Davey D at Hip Hop Corner:
"...some of the same people defending this violent rhetoric from political pundits and politicians weren’t too kind when it came to rap artists who invoked violent imagery to make a political point.
"The most famous among these is Public Enemy who 20 years ago did the song ‘By the Time I Get to Arizona‘. Here, they wanted to bring attention to the fact that there were certain politicians who were refusing to allow the state to recognize the Dr Martin Luther King holiday, so they did a song that spoke to it."
"In the accompanying video, the group showed black and white re-enactments of Civil Rights demonstrations which were juxtaposed with images of Chuck D and his armed crew the heading to the office of one of the Senators opposed to the holiday where they handed him a box of poisoned chocolates. As the video ends we see Chuck D blowing up the car of an unnamed elected official."
"Needless to say folks went nuts over the video. Chuck D and Public Enemy were accused of fostering violence with some critics stating that there would be blood on their hands if anyone resorted to violence as a result of this video."
"Chuck pointed out it was basically political theater, but very few in the halls of power were trying to hear that. As far as they were concerned Public Enemy had crossed the line."
0 comments:
Post a Comment