NYU conference on "It Takes a Nation of Millions"

Interesting turn of phrase.

no no wrong era

ELIJAH MUHAMMAD!!!

xpost matos change your flight!

Yeah, I was gonna say! Works all around!

Here is where I admit I did enjoy Chuck E.'s dismissals of this album in Stairway to Hell in offhand fashion (eg, comparing the Sex Pistols threatening to smash typewriters in "Did You No Wrong" with grabbing notebooks in "Don't Believe the Hype" and renaming it It Takes a Nation of Millions to Make Us Multiplatinum). Funniest bit, talking about "Bring the Noise" in the context of the Less Than Zero soundtrack:

"...finally, with Chuck D (who probably goes to Raiders games, sees the other team in a huddle and thinks they're saying racist things about him) whining about rock-crits who can't get enough of him and tough-mindedly if wrong-headedly plugging Anthrax and Farrakhan with bellowed subpoena-envy authority atop a screwily skewered shish-ka-bob sheet of sound, the Bobby Seale of hip-hop starts to demonstrate that he might not have a copy of Soul On Ice up his booty after all."

I am a fan of old-school rap ;...(

haha Herb Alpert!

I'd have to agree -- hell, "Bring the Noise" was the first PE I heard and I remembered thinking, "Hey, this is all right!" And what a start to a song, goddamn.

maybe Spike's the special guest?

Heavy D and the Boyz - "Overweight Lover's in the House"
Hurby's Machine featuring Antionette - "I got an Attitude"
George Michael - "Hard Day"
Latee & D.J. Mark - "This Cuts got Flavor"
Kool Moe Dee - "How Ya Like Me Now"
Celtic Frost - "I Won't Dance"
Sweet Tee - "I Got da Feelin'"
Dinosaur Jr - "Show Me the Way"
Spoonie Gee - "All Shook Up"
Gladys Knight & the Pips - "Love Overboard"

(In other news, back-to-back threes from J-WIll and Battier put Griz up 13, inspiring a CLippers timeout and "Whoomp There It Is" on the PA: "Tag Team, back again . . .)

(I luv hoops almost as much as PE)

?!?!?!?!

%20 & Chuck D with Fine Arts Militia & Public Enemy - Meaning (the Commercial Sampling License version)

http://noneinc.com/sound/
%20&ChuckDwithFineArtsMilitia&PublicEnemy-Meaning.mp3
ReadMe:
http://noneinc.com/sound/%20ReadMe/Meaning-ReadMe.txt

Parts:
01. (00:00-00:17) = Let's Just Say; No's Intro
02. (00:17-00:50) = CD's Contracted Consumer(+Plus) Explanation
03. (00:50-03:05) = Meaning (No's Eliminatory Reversal of Fortune)
04. (03:05-04:27) = (Going) 'BACK' (Rhymplundsamplin' with the Chuck)
05. (04:27-04:39) = Bought/Brought Noise Interlude +Boing+
06. (04:39-05:01) = Caught!? I'm my only witness...
07. (05:01-05:52) = Xeroxed Criminal Claims (Rip.Sample.Mash.Copy.Plunder.Lawyer.Litigate.Decision.L0053r)
08. (05:52-06:42) = Message from Allen Harry (Economic Securities of the First World Fortune Lecture)
09. (06:42-07:30) = Fear of an Economically Centered Decision Making Planet
10. (07:30-08:44) = Realizations All Around (Understand?)
11. (08:44-09:44) = Yo! Welcome to the Message to the Rebel Prophet Party Shutting Down the Channel Zero Night of Chaos Hype
12. (09:44-10:14) = Summary Explanation of the Culture of No's Meaning -Personal Determinism- ///./w////future plans/../:///

Yours in profit,
%20
Consumer Whore
Corporate Shill
Wannabee Cultural Chimera
Part time music fan

I'd probably lose one ball to see this.

do i have the right to find his name kind of offensive?

i was worried that he was some poker-faced political rapper who sincerely admired mao zedong.

by John Leland

To get an idea of how good Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” (Def Jam / Columbia) is, it’s worth pulling the song apart. The record begins outside of music, as oratory, with a found voice saying “Too black, too strong. Too black, too strong.” This is both self-definition and a watchword, an explanation of the name Public Enemy and a challenge; the words are a declaration, not a criticism. Then the music comes in, fast and jarring, with staccato horns and a spiral scratching noise, as the rapper Flavor-Flav rephrases the opening credo, locating it within hip-hop’s tradition of modesty: “Yo Chuck man, let’s show ‘em we can do this/ Like Brutus/ ‘Cause we always knew this”. What follows now twists that tradition, now linked with that of political oratory, like nothing before.

Chuck D, Public Enemy’s main rapper, jumps from weighty to trivial concerns — from black pride to record reviews to Louis Farrakhan — with a dexterity and sense of purpose that ignore the gulfs crossed. Like Spoonie Gee’s classic “Love Rap,” which wanders from horniness to acerbity and back again without breaking stride, “Bring the Noise” mixes warmth with hostility in a surreal, volatile brew. “Bass!” (or, “Base!”), Chuck D begins, “How low can you go?” How low? “Death Row.” He leaves the ambivalence of the opening volley unresolved, piling up the layers of the wordplay: Is he talking frequency or cocaine, death row toughness or death row finality? (For that matter, is the name Public Enemy about the status of contemporary black youths or an evocation of James Brown’s “Public Enemy #1”) The punning remains this dense throughout the entire record, even insinuating itself into narrative asides: when Chuck D and and Flavor-Flav break to give their deejay, Terminator X, some room, Chuck D raps, “Time for me to exit/ Terminator X-it”. The strength with which he plays both sides of his puns, refusing to reduce them to a single meaning, helps Public Enemy over some of its rough spots.

After introducing himself as “the incredible/ Rhyme animal,” Chuck D ducks back out of hip-hop tradition, trusting his music and his partner to keep the party going; such is unique relationship between the two rappers in this crew. As Chuck D gets rolling, a street confrontation (“Five-O said freeze/ And I got numb/ Can I tell ‘em that I never really had a gun?”) tumbles precipitously, as fast as the very fast beats will carry it, into an endorsement: “Farrakhan’s a prophet/ and I think you ought to listen”. In last month’s SPIN, Chuck D explained his support for Farrakhan by saying, “I take a stand by any black leaders that take a stand and defend what they say and basically attack the American system”; the political sophistication of “Bring the Noise” never goes beyond this, never approached the song’s musical or verbal sophistication. “Watchu oughta do/ Follow for now”, Chuck D raps, offering more in the way of attitude than political content. If this were Phil Ochs and a more discursive musical time, we’d expect him to explain his affiliation. But in 1987, the statement, “Farrakhan’s a prophet/ And I think you oughta listen” is so uncharacteristically direct and specific, it’s bracing. For reference, try to imagine Springsteen or Mellencamp being this bald. Chuck D just drops his bomb and keeps going. The James Brown beat drives the rap along and the theme recedes, never to return; it’s simply an ad for Louis Farrakhan in the middle of a pop record. Imagine that.

The attitude, however, never recedes. Breaking a triple meter against the double meter of the drums — “Bring the Noise” is rich with adventurous polyrhythms and metrical asymmetry — Chuck D takes the fight to urban contemporary radio: “Radio stations I question their blackness they/ Call themselves black but we’ll see if they’ll play this”. This might seem an unfair exercise of self-righteousness, a forced issue of blackness, except that Public Enemy has the sales numbers to back up their gripe. Later, when Chuck D complains, with equal self-righteousness, “A magazine or two/ Is dissing me and dissing you,” the pettiness stands out against the heavy themes above. After all, this is the group that stakes its identity around being the public enemy.

But it is these outre juxtapositions that make “Bring the Noise” so powerful. The record isn’t merely unpredictable, it’s thorny. When Chuck D launches without prompting into an honor roll, he begins, “Beat is for Sonny Bono/ Beat is for Yoko Ono,” before getting to Run-D.M.C., Eric B., L.L. Cool J, and Anthrax. Yoko Ono? And like the weird fugue that it is, the song ends as it began, with Flavor-Flav ranting about Brutus, wondering what’s wrong with people who don’t like Public Enemy.

“Bring the Noise” is all this, puncuated and intensified by Flavor-Flav’s exhilarating cheerleading — and as great as the rapping is, the best parts of the record are still the instrumental breaks, when Terminator X crushes late-seventies style breaks and beats into a chorus that surges, “Turn it up/ Turn it up.” No lie: I’ve never heard anything like this before.

Me and Public Enemy have had our beefs. On “Bring the Noise,” they all but attack me by name. But that single sounds right now like one of the best things I’ve ever heard — as good as Parliament’s “Flash Light” or the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man” or Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or James Brown’s “Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine.” Like those records, it sounds immediate more sprawling, contradictory, purposeful, and fun than anything else around it. As a hip-hop artifact, it’s probably as important as anything since Run-D.M.C.’s “Sucker MC’s,” but that seems the least of it.

still strikes me as a great piece of writing. the thing that really comes through is the palpable wonder and excitement that PE engendered .. like Leland says, he'd never heard anything like this before. Kind of the sheer headiness of PE at that time, the sense of, "can they get away with this?" Especially mired at the end of two Reagan terms as we were.

Anyone going tomorrow? I'm "working" for it from 2:00 - 8:00 or something.

Anyone planning on going?

Back to reality -- current Chuck musings from the PE web site:

Flavploitation?

Thanks to my man Mark Skillz this piece was re-edited because of some glaring grammatical errors, thanks ..the past few have been done on my palm pilot while on the run moving through Cannes , the MIDEM conference and a blizzard recording in Vienna Austria. funkruze1@hotmail.com has also offered and I will take them up on it...thanks again guys...had to get it out of my damn pocket though....

Flavploitation is the systematic one-sidedness of the production companies that are chosen by these big corporate entities. There hasn't been any change in Flavor at all, he's always been the same crazy cat from day one. No offense to his friend Bridgitte, but his TV potential has been there long before that pairing. Vh-1's choosing of this show "Strange Love", is a smack in the face of all else Flavor has done.

 The reality dragging of his personal life excesses and children is uncalled for. The meshing of his performance life with PE probably doesn't bode well with what the group stands for with its fam and followers. I hear that, but at the same time as the adults and gentlemen that we are, respect is gonna be there for ones personal space.

Choices are left up to the individual, and within reason anything said and done at this stage is pended upon this. P.E. is not a boys club. Years ago, with the Griff thing, there was a whole organizational dynamic that was a personal thing within the group that led to myself making decisions. From that point afterwards, I definitely spaced the situation out. But now with this situation I must at least comment because I see some trouble zones.

I stepped up to look at this as another test on the way things are. More than a few shows with Flavor were proposed with more of a stable upstanding profile, these ideas came from people of color with production companies. Those ideas were rejected with the premise that, Flav, didn't have what it took to star in a show by his damn self. Typical corp-whiteboy reaction as they actually thought it was Flav AND Bridgette that made that "Surreal Life" click. I'm bias, but on the real...Bridgette could've been anyone.

Now the trouble on this "Strange Love" show, (which they shot in a 10-14 day period, only to have myself to answer 6 months later about a re-run to some clueless tv soul about what they thought was current.) is that, there's a scene that I saw, of a short clip of  Flav in conflict with 3 of his kids and ex back in the hometown. Lord, I hope not. This has been a topic in barbershops and hair salons across Black America, which, is twice as sad, because that and topics launched by BET,UPN,and urban radio are fed to black people. Bread and circus shit that the masses of black folks flock to for news  while world events, politics, and issues of community concern are catagorized as either too deep, boring, or non- black if such a stupid thing exists.

All of this was a test, as I spent the greater part of last year trying to get "Son Of A Bush" out of office on national tv and radio, while black folk asked what I was up to, they were being pied-pipered into white male-boarded- corporate owned-urban media. All that, and as expected, it was the "Surreal Life" that got their attention, like Fruit Loops compared to Wheaties.

Still, it doesn't bode well if Flav is yelling at his kids and his ex. Already, black women are mixed on what they see, next they'll be pissed off. Also, during the recent year-end PE old school show in Chicago during a break, Flav made commentary about he and Bridgette and graphically made some inappropriate statements about what they did in bed. It was totally jarring and disrespectful especially to the large majority of black women in the audience that expected a breath of relief from PE after a prior 50 minute b*tch barrage from Too Short.

Now here's the clicker, there were black women who had came there, in some cases with their sons, some single mothers who paved thru the struggle of raising them. Peeps will let the Bridgette thing perhaps slide, but not the wild statements and what seems like a disrespect conflict on camera with his children and their mother. Last week, it was that same part of his family who went on Wendy Williams' program and launched the worst on- air diatribe ever directed at a father by his children.

It is here that I have to intervene and say and do something about this. I have spent many years maintaining the integrity and demanding the respect for our people. This, to me has and will never be measured by mere record sales or concert gates. In my prior conversation about this with Flav, he's still enamored with platinum sales and packed stadiums, and thinks that his tv profile will 'bring PE back' to that material status. I remind him that traveling to 53 countries whenever he wants to play music, and being 'free' to make and produce recordings that are heard with respect across the world transcend that simple commercial status. In his own words: "Being blind to the fact", has crippled his understanding of what's at stake. We have never fallen off, ..you cannot fall off of a capsizing society. A lotta cats benefit off flowing with the avalanche , so it appears they are in the mainstream of a river heading south. It's the perfect storm, and like a captain I've been taught to hold the course.

This is where a short term sugar high causes long term cancer. PE was nearly derailed by a Jewish incident in 1989, and the media blew it up as being wrong without tallying black people. Now in this "Strange Love" case the rewards are derogatorily swung as bait while never coming close to the measuring of the feeling of black people and other minority. It seems that the powers that be, and in this case, specifically television,the film industry,radio, the print industry and the humans that hover over the buttons of control have isolated the dna of racism, wove it into the amerikkkan drug of celebrity to wind up exploiting our characteristic instead of our character.

These pied pipers have used high science with low tools and it's a trip for the people who've been led into the river. I know for pure fact that there are more Black women in America than Jews, Christian Right and quiet as kept, some are one in the same,so this should be revered and respected equally. I cannot tell Flavor, a grown man what to do in this case, other than to warn him to guard himself against the long term effects that may be on the horizon ....

:(

ie, he won't be invited to a backslapping festival on the MARKETING and RECORD REVIEWS of It Takes a Million... Shucks.

Way to remain marginal for another ten years, Chuck.

He's right about that.

tnhx

I'm more upset that it's just such a bad play on words.....though it's not quite as bad as REVOLVERLUTION, for which all parties concerned should be slapped with big, wet, smelly fish.

Def Jam Records to thread

Can it really be called an "era"? Wouldn't "short-lived market trend" be more appropriate (at least if we're talking about the mainstream)?

Sorry, but the description is cheesy as fuck. It was obvious that this panel was going to be lame. What kind of self-respecting symposium tries to appeal to your sense of "nostalgia"?

right, things like the old new music seminar were so "self-respecting."

ihttp://heim.ifi.uio.no/~mortenj/fimland/boingers/deathtng.jpg

xpost - it's now called CMJ, chief.

This is still my favorite line.

I let out a scream when he forced his huge dick into my ass - deafened
with pain and some desperate delight I choked with moan and started
moving my hips to meat his thrusts… He seized my ass to control my
meandering body and forced again - deep and hard… Then again - faster
and faster…" ........blahblahblahblablaflaaaaaaaa..... Just so you know what yer missing when I delete "cockfuckedman"s mighty lenghty missives. This one got me pretty hot I must admit. As you were. Oh, nearly forgot to mention. Logged in users only on this thread now. apols for inconvenience, as always.]