#and i’m not playing games with the american public school system re: having a way to contact people in an emergency

[nachobsns]

honestly really need to curb my phone addiction and i’ve been looking into dumbphones lately as an alternative for when i’m out and about and like. say what you will about brand consumerism but i am a simple man and the barbie phone is calling to me

[gayenerd]

I just realized I didn’t post that 2007 Rolling Stone article I posted about here. 

Billie Joe Armstrong

The Green Day leader talks Bush, Britney and being a middle-aged punk for our 40th anniversary.

DAVID FRICKE

Posted Nov 01, 2007 8:19 AM

You have two young sons. What kind of America will they inherit?

This war has to finish before something new blossoms. There's no draft — that's why none of the kids give a shit. They'd rather watch videos on YouTube. It's hard to tell what's next — there is so much information out there with no power to it. Everything is in transition, including our government. Next year, it's someone else in the White House. There's no way to define anything. It's Generation Zero. But you gotta start at zero to get to something.

Is there anyone now running for president who gives you hope for the future?

Barack Obama, but it's a bit early to tell if this is the guy I like. I get sick of the religious-figure thing. People don't question their rulers, these political figures, just as they don't question their ministers and priests. They're not going to question George Bush, especially if he goes around talking about God — "I'm going to let God decide this for me. He's going to give me the answer." The fear of God keeps people silent.

When did you first vote in a presidential election?

In 1992. I was twenty. I voted for Clinton.

Did you feel like you made a difference?

Yeah. The Eighties sucked. There was so much bullshit that went along with that decade. I felt like Clinton was a fresh face with fresh ideas. There were times when he was dropping bombs, and I'm thinking, "What the fuck are you doing?" But he became a target. We have this puritanical vision of what a leader is supposed to be, and that's what makes us the biggest hypocrites in the world. We got so inside this guy's sexual habits. Now we have a president going around, killing in the name of what? In the name of nothing.

What did you accomplish with your 2004 anti-Bush album, "American Idiot"? He was re-elected anyway, and the war in Iraq is still going on.

I found a voice. There may have been people disenfranchised by it. People have a hard time with that kind of writing: "Why are you preaching to me?" It does sound preachy, a bit. I'm a musician, and I want to say positive things. If it's about self-indulgent depression or overthrowing the government, it's gotta come from my heart. And when you say "Fuck George W. Bush" in a packed arena in Texas, that's an accomplishment, because you're saying it to the unconverted.

Do you think selling nearly 6 million copies of that album might have an effect on the 2008 election? A kid who bought it at fifteen will be voting age next year.

I hope so. I made it to give people a reason to think for themselves. It was supposed to be a catalyst. Maybe that's one reason why it's difficult for me to write about politics now. A lot of things on that record are still relevant. It's like we have this monarchy in politics — the passing of the baton between the Clintons and the Bushes. That's frightening. What needs to happen is a complete change, a person coming from the outside with a new perspective on all the fucked-up problems we have.

How would you describe the state of pop culture?

People want blood. They want to see other people thrown to the lions. Do audiences want rock stars? I can't tell. You have information coming at you from so many areas — YouTube, the Internet, tabloids. Watching Britney Spears the other night [on the MTV Video Music Awards] was like watching a public execution. How could the people at MTV, the people around her, not know this girl was fucked up? People came in expecting a train wreck, and they got more than they bargained for.

She was a willing conspirator. She didn't say no.

She is a manufactured child. She has come up through this Disney perspective, thinking that all life is about is to be the most ridiculous star you could be. But it's also about what we look at as entertainment — watching somebody go through that.

How do you decide what your children can see on TV or the Internet? As a dad, even a punk-rock dad, that can make you conservative in your choices.

I want to protect them from garbage. It's not necessarily the sex and drugs. It's bad drugs and bad sex, the violence you see on television and in the news. I want to protect them from being desensitized. I want them to realize this is real life, not a video game.

The main thing I want them to have is a good education, because that's something I never had. Get smart. Educate yourself as much as you can, and get as much out of it, even if the teacher is an asshole.

Do you regret dropping out of high school?

Life in high school sucks. I bucked the system. I also got lucky. My wife has a degree in sociology, and there are conversations she has — I don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. College — I could have learned from that.

But I was the last of six kids. At that point, my mother was fifty-eight, and she threw up her hands — "I'm through with this parenting thing." Also, I could not handle authority figures. But I wouldn't say I'm an authority figure for my kids. I provide guidelines, not rules.

What is it like being a middle-aged punk? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

It's about the energy you bring with you, the pulse inside your head. I want to get older. I don't want to be twenty-one again. Screw that. My twenties were a difficult time — where my band was at, getting married, having a child. I remember walking out of a gig in Chicago, past these screaming kids. There were these punks, real ones, sitting outside our tour bus. One girl had a forty-ouncer, and she goes, "Billie Joe, come drink with us." I said, "I can't, I've got my family on the bus." She goes, "Well, fuck you then." I get on the bus, and my wife says, "Did that bitch just tell you to fuck off? I'm gonna kick her ass right now." I'm holding her back, while my child is naked, jumping on the couch: "Hi, Daddy!" That was my whole life right there — screaming kids, punks telling me to fuck off, my wife getting pissed, my naked son waiting to get into his pajamas.

There's nothing wrong with being twenty-one. It's the lessons you learn. At thirty, you think, "Why did I worry so much about this shit?" When I hit forty, I'll say the same thing: "Why did I worry about this shit in my thirties?"

What have you learned about yourself?

There is more to life than trying to find your way through self-destruction or throwing yourself into the fire all the time. Nihilism in punk rock can be a cliché. I need to give myself more room to breathe, to allow my thoughts to catch up with the rest of me.

Before Dookie, I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. I had a guitar, a bag of clothes and a four-track recorder. There are ways you don't want to change. You don't want to lose your spark. But I need silence more than I did before. I need to get away from the static and noise, whereas before, I thrived on it.

Are you ready for the end of the music business? The technology and its effect on sales have changed dramatically since Green Days' debut EP — on vinyl — in 1989.

Technology now and the way people put out records — everything comes at you so fast, you don't know what you're investigating. You can't identify with it — at least I can't. With American Idiot, we made a conscious effort to give people an experience they could remember for the rest of their lives. It wasn't just the content. It was the artwork, the three acts — the way you could read it all like someone's story.

Is music simply not important to young people now the way it was to you as a kid?

People get addicted to garbage they don't need. At shows, they gotta talk on their phones to their friend who's in the next aisle. I was watching this documentary on Jeff Tweedy of Wilco [Sunken Treasure]. He was playing acoustic, and he ends up screaming at the audience: "Your fucking conversation can wait. I'm up here singing a song — get involved." He wasn't being an asshole. He was like, "Leave your bullshit behind. Let's celebrate what's happening now."

We need music, and we need it good. I took it very seriously. There's a side of me where music will always send chills up my spine, make me cry, make me want to get up and do Pete Townshend windmills. In a lot of ways, I was in a minority when I was young. There are people who go, "Oh, that's a snappy tune." I listen to it and go, "That's the greatest fucking song ever. That is the song I want played at my funeral."

Now that you've brought it up, what song do you want played at your funeral?

It keeps changing. "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie. "In My Life," by the Beatles. "Love," by John Lennon.

Those are all reflective ballads, not punk.

I disagree. They are all honest in their reflection. The punk bands I liked were the ones who didn't fall into clichés — the Clash, the Ramones. The Ramones wrote beautiful love songs. They also invented punk rock. I'd have to add "Blitzkrieg Bop" to the list.

What is the future of punk rock? Will it still be a voice of rebellion in twenty years?

It's categorized in so many different ways. You've got the MySpace punks. But there is always the subculture of it — the rats in the walls, pounding the pavement and booking their own live shows. It comes down to the people who are willing to do something different from everybody else.

You are in a different, platinum-album world now. What makes you so sure that spirit survives?

I'm going on faith — because I was there. Gilman Street [the Berkeley, California, club where Green Day played early shows] is still around. And that's a hard task, because there is no bar — it's a nonprofit cooperative. It's like a commune — this feeling of bucking the system together, surviving and thriving on art. Punk, as an underground, pushes for the generation gap. As soon as you're twenty-five years old, there's a group of sixteen-year-olds coming to kick your ass. And you have to pass the torch on. It's a trip to have seen it happen so many times. It gives me goose bumps — punk is something that survives on its own.

[prettywarriors]

Fate The Winx Commentary

Good morning internet! Today is the drop of Winx: Riverdale edition! I sure hope you're ready for my aggressive and unnecessary commentary, because it is coming for you either way!

The netflix landing page lets us know:

Fate The Winx Saga

6 episodes, 48-53 minutes each

"Genres: Fantasy TV Shows, Teen TV Shows, Italian TV Shows"

"This show is: Emotional"

As mentioned elsewhere, my Winx knowledge is limited, so I will be coming into this fairly fresh and will try to be unbiased. As I have seen trailers, the keyword here is Try.

Episode 1

'To the Waters and the Wild'

CW: Animal Death, Swears, Implied Child Death, Blood, Implied Teen Sex, Burns, Weed, Fatphobia, Whatever the term pussie falls under

Episode 1 TL;DR: We meet everyone, learn their dynamics, have the basics of the magic system beat into us, meet our monsters, and name drop Harry Potter. Standard first episode stuff.

I do want it on record before we start that I got about halfway into the first season of Riverdale, and the first season of Netflix Sabrina. They were, well, bland and boring imo? I did get through a few seasons of Teen Wolf, but that's because it was capable of Fun and Jokes. My current expectations are a few unintentionally funny lines, maybe some almost decent magic effects, and because it's 2021, one whole gay character (I did hear one of the boys (there are boys?) is bi, but also an asshole so I'm hoping for some wlw)

TV-MA LANGUAGE AND SMOKING OH FUCKING BOY Almost full moon (waxing) in opening shot- I Will be tracking moon inconsistencies if it keeps showing up that is a pet peeve but hey look a bunch of sheep That's a good start (it's ominous though. don't hurt the sheep) Swears count: Feckin' 2 Mystical portal barrier. Oh yeah s5 of the magicians is on netflix now WELP THOSE ARE SHEEP GUTS RIGHT OUT THE GATE HUH For CW it's up a tree, and the dripping blood is a good warning of what's about to be seen :( oh and then the man who was looking for the sheep dies offscreen save for a spray of blood. THIS ISN'T YOUR CHILD'S WINX CLUB it seems to say. I assume. How much blood was in the original winx because this is already at least a full cup. (Also the monster noises for whatever was chasing the man (werewolf it was a werewolf trailers are bad guys) were not very good)

Opening credit scene is 5-6 different blooming elemental wings. They're pretty, but it's unclear if the last one is secret 6th member wings (because the second to last ones are fire which is the main character's element right?) so maybe we'll get a late 6th addition? (I am in I.T. please give me the most relatable character you cowards)

KIDS IN THE CORNER BY AMBER VAN DAY PLAYING I like where they shot this but that might just be european woods pretty. The opening location was nice and mossy save for the sheep blood Fancy big stone school establishing shots (it's nice, and huge) and we land on a red head who seems less than pleased to be here Courtyard shot of... whatever the name of the replacment plant girl is, holding a tray of various potted plants for an older man (father? first day of school send off maybe?) Aisha(?) walks by, not talking to anyone, Stella(?) is taking Magical!Selfies with at least 3 other girls, Musa(?) has a suitcase and headphones and smiles at a passing girl Oh boy a boy with a pocketknife doing little tricks with it! Nothing says edgy like an actual knife edge. Gonna take this moment to point out I have some level of face blindness and while the girls all look fairly different from one another, if there is more than one tall blonde white boy as I fear there may be, I WILL NOT be able to tell them apart. Not through maliciousness, just general incompetence, so anything I say about the boy characters (I want to say they're the knights to the girl's faeries? is that right? this whole thing smacks of gender) should be taken with a heap of salt I've come to accept tv just. displaying text messages on screen as a storytelling method. It's never my favorite but it just Is a modern story element. Also Bloom needs to meet stella at the alfea gates Alfea I presume is the school- does the name mean something? It sure feels like the word elf and therefore fae but I don't feel like googling anything this early in Oh look two more blondish tall white boys. Pocketknife was wearing something else i think, one guy has a brown jacket and pink shirt (bad combo), the other looks old even by tv highschool/college standards and his jacket has a jock vibe. Jock jacket also has an earring? Is this the bi character who is an asshole? From this one second of him, only in profile, I will assume yes, he is an asshole I like Bloom's backpack Pink shirt looks at Bloom from across the quad. I am already tired of this romance Cool he walks up to someone he has identified as lost, and is 'impressed with [her] confidence in the face of complete ignorance' COMING OUT OF THE GATE WITH A NEGG HUH PINKY He even states he wasn't offering help Then Why Are You Talking To Her Jackass Subs are going with the fairy spelling, and Bloom confirms she is a fairy and we confirm this is College. Unless this is a european thing where they call schools different things. I think that's just for public and private? And maybe just england? I'm American all they teach us is 1492-ww1 over and over for like. 10 years sorry Rest of the World 'What Realm are you from?' 'California' Speaking of ameri-centric, I'm gonna Guess that original Winx, the italian cartoon, didn't have their main character be from cali usa? I am presuming this is a side effect of making this property for a more global distribution than I'm guessing winx was originally conceived as back in the early 00s The Otherworld. I assume this is the fairy realm and whatnot? And the magic school. Seems to be located behind a magical barrier in the earth realm?? If that's right it seems weird if basically everyone who goes to the school is from the otherworld Pinky doubles down on his rudeness but in a Fun and Cute way because :/ and the Specialist hall is Very Pretty, oh and there's a fairy hall. Are specialists the boy...things? magi knights? bros of the blade? guys who wear those 'here come a special boy' sneakers from that one comic? Stella sees this conversation which is great because they drop the term mansplain. why would otherworlders know that term even??? Edgey(?) sees Pinky and they hug it out Stella knows Americans are the type to wander off so I guess there's a lot of inter-world connections?

Miss Dowling- is this teacher going to be like the pedo in riverdale who got *checks notes* killed off by one of multiple serial killers later on? Dowling is the headmistress, gotta keep the otherworld a secret from earthers, time and place for portal making. all standard fantasy stuff so far, nothing to make this stand out Stella has a gateway ring, and frankly isn't too nice? all the backgrounders clothing is Bland and very normal 7 realms of the otherworld, Solaria is where Alfea is, i like magic globe Incase you forgot this was a modern tale, people update their insta stories here. 'I was kindof bummed I didn't see a single pair of wings' YOU AND ME BOTH BLOOM 'We had wings in the past, transformation was lost, tinkerbell was an air fairy' This is either a cop out for your glittery cowardice, or a set up for the main girls re-finding transformation magic later. I did like the Tink bit Bloom is a fire fairy and the subtext of this conversation is that bloom's magic did Something bad. I hope it was burn down her old school's gym a la buffy movie I like miss Dowling but in the I wouldn't Be Surprised if you turned out to be Evil way, and I guess Alfea is a very privileged upper crust school. What types of college do normal fairies go to then huh? damn privileged fairies 'our students have gone on to do amazing things like re-discover long lost magics' We Get It. You will give me Wings, but Only If I'm Patient Dowling throws a jab at Bloom about power control, but I like her necklace so It's Fine

Bloom video calls her parents while unpacking in the dorm, which may have come pre-fit with a heck ton of board games? Love it. Or new plant girl brought them along with her many plants Stella has a fancy mirror and lots of jewelry and fashion photos and makeup, Musa has a laptop and apparently not much else, gotta get those establishing personalities down I guess 'Ladies of the Flies honey don't be sexist' Bloom's dad for feminist of the year (these jokes are bad but i guess we can call it a dad joke as justification) Asiha gives Bloom a look and saves her from the call with her parents- yay friendship step one achieved Blooms parents think she's in the alps because magic secrets and what not Aisha asks bloom if she's never read harry potter and I guess Bloom is a potterhead (that's the term right?). Is this self awareness that all magical school fantasy series have the same basic bricks?  Bloom is a ravenclaw sometimes slytherin, Aisha is a Gryffindor Stella is changing because she's the fashion one and has a fun pastel rainbow skirt, and uses magic to make a real aggressive lamp. She's also a mentor (maybe older than the others by a bit?) I am assuming Stella here is something along the lines of a diplomats daughter the way she talks about appearances. She better get down and dirty later on to show her growth about how some things are more important than looks yada yada Fairy magic powered by strong emotions, i am waiting for bloom's backstory to be movie x-men rogue style tragedy Terra! Which. Of course is the Plant Fairy's name. Stella is a little mean to her about the plants and she takes it with a smile and some subtle snark back using classic literature Oh that's fun Terra points out the name-plant thing, and name drops her cousin Flora. That's. The one they replaced with Terra right? Terra's dad works in the greenhouse at the school which explains earlier (and her mum is named rose) Stella is indeed a second year and Musa's eyes change for. Lie detecting magic? and loves her headphones (Overstimulation?) Aisha wants somewhere to swim and we cut to a 'pond' by specialist training. Assuming she wants to sim because she's a water fairy, why Don't they have a pool? also this pond looks. Unpleasant for swimming

Girl specialist! Does that mean we have boy fairies? Boys. Fighting. Talking about girls. All gingers are nuts. Thanks edgelord AMAZING SHAGS THOUGH 'I didn't realize your hand was a red-head' it's not truly edge if we don't talk about sex every 10 minutes Subtitles earlier only said boy 1 boy 2 but now pinky or edgy is Riv Edgy smokes weed, and pinky is a big brother figure to him, and the head? of the special boys doesn't like edgy. Me neither older guy Bit of swordplay, more girls, every specialist has black training outfits, very military Pinky is Sky who is son of Guy of Place. an important lad. without context this is meaningless to me There's a giggly boy who laughs at the idea of a war in the future and gets a talking to. I suspect this boy will be re-occurring enough to die- he has those tertiary character elements with his intro and such (and he's black so I am prepared for your standard racist murder choices) Burned Ones exist outside the barrier, which makes me wonder if dead shepard was in the otherworld? There was nothing establishing that he was in any type of Other place but :/ Oh look edgey is having a smoke cross the barrier while we learn about the creatures that live beyond it. Time to find out these creatures no one young has ever seen are still kicking Specialist leader had to kill his own pa after a burned one got him. They also. Used a shotgun when trying to fight it. Do specialists even have powers or are they just good with weapons? Edgey finds the shepards corpse. Mostly blood 'it's been 16 years since the last sighting' 'Rosalind killed all the burned ones' ahh magical creature genocide hey when is abarat 4 coming out. and is rosalind hot?

School, gossip, Aisha and Musa are snarking at Tera for thinking the guy died of natural causes because we need to have these characters not actually like each other to make it stand out when they do Aisha talks about how she eats a lot and if she didn't swim she'd be massive and we cut to the plus sized tera looking uncomfortable are we really doing this? Tera points out that Musa was ignoring her earlier and it's all just uncomfortable and not great character conflict (but I thought I saw Musa holding an honest to god ipod? it's blue but it could be a phone case. Her hand is in the way) tera and dad interaction is nice, i'm also convinced they couldn't afford more than 3 magic adults

Girl with braids and metal in her hair! There were witches in winx right? Like 3 minor antagonist girls? I assume this is one of them. Because she has alternative fashion and is therefore evil /s Beatrix. Names in this series leave something to be desired (that something is subtly. I get it, they're carry overs from a series for a younger audience, she-ra had the same issue, but i can still poke fun) Swear count: Arsehole 2 Bollocks 1 Shit 1 She's a weird ass kissing with clearly ulterior motives

Bloom is Studying and her notebook is just FAIRY MAGIC POWER = EMOTIONS LOVE FEAR? HARTED? FIRE FAIRY CONTROL? in case you weren't paying attention Oh a flashback already to the magic triggering event? Her mother had pointed out she's an introvert, and past!Bloom doesn't Party. She goes Antiquing and is a Weird Loner (her 'basic bitch' of a mom's words) Swear count: Bitch 1 Bad daughter count: 1 Bad mother count: 1 Magic glowy eyes for Bloom: 1

Bloom Hates Parties and asks Pinky I mean Sky where she can be Away from People and he fears he'll be Mansplaing to her to. vague that it's dangerous outside instead of saying 'hey there's monsters and someone was just killed by possible one of them stay in the barrier' Stella wants to talk to Sky because they have History. I did hear there was a love triangle between these three. I am bored and everyone at this party is a nosey bitch who is watching their tense conversation. Also Something? Happens when Stella gets upset [mystical warbling] Random magic effects in the (very pretty) forest Bloom is trying to practice her magic on her own, and to do that she's gotta look at sad teen pics. And look, her burnt bedroom from her first power usage The fire magic is pretty good. I think fire is like. the opposite of water when it comes to cg where it almost always looks pretty good, while I swear i've seen the actual ocean look like a shitty render Magic out of control, bloom can't control her emotions, Aisha can stop her with water magic which makes some nice steam Bloom is angry at aisha for saving her. So far 3 of the 5 girls are abrasive at best remember when people made characters likeable? Swear count: Shit 1 (but it doubles as the literal meaning because of flooded toilets) Swear count: Bitch 1 Ass 1 Taking away your teen's door is. Really shitty. Not almost burn down your house worthy but damn cheerleader mom I do not understand sleep shirts with buttons. That seems painful if you lie the wrong way? Her mom was seriously burnt by first magic usage that's a backstory Shit count +1 Main character aspect time: dormant fairy blood line? awfully strong magic for that. baby who died day after it was born and now she's here? ...I was going to say changeling thanks aisha A Barbaric practice loving hints at long term world lore Hell is a bad word for kids!! Cutting to headmistress and her secret passage after finding out bloom is secret pureblood? this really is a harry potter thing

edgelord offers giggly some booze, and says pussies twice because he's Edgey and does peer pressure Tera calls him out and knows he's a sad nerd in disguise not a 'badass' and he says she's 'three people in disguise' because fatphobia shit +1 arehole +1 tera. chokes out edgelord with a vine because she's had enough of this shit. good for her edgelord is Riv, and he lived

OBLIGATORY GOOGLE SEARCH FOR THE TERM CHANGELING REMEMBER BELLA'S VAMPIRE GOOGLE GOD I LOVE TEEN FANTASY AND THEIR INSTANCE ON GOOGLING COMMON FANTASY TERMS OH hey the lamp bloom brought with her is the one she was fixing at home that's a nice touch Stella bonds with Bloom about homesickness, and the takes a selfie Musa is a mind fairy. So she. Is a telepath with purple eye magic? Oh there's types of 'connections' Memory, thought (others but i am cut off from the lore) Stella did Something to someone who Talked To Her Man last year and now lent Bloom her teleportation ring to send her some because miss mentor really cares more about her shitty man then helping the girls she's in charge of First World- earth Old Cemetery? Very Sexy. and bloom sweetie don't leave a mystical gateway open, and how will you explain to your parents how you're back so fast Wait she's only 16? SO this really is some european college where that's a funny way of saying High School Fire guilt, bad feelings about life shattering revelations, better connection with mother. I gotta say I have low expectations of this show carrying the family connection through the rest of this. That conversation felt more like a Hey We Made These Movements Onto Other Stuff Now

Lighting choices are interesting, with green, orange and purple for creepy warehouse. THE Creepy Warehouse where she would sleep without her parent's knowledge wow right that GIRL DROPS THE DAMN RING AT THE FIRST SIGN OF burned one looked more alien than werewolf-y here Decent Horror movie looks, and dude stole her ring. Rude. Saved by the headmistress, and tera/aisha/musa are here to great her Stella can't be here though because she has to greet a half naked freshly showered sky because life is suffering and producers insist people like to see teens half naked (who. Who?) shit +1 and she dumped him. pity part of one and using it to try to get your bone on. HEY A SONG I KNOW. IT'S WHATSITCALLED FROM THE BAYONETTA COMMERCIALS WAY BACK WHEN. in for the kill la roux. I do wish netflix would either commit to telling you what song was playing or didn't tell you at all

Riv offers Beatrix a hit from his joint because what Is a Bad Kid hasn't changed in like 70 years Blowing pot smoke into someone's mouth isn't as sexy as ya'll seem to think it is Musa has cute sleep socks with little pom poms, and I love Tera's floral jammies Tera offers a bluetooth speaker so they can listen to music together Musa also calls out Tera's fake happiness this is the good shit character interaction i live for Musa Empath Mind Fairy 'somber indie music'

If you kill a burned one in the human world Something? Extra bad happens? So the headmistress knows Bloom's a changeling, and ohhh that's the last time a burned one was spotted. Is Rosalind the famed Monster Slayer the birth mother of Bloom? Tera text flirts with Giggly who IS NAMED DANE and has a thing for. Sky? Riv? I told you these boys all look the same to me so if it's a half naked pic on fairy insta i'm out of context clues. Crymeariv is the insta name that answers that. Is this the slow burn enemies to lover mlm i can't finish this sentence i don't care riv is a dick Stella and Sky are in a bed and she doesn't seem to have a top on so Implied sexy times? MYSTERIOUS HOODED AND ROBED FIGURE CROSSES THROUGH THE BARRIAR AND SHOOTS THE BURNED ONE WITH LIGHTNING MAGIC OH IT'S beatrix

alt-J – Adeline as an ending song

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Good morning Ralph! I’m an attorney in the US and I saw your anon asking about the legality of vaccine requirements set by artists. I can shed some light, though probably not much and I’m going to do that annoying thing that lawyers do where we say “well it depends!” and refuse to give anyone any solid answers. But that’s really, truly, honestly, cross my heart hope to die, because in the case of the legality of vaccine requirements it does depend on a lot of different factors and we don’t have very many solid answers. This is not something anyone has ever really had to deal with before, the legal system looks to past precedent when deciding how to handle current issues, and there just isn’t much of that here. As a kind of general rule, though, the baseline we start from is the idea that private entities are free to require basically whatever they want as a prerequisite to service, and consumers are free to choose not to patronize those entities if they don’t like the requirements. An important thing to remember, that I think a lot of people tend to forget - all those handy rights the US constitution affords its citizens only apply to the government. There are limited exceptions - the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act are two of the biggest examples. But, so long as they’re complying with the guidelines provided by those limited exceptions, private entities can and always have been able to do pretty much whatever they want.

Now, vaccines are an interesting question because you start to get cross over into other issues - the right to privacy, bodily autonomy, “compulsory” disclosure of personal medical information, etc. If the question was “can an artist require me to wear a mask at his concert even though wearing a mask wasn’t required at the time I bought my ticket” the answer would unequivocally be yes. Artists and venues can (and do!) require all sorts of things for entry - you have to have a ticket, you have to submit to a bag search and go through a metal detector, you’re generally required to be wearing shoes and pants and a shirt. Masks absolutely can be added as a requirement, at any time, and whether or not it was a requirement that you reasonably could have anticipated when you bought the ticket doesn’t matter. But vaccines feel a little different, and admittedly they are. A mask is, in essence, a piece of clothing for your face. You wear it for a few hours, you take it off, you go about your life. It’s a temporary measure. Vaccines are not. A vaccine is a medical treatment, once you’ve gotten it you can’t “take it off” or decide you don’t want it anymore. It just feels like there should be a higher level of scrutiny than just “if you don’t like the requirement don’t support the entity.” But there really isn’t. That old idea that a private entity can set pretty much whatever rules and restrictions for access to and use of their private property stands. That tenant is arguably strengthened when the issue involves public health risks, because an employer has a duty to protect their employees and customers.

The EEOC ruled in May that companies can legally require their employees to be vaccinated. There are no federal laws preventing an employer from requiring employees to provide proof of vaccination, that information just has to be kept confidential. If there is a disability or sincerely held religious belief preventing an employee from being vaccinated they are entitled to a “reasonable accommodation” that does not pose an “undue burden” on the business. This isn’t a 1:1 comparison to your anon’s question about whether or not artists can require vaccination of concert attendees, but it is really useful guidance, because it’s a statement about what is and isn’t appropriate re: vaccine requirements straight from the mouth of one of the biggest federal players in the game. If, for example, a bunch of maroon five fans decided to sue the ban for their vaccine requirements, the EEOC decision is something judges and lawyers would look at in evaluating the suit.

HIPAA is the big one that a lot of people like to cite as protecting them from being asked about vaccination status by businesses or employers, but that’s just entirely untrue. HIPAA prevents a specific list of entities - doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. - from disclosing medical data about a patient in their care. Event venues, artists, employers - none of them fall into the category of a “covered entity” that has to abide by HIPAA requirements. And even then, there’s an argument to be made that HIPAA still wouldn’t prevent them from asking if you’re vaccinated and refusing you entry if you’re not, just that they can’t turn around and tell someone else what your vaccination status is.

So on a high level the answer is yes, artists can absolutely require vaccination of concert attendees. Full stop.

But that’s only taking into account federal laws. There are state laws at play too, and those are absolute mess. It feels like each state is handling their approach to vaccine requirements differently, and a lot of them conflict with the federal laws at play. While in theory federal laws should trump state laws, that’s not really true in practice, and a lot of people who are much smarter than me are still struggling with how to navigate that maze, so I’m not going to bother adding my two cents about how I think it should go. From a fact based standpoint, though, know that state laws are an issue and add even more “it depends on ____” factors to our already uncertain analysis. Texas, Arkansas, and Florida, for example, all have laws prohibiting businesses and governmental entities from requiring digital proof of vaccination. Whether or not these laws will withstand judicial scrutiny in the places they conflict with federal law remains tbd, but as it stands now an artist playing a show in Texas couldn’t require vaccines for entry to that show. But if their tour stop is, say, Indiana, they could require vaccines there, because Indiana state law only prevents governmental and quasi-governmental entities (schools) from requiring vaccines. Private entities can do whatever they want.

The final thing I want to touch on is your anon’s concern that the vaccine requirement wasn’t in place when the tickets were originally bought. It doesn’t matter. If the question is “can an artist require vaccines” the answer is “yes” and whether or not that requirement was in place when you bought your ticket doesn’t matter. BUT! As with everything else, there are exceptions. There might be an argument that adding a vaccine requirement is a contractual violation, if we were to imagine the exchange of ticket purchase for entertainment a contract between the buyer and the artist. There’s maybe an argument that you paid for a service you’re no longer getting because the circumstances under which the service will be provided has changed so drastically. These are issues that if someone wanted answers to they’d have to hire an attorney to file a civil suit against the artist, and then see the litigation through to get a ruling from a judge. To the best of my knowledge that hasn’t been done. But even if it is is done in the future, the answer to the overarching question “can an artist require vaccines” won’t change. All that will change is the artist will be required to come up with some sort of refund scheme for those who choose not to be vaccinated.

Anyway! I didn’t mean to write an entire treatise in your inbox. I saw the anon’s question and immediately went “oh interesting! I know a little bit about that” and, as per usual, a little bit has turned into a rambling lecture that I’m not actually sure anyone will even learn anything from. At the very least it might entertain you.

Xoxo, a US attorney who really needs to go do work someone will pay her for and stop theorizing about the interplay of federal vs state laws.

Thanks anon! That's all very interesting and relevant information. It gives a really good sense of how complex the situation is and the relevant dynamics in play. And also a good sense of what the law does and doesn't cover - because there's a whole practical side of this that is largely

I'll throw in one more thought. One of my concerns about vaccine passports are the equity issues. Existing issues of access to healthcare have played out in vaccine rates and that's true of both race and class everywhere that I have looked at. I don't think vaccines can be considered meaningfullly accessible if poor people and black people aren't accessing them. In general, the best answers to that will be resourcing to take vaccines to where people are and (and the situation for native americans really undscores this) and paid sick leave. But while vaccination rates are lowest for those who face most marginalisation, restricting access to society on the basis of a vaccination is discriminatory in a serious way.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

TLDR: Republicans believe themselves to be infallible and cannot be convinced otherwise

Republicans think America is perfect and always has been, while simultaneously believing that America is DOOMED and ON THE EDGE OF COLLAPSE at all times and want to bring us back to the Before Times™ when men were men and women were household appliances and minorities were someone else’s problem.  If you bring up a genuine critique of American culture or history they throw a pissbaby shit fit and start spewing nationalist platitudes, “America: Like It or Leave It!”  All their complaints stem from their perceived self-importance being eroded; they don’t like to realize that other people with differing opinions exist and should have their voices heard.  If a “brown” or a “black” or a “red” or a “yellow” is allowed to speak, that just means there’s one less space for a “white.”  All their complaints come from a slippery slope argument that if we don’t model our society after their specific cherrypicked interpretation of The Bible then we will degenerate into amoral savagery.

They say being gay is an abomination and allowing it will damn our children to hell; what they really think is that it’s gross and they don’t want to see things they think are gross.  There’s literally no good argument against marriage equality besides “I don’t personally like it.”  America is not a theocracy, so the belief system of Christianity should not be construed as the law of the land.  This stems from their belief that the Bible is infallible, “because the Bible says so.”  They don’t know and don’t want to know about the history behind it, nor the very contentious political landscapes at the times the books were written, nor the personal biases of the very human authors.  If the Bible is a literal textbook, then why?  What makes it so special?  By whose authority were its contents collated and designated THE Good Book?  If the Bible is literal, why not the works of Homer, or the Epic of Gilgamesh?  Just because the Bible says the Bible is right doesn’t make it so.  For the record, I am a Christian, and I think the Bible is just an old book.  I’m a Christian in that I follow the teachings of Christ, which can be summed up as “DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.”  I live by that, and All the ChrINOs (Christians in Name Only) need to learn it.  Jesus would be ashamed of what he saw today.

They say that abortion is baby murder, on par with ritual human sacrifice and Satan worship. They don’t understand biology, they have a Sunday School understanding of philosophy, and live in a world so black and white that they can’t even imagine a reason someone would have an abortion besides that they’re a terrible person; a woman who would have an abortion is unfit to be a mother in their eyes because they see abortion as equivalent to smothering a baby with a pillow because you don’t want to take care of it anymore.  “He or she is alive, he or she has a heart beat!”  Well, at this point is is just a blob of tissue, not a living person; a heart beat alone does not make something alive or dead.  Your life comes from your brain, not your heart.  If someone is alive the moment their heart starts, then they must be dead the moment is stops, so CPR is necromancy.  A person isn’t considered dead until their brain is dead, so if they wanted to argue that life begins at brain activity they would have a stronger argument, though still weak because brain activity is not personhood either.  Patients in permanent vegetative states on life support may have some brain activity, but they are effectively dead.  There is no way a judge, appointed by senators elected by the people of the United States, can prove that not only do souls exist but that they are created the second a sperm fertilizes an egg.  If “souls” exist, they aren’t so much created as built up over time as we gain new experienced and our brains develop.  What we are is electricity in a ball of meat jelly in our skulls, and that comes to being at a point after which abortions are already banned.  Conservatives also just want to control women; Roe v. Wade isn’t explicitly about the right to an abortion, it is about the right to body autonomy.  Do women have the right to control their own bodies, or do they defer that right to their fathers and husbands?  Are women people or property?  Can a man make decisions on a woman’s behalf?  “You must forgive my daughter; as a simple minded woman she’s fallen into a stupor of female hysteria.  We’ll have the family doctor bring out the smelling salts and leaches.”

They say that certain vices are crimes against God, but only when some people do it.  Divorce is a sin because marriage is sacred, except when a conservative does it, then it’s totally justified because of such and such explanation.  Tattoos are the mark of the beast, worn by degenerates and lesbians, except when a conservative does it, then it’s just art and harmless self expression.  Marijuana is a gateway drug and we need to lock away its addicts and throw away the key, unless a conservative does it, then it’s just recreational, no big deal, we don’t want to ruin the [white] boy’s future because of it.  A black person who does cocaine is a criminal, a white person who does cocaine is a public figure (you’d be surprised how many actors and politicians regularly use coke; they have to have high energy 24/7 in case there are any cameras, so they need uppers to keep themselves presentable).  This all springs from the fundamental conservative philosophy of “it’s okay when WE do it, but not when YOU do it.”  That’s the long and short of it.  The in-group is allowed to do things, but the out-group isn’t.  It’s the Us vs Them mentality taken to the logical extreme; WE are people, THEY are monsters.  WE are allowed to have faults, THEY have to stay in line and follow all the rules.  OUR lives matter, THEIR lives are lesser.  When you strip away the showy bits and get down to the core of their beliefs, everything stems from their desire to hurt anyone who isn’t them.  They want power, they want to be special, they want the Good Guys™ to always prevail over the Bad Guys™, and they want to be the ones to decide who is good and who is bad.  Their opinions are the only ones that matter, everyone else is wrong because they’re not them.  Now, it’s not like you could solve every problem by opening up your mind to new opinions; there are some issues that are indeed black and white with objectively right and wrong answers, but they live in a world where they are incapable of being wrong.  They see personal growth as a betrayal of the self, that admitting a fault is terrible, that apologizing and learning from a mistake is traitorous.  No, they have to double down on every single one of their beliefs to re-instill it in their minds.  They can never doubt themselves, because God will punish them forever if they ever have doubt.  They can’t ask questions or look at things from other perspectives because that would be an admission that their perspectives are fallible.  They are afraid of changing their minds so much that they refuse to even listen when someone explains their opinions because they don’t want to have their minds co-opted by Satan’s LIES!  If they hear something convincing, it’s all over, their entire world collapses, everything they believe is a lie, they lose, they go to hell forever, The End.

That is the dichotomy under which Republicans live their lives.  Nothing matters but what they believe.  They don’t believe what they believe for logical reasons, so no amount of logic will ever make them not believe it.  They’re making up their own rules to win.  You’re playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and they throw Nuclear Bomb, which defeats all three, so you lose.  You say that’s not fair, they say tough.  You throw Nuclear Bomb, and they say they have a bomb proof shield, so the bomb doesn’t hurt them but kills you, so you lose.  You can’t even beat them at their own game because they’ve been playing it longer, and they cry foul when you stoop to their level, suddenly saying that you need to be the bigger person, walking right up to the line of admitting that what they do is wrong but not quite getting there, simply reverting to the complaint that you shouldn’t be allowed to do it.  “I can, but YOU can’t.”  That’s why it infuriates me when nobody ever calls out a Republican for their hypocrisy.  They do something, a Democrat does that exact same thing, they cry foul, but nobody ever says “well, you didn’t have a problem when you did it,” they just try to excuse their own actions rather than demand justification for theirs.  Democrats are always on the defensive, they always look like they’re losing even when they’re winning, so the Republicans can use that to build their base and rally together for the occasional victory (Democrats won 7 of the last 8 presidential elections; the last Republican to legitimately win the presidency was George H.W. Bush in 1988).

I don’t know how you’d even begin to fight someone who is this far down the rabbit hole of self denial.

Democrats self-reflect, Republicans self-deflect.

Democrats are progressive, Republicans are regressive.

Now I’m sure there are no Republicans reading this, but if there are they’ll make themselves known and “totally refute” everything I’ve said with some paper thin argument that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but they don’t care because it stands up to them.  They only need to show one example of a Democrat failing to write off the entire party; they only need to show one black Republicans to deny the existence of racism; one gay Republican denies homophobia; one women denies sexism.  They are the party of tokenism.

They will point out the mote of dust in your eye and ignore the plank in their own.

Debate me, I have nothing better to do with my time, I’m a dirty libtard cuckflake soyboy beta with a case full of participation trophies and handouts paid for by other people’s tax dollars (funny, they think handouts are for degenerates, except when they get them.  Inheritance?  Privilege?  Never heard of them!)

[mylesudland]

Some thoughts on youth sports

Baxter Holmes at ESPN has a fascinating story out about the NBA’s concern over injuries in its young players. For anyone who has spent time training — at any level — the concerns outlined will be ones you’ve heard before: a lack of mobility in explosive athletes and a lack of flexibility in strong athletes create ticking time bombs that go off in the form of broken legs, broken ankles, and warped backs. 

The concerns voiced by executives and doctors at the NBA level are also familiar in the modern world of youth sports — by specializing in one sport at a young age, these athletes are set up for disappointment. They will be disappointed by their health and disappointed by their in-competition performance. In 2019, the issues surrounding the culture of youth sports are not new. The parents, the kids, the coaches, the administrators in every part of the country at every level in every sport have heard this story a thousand times. 

And the “answers” end up sounding a lot like what AAU board member Rod Seaford told ESPN. 

“The NCAA and the NBA loves to lay fault for their ills at the feet of youth sports or AAU,” Seaford told ESPN. “That's a pretty common thing. We've approached the NCAA and NBA with various proposals [only] to get lip service. We don't get much serious conversation. I don't doubt that it's a legitimate concern. But it's really easy to lay all those faults of the youth coach.”

The only answer is that there is no answer. Except that as I see it, the current youth-sports-industrial complex has a pretty straightforward incentive structure that perpetuates and accentuates that unathletic athletes that are filtering into the highest levels of American sports. It’s called the NCAA. 

---

For a brief time, I ran cross country in college. My results are not inspiring. But my path to college athletics began during a heated dinner conversation in the winter of 2006 when I told my parents I was going to give up baseball. It was a decision my father didn’t really understand: why did I need to run all year round? 

The previous fall I’d had a decent cross country season for a sophomore. Especially with the limited training I’d done the previous summer. After a string of races that showed promise, I ended up with a hairline fracture in my leg that resulted from running a race on an already stress-fractured leg. I ended up in a hard cast for a month. For me, the injury did not prompt questions about whether running was a viable long-term pursuit — was there, for instance, something anatomically that would disadvantage me as a long distance runner? — but instead convinced me that a tighter focus on running is what would stave off these injuries in the future. 

In the spring of 2006, the first during which I gave up baseball to pursue distance running as a singular pursuit, I ended up with a lingering shin injury and eventually my season ended with torn ankle ligaments after hitting a rock the wrong way on a run. For the second time in six months, I was in a hard cast. 

The next summer’s training led to a fall with a nagging hip injury. My results did not improve from the prior year. I survived the season, however, without a cast. Then the winter and spring of 2007 proved relatively injury free. And the results were just good enough that the opportunity to run in college was realistic. This, of course, had been the point all along. 

---

In March, the public was made aware of something we all sort of knew was happening, we just didn’t know how. Rich parents were buying their way into college. 

And while the FBI explicitly outlined that putting your name on a building and getting your descendants admission to an elite university as a result is not illegal, paying someone to take the SATs for your kid is. So is sending money to a fixer who sends some money to a college coach who then makes a spot for your kid on a team. Even if they’ve never played the sport. But the system that I think was laid most bare in Operation Varsity Blues is found in the name: it’s about the sports. 

If you watch any college sports, you’ve see a version of this commercial before: “There are over 400,000 NCAA student athletes,” we’re told, “and most of them will be going pro in something other than sports.

And so while the NBA is worried about the load borne by kids playing over 100 games a year between AAU and their school-sponsored team, for those kids the NCAA is the finish line. 

And as the FBI’s investigation into college admissions bribery outlined, one of the surest ways to overachieve your academic limitations is to be a good athlete. 

---

My modest success running long distances encouraged both of my brothers — always superior athletes to me — to pursue running both at a younger age and more seriously than myself. Both of them had considerable success. Both of them attended elite universities they would never have been accepted to based on their academic achievements as a result of this athletic success. The specialization that came to the Udland family ultimately worked out. 

Most weekends in the summer now we play golf together. None of us are particularly great. But the thing with golf is that everyone always thinks that if they could just spend more time practicing... So when we get together, the conversation sometimes leads to “what could have beens” about how things might be if we’d focused on, say, the three sports we all played as young kids (football, basketball, baseball) once we got to high school. Or what kind of golfers we could be if we’d played in high school, and so on. 

It’s the idle talk of former athletes re-living a not-lived version of their glory days. But what these conversations usually ignore is that the specialization we might now dream away was the right decision. It opened to each of us a college experience that would have otherwise been impossible. 

And so when we speak of the ills of youth sports, we must remember that the parents are not motivated because of professional sports, but about college sports. And while playing a sport in college is not realistic for most youth athletes, it is way more realistic than playing a professional sport. And the benefits — namely, an education at a university you might otherwise not be qualified to attend — are worth the risks of having more fun as a kid. Or, at least, that’s how many parents see it. 

---

When I sat down to write this piece, I don’t think I meant to apologize for youth sports culture. And I’m not sure I really did. But re-reading this piece it seems that I have a lot of sympathy for a culture that directs money away from families who don’t have a lot to spare and takes time away from kids who won’t ever get their youth back. 

The youth sports industry is fueled by bitter parents who think things should’ve gone a different way and put that anxiety on a child who is not equipped to know they’re but a pawn in an insecure adult’s do-over. Youth sports should be fun. And for many kids, they are not. 

But the incentives that underwrite the youth sports industry are also not hard to decipher. Athletic achievement for many kids unlocks academic — and in turn, professional — doors that otherwise don’t exist. You can be a national level concert pianist and make your pitch to Harvard on that basis, but if you’re a high school boy that breaks 9:00 for the 2 mile, you’re pretty much in. 

This argument is also the one used by NCAA executives who believe that paying college athletes is not justified. “They get an education,” you hear the amateurism defender saying. “That’s the payment.” And for an Olympic sport athlete, this may well be true. For the members of a major football program where television rights and ticket sales bring in tens of millions of dollars a year, this argument is obfuscating bullshit. 

This argument also leaves out the kids who end up at schools they aren’t really qualified to attend. But the lack of investment in public schools in America is beyond the scope of this post. (The demonization of public schools is one of our nation’s most shameful public policy stances.) 

Holmes’ article simply struck a chord for me because the NBA viewing itself as a relevant stakeholder in the culture of youth sports seems to me like an odd position for the league to take.

The league is defined by a dozen or so stars and their backgrounds are highly varied. LeBron James was The Chosen One at age 16 and has, improbably, exceeded that hype. Kevin Durant went to a major university to play college ball, was a star from the beginning of his freshman season, then entered the league and was one of its best players within three years. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were overlooked high school players, mid-first round picks, and have grown into themselves. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s journey to the NBA from Greece earned the 60 Minutes treatment. 

All of which is to say that the NBA’s worry about youth sports matters little to the league’s players that actually define for the public what the sport really is about. Which is about stars. 

Certainly, some NBA general managers would like the deeper parts of the league’s pool to be more mobile and less injury prone. The freak leg fracture suffered by Julius Randle — a product of the AAU system and the University of Kentucky’s NBA farm system — was certainly a blow to Randle, his family, and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

But the lesser versions of Julius Randle, the kid from Dayton he played in a summer league tournament back in 2011 that ended up getting a scholarship to Kent State, probably doesn’t regret his choice to overextend himself during high school summers. Because while that kid might’ve had his eye on Ohio State, a scholarship came through. The gamble paid off. 

And when you’re at a desk making calls to sell P&C insurance in suburban Cleveland, you don’t worry about your chronically stiff ankle in the morning. 

Instead you wonder what could’ve been with your buddies, knowing it worked out just fine. 

[wokeinmemphis-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[redroses879-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[arcadeparade-blog1]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[asanusta-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[pooki-chu-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[sophistikatedblogger-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[crashinthefastlane-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[theeblacksheep-blog1]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[quebrando-promesas-blog1]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

[ourclassycollectionpainter-blog]

Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Public Enemy 2020 (L-R): Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and Chuck D

Chuck D is a voice of the people.

As the frontman of Public Enemy, arguably one of the most important groups of the past 35 years, he played a huge part in pioneering a new wave of rap music that was both musically and politically revolutionary.

His booming, authoritative baritone became a vessel for rhymes about a number of social issues, particularly those affecting the black community, on songs like Rebel Without A Pause, 911 Is A Joke and Fight The Power.

Chuck, who once famously stated that rap was “the black CNN,” has never been afraid to tell it like it is, fearlessly tackling topics such as racial injustice, drug epidemics and political scaremongering.

Last month, Public Enemy announced that they had re-signed to Def Jam Records, the cultural institution they helped build alongside the likes of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. It was here that the New York legends, whose current line-up consists of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and DJ Lord, rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could achieve.

The group, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, put out seven albums on Def Jam, including the game-changing LPs It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Fear Of A Black Planet. They departed the label in October, 1998.

“I just thought it got real corporate around that time,” Chuck says.

“There were things I wanted to do with our audience around the world but the structures that existed at the time could not get there like us. They did not acknowledge the world like we did, so we had to move on.”

The 60-year-old is referring to Def Jam’s online strategy – or rather, its lack of one.

Image copyright Def Jam

Image caption Chuck D: Still fighting the power

An early advocate of the internet and its potential to give artists control of their music, Chuck battled the label for the right to release songs online.

“Technology is levelling the playing field,” he said in 1998. “No longer can executives, accountants and lawyers dictate the flow [of music].”

Things came to a head when Public Enemy began offering free downloads of several unreleased songs in the mp3 format – which was still relatively unknown at the time.

After Def Jam ordered Chuck to take the files down, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop and launched rapstation.com, a network of online radio stations in 1999.

The same year, Public Enemy released their ninth album There’s A Poison Goin’ On exclusively through the internet; selling downloads alongside CDs on the Atomic Pop website.

While Chuck insists he has “nothing but good memories” of his time on Def Jam, he says the group’s return to the label is just “a visit” and was spearheaded by Flavor Flav, whose “needs sometimes can’t be done independently”.

“Flavor thought it was a good time to do something of note with Def Jam and I agreed… it made sense to go back,” he explains.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionBBC Newsnight: Kirsty Wark interviews Chuck D

That might come as a surprise to some – given that Chuck announced he’d parted ways with Flavor Flav in March, following a dispute over whether they should appear at a Bernie Sanders rally.

Chuck later said the story was a “hoax” he’d concocted to bring attention to the band, arguing that only negative news stories get traction.

“The [only] news you read about hip-hop is about another dead rapper,” he told the Tim Einenkel podcast. The worldwide coverage of Flav’s firing, he added, “actually proves the fact the gadgets are ruling the game”.

That’s a theme he picks up on the title track to Public Enemy’s new album – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – which envisages a post-apocalyptic world where digital communication has been eradicated.

“Are you prepared?” Chuck asks, before pointing out that there are some who have never lived a life without online access.

“Being that it’s the norm to them, if it’s altered or taken away it will create another myriad of problems,” he explains.

One such problem could be a manipulation of digital technology ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Are you prepared for the tricks that the government might play on the way down to election?” the rapper asks rhetorically.

But despite lyrics that declare “we all caught up in the web” and suggest “folks might have to pick up a book, pick up a pen,” Chuck says he’s not against social media – providing its approached with care.

“Social media is a good thing when you use it as a tool as opposed to a toy,” he told BBC Two’s Newsnight last week. “Technology has made the plea for equality, almost like a digital United Nations.”

‘Fascism is so dangerous right now’

Elsewhere on the new album, Public Enemy include a 2020 remix of their protest anthem Fight The Power, which first appeared in Spike Lee’s 1989 cinematic masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Featuring Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG, and Questlove, the track debuted at this year’s virtual BET Awards, arriving at the height of a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

“Sadly, it’s still relevant,” Chuck says of the song’s message. “The biggest difference between 1989 and 2020 is that people have been born and people have died, and within that period you continuously try to attack systemic racism and all those other ills – but you can’t do it blindly.

“There’s a lot of roadmaps in culture,” he continues. “You can educate yourself by reading about society and the arts, especially in music, film, theatre, or whatever. But if you don’t study these stories or your history then you’ll have no context and you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“And this is why fascism is so dangerous right now,” Chuck adds. “It’s coming in new ways but with the same old stench.”

The star goes on to discuss how the idea of a pro-black consciousness – celebrating black people and black culture, and living a lifestyle that encourages the economic growth and development of the black community – has been misinterpreted as an anti-white movement.

According to the rapper, this misguided take is the result of the media’s unbalanced representation of black people.

“The media had propagandised the fear and exacerbated the fear,” he says. “The images of us have been lopsided.

“There might be poor white folks that watch a rap video and see someone throwing money at the camera. They’re looking at an image of somebody black instead of knowing somebody black in real life.

“All of a sudden they’ll come to the conclusion that this person is just anti-everything, and they’ll say, ‘I don’t want that, man. [Expletive] these people.’ So this person doesn’t know any black people but will say, [expletive] these people.”

He believes the repetition of these images “become a representative of a certain thing without proof,” adding that the distorted portrayal of black people has built up “animosity and hate” over the years.

And while he had hoped that Barack Obama being in the White House would have “balanced out some of the imagery,” he says some Americans’ dislike of the 44th President was a product of “old school racism”.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Public Enemy won a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys earlier this year

Those prejudices worked in favour of the current president, Donald Trump, he adds. “They built up into a snowball that he worked into his personal narcissistic favour.”

So does this mean that the Public Enemy frontman thinks Trump will get re-elected for a second term?

“I have no idea,” he says.

“It’s not Donald Trump [we should be worried about], it’s the people that you never see. There’s tonnes of people in places like Nebraska who have their own idea of what they think things are.

“I’m not generalising the entire population, but I’m just saying that there’s America, then there’s the United States Of America, a place the world does not see – and it’s an area that does not care for the world.”

Public Enemy’s new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out now on Def Jam Records.

Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

The article was originally published here! Chuck D on why Fight The Power is ‘still relevant’