, it'd be a different story.

Chuck D: No, no. Maybe not. 'Cause if Rage would've came out in 1988, they would've faced a different climate than now. There's this guilt factor in music that says: 'Well, since we've allowed all this counterproductive nigga-ism stuff we'll be wrong since we didn't come out against that.' Before it was unprecedented. When Public Enemy came out with a nationalistic point of view it was unprecedented in pop music to rage against the machine. We raged against the machine and motherfuckers were like, 'How dare you be a slave and rebel against the hand that ... ?' Not only did we bite the hand that fed us, we tried to chop it off. That set a precedent for a lot of the artists to come out and do their particular thing. Zack is pushing the envelope.