Chuck D challenges Viacom’s ‘cracker’
November 28th, 2007 by Wade Tatangelo in News
Panel discussions are usually boring. Unless Chuck D’s on the couch, as was the case at tonight’s “Perspectives of Hip Hop in Today’s Society”. The event took place at the USF Sun Dome Corral and drew a crowd of several hundred, most of ‘em undergrads. The six-person panel featured a documentarian (Byron Hurt), poet (Bridget Gray), “video vixen” turned author (Karrine Steffans), and rap icons Da Brat and Public Enemy’s Chuck D.
The woman authors scolded the indifferent crowd for buying records by misogynists like Nelly; the filmmaker praised Nas; Da Brat earned a couple laughs for saying there’s nothing wrong with showing off her “curves;” and the Public Enemy leader dropped jaws by verbally assaulting one of the nation’s most important media moguls.
Chuck D deftly skirted questions about rappers as role models and the artists’ complicity in the decline of mainstream hip-hop. But he went for the jugular during his attack on MTV (where fellow P.E. member Flavor Fav earns a paycheck for starring in the tasteless “Flavor of Love”), BET and its parent company Viacom, namely Viacom boss man Sumner Redstone.
“I ought to drag that cracker out and beat his 80-year-old ass,” said an impassioned Chuck D.
Silence.
“That’s right, he’s a cracker,” Chuck D continued — the audience still looking stunned. The legendary rapper then explained that a cracker was a plantation/slave owner and Redstone is the modern day equivalent. Chuck D’s basic argument was that hip-hop artists are cajoled/conned by men like Redstone into exploiting themselves. (Chuck D remained mum when the poet, the eloquent Ms. Gray, mentioned that Jay-Z runs Def Jam).
Chuck D: “It’s about going to [Redstone's] crib and saying: ‘Cracker, what’s up?’”
Fight the power, Chuck, fight the power.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:36 am
U suck. I thought it was effing beautiful and spread a message that needs to be heard – specially around these parts. Yer just pissed cuz you didn’t get to ask your question. Hehe ;)
December 1st, 2007 at 3:24 pm
This has been my only problem with Chuck D. Ever.
Public Enemy is one of (if not the) most influential political hip-hop groups of all time. But the time comes when once you’ve educated your public, you offer them the next step, the alternative, the evolution. With PE, that NEVER happened! They CONTINUE to record and tour with the SAME message they preached in 1989. The situation may not have changed, but the environment has. Chuck missed a great opportunity to make his mature fans take political action – but keep the young ones “fighting the power.”
It sounds like once again Chuck had a truthful, unarguable and valid point, but instead of whipping the people up into a frenzied seed for positive change, just came off sounding like a whiny, arrogant asshole.
Sorry, Chuck. We need change, not more threats. And please not anymore goddamn complaining.
P.S. Chuck D really had to explain to a Florida crowd what a “cracker” was?