Chuck D believes that he and his group Public Enemy have been harassed by police greater than every other act in music.
In a particular section for The Guardian, the frontman fielded questions from followers about his previous experiences within the UK, his ideas on the way forward for Hip Hop and extra.
One fan wrote in to ask how a lot “police harassment and FBI intimidation” Public Enemy had been subjected to on the top of their recognition.
“I don’t know about intimidation, but, yeah, probably more than anybody in music,” Chuck D responded. “It’s nothing to be aggravated by. It’s what it’s. The most I might do was to make songs about it. On Public Enemy’s first album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, we mentioned the governments are accountable. Governments plural as a result of governments like to separate up human beings, however music likes to unite individuals.
Considering Public Enemy’s legacy of activism each inside music and past, different followers additionally despatched in questions of a political nature.
When requested what it will take for “the US to become a more equal society,” the 62-year-old pointed once more to the necessity for an answer that will issue the worldwide political panorama as an alternative.
“The whole world can move toward being a more equal society by bringing back the power of the United Nations,” he replied. “Social media and cellphones mean that cultures are all now all intertwined.”
He continued: “People know who I am through music and culture, so I’ve always followed up with a great appreciation for the difference between human beings. Governments like to split and categorize human beings, but culture and hip-hop unites human beings and throws the differences to the side.”
Earlier this yr, it was introduced that Chuck D can be bringing a brand new four-part docu-series to PBS and the BBC in January analyzing how Hip Hop has influenced the world.
Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World tells the story of the style as an “organic expression of experience that was unapologetic, fierce and empowering as it spoke truth to power and informed a nation through a different lens.”
The venture, initially titled The Story of Hip-Hop with Chuck D, options commentary from Grandmaster Caz, Ice-T, Abiodun Oyewole (The Last Poets), Roxanne Shanté, Run-DMC, John Forté, will.i.am, MC Lyte, B-Real (Cypress Hill), Melle Mel, Fat Joe, Lupe Fiasco and extra.
The title itself is a reference to Public Enemy’s 1989 single “Fight The Power” from the group’s third album Fear of a Black Planet.
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“The Hip Hop community has, from the start, been doing what the rest of media is only now catching up to,” Chuck D mentioned in an announcement. “Long before any conglomerate realized it was time to wake up, Hip Hop had been speaking out and telling truths.”
He continued: “Working with PBS and BBC is an opportunity to deliver these messages through new ways and help explain hip hop’s place in history and hopefully inspire us all to take it further.”
Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World shall be out there for streaming concurrent with broadcast on BBC 2 within the UK on January 21 and on all PBS platforms beginning January 31.
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