Public Enemy is #1

     

 Nas-Dawud.

  Well it appears to be Public Enemy week here at the Nappy-Dawud blog spot. Earlier in the week my brethren Humanity Critic, revealed that his virginity was lost while being ridden to the romantic sounds of Welcome to the Terror Dome. Although my upcoming “first” with Pubic Enemy will not be quite as salacious, but for me it should prove quite monumental.  

    This Saturday I’m going to a concert with my twelve year old son for the first time. When I saw Public Enemy (PE) was coming to town as part of the Kings of The Mic Tour (De La Soul, PE, Ice Cube, and LL Cool J,) I knew this was that show. I have let a few old school shows slip through town without taking my son or even attending myself for that matter. But Public Enemy! Yeah we have to do this! No way, we can miss this one.

     Ironically, a week or so before learning of the concert my son and I were watching PE’s induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.  After the show I started to break down to him exactly how fucking unfathomable it was for me to see The Rebels without a Pause being inducted into the Hall of Fame. PE is the anti-establishment. They are The Clash of Hip-Hop. These brothers politicized an entire generation to not only question the powers that be but to fight them as well. And now they were being given an honor that was seemingly inconceivable some twenty plus years ago when they told the world “Fuck John Wayne.” But there they were taking their rightful place on that stage. Not sure if I deserved it but I felt a great sense of victory and vindication.

     PE’s message has never been served up with the folksy reflection of a Bob Dylan, Na; PE brought the noise with the chaos that was The Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad sound provided the perfect siren of urgency to Chuck’s unapologetic declarations.   For me, cats like Rakim and Krs-1, stimulated the quest for knowledge and information. But with PE, Chuck’s voice provided the motivation to not only seek the information but to get up and get involved. Chuck’s booming bass voice compelled one to become active. PE made being the smart mutha fucka that knew some shit and was about something cool as hell. Opposed to portraying the cat with the biggest watch, and the trophy, tattooed, surgically altered Chick you can make it rain on, as the desirable image. That was their influence. What they gave society through their music assisted in creating an open space to re-evaluate society through the eyes of the first Black post civil rights generation.

     PE was quite influential in the development of my politics and the path I chose to walk in my young adult life. And now as my son creeps up on his teens it is time to start getting to the real with him. Early on in his life it was about providing a basic foundation and a safe place for him to be a baby. Now we are up to talking politics, how to deal with the police as a young Brown male, and how to treat young ladies. The moment I saw that PE was on the bill I knew this had to be our first show. How could it not be?

     To my great fortune a few years ago I was able to sit down and do an interview with Professor Griff. Quiet as kept Griff was the Google search engine that provided the fodder for many of Chuck’s wise words. Out of that interview I was able to engage in one of the more profound on the record conversation of my life. As I get ready to head to the concert I leave you with wise words being spoken from Professor Griff on the founding of Public Enemy.     

D: Were you political before you were hip-hop, i.e., were you a child prodigy of consciousness?

G: No it was something I grew into. Chuck and me went to a summer program called the African-American experience, where they taught African dance, African culture, African drum and dance, and that kind of thing. Plus, ex-Black Panthers ran it, so we got both sides of it. So that was at an early age your talking 9, 10, 11-years old. So by the time I was a teenager I was already there. So I had Qaddifi, Mao, and Che, on my walls. Being educated by ex-black panther and being groomed in the African American experience at that time, it was there already.

D: How did that morph into Public Enemy?

G: I think it did simply because Chuck being more so on the Black Nationalism side, and both of us having that experience in the African-American experience and being groomed by ex-black panthers. I think when I went off doing the thing of joining the Nation of Islam, always being militant, always into the martial arts at a young age. Then the cadets, and then the United States Military it’s like I was being groomed by a higher power to play that role in PE. So when everything hit it was like me and Chuck were already there mentally. It’s just we got together and I brought the soldiers in and we kinda took on that whole Black Panther look and ideology. Plus with the ideology from the Nation of Islam, and then from the grass roots movements that we were always connected with. I think it was a perfect blend and mixture to do what we wanted to do. It’s just that all we needed at that time was a vehicle to do it in and hip-hop provided that.

D: That’s what I was going to ask you, why music? With you coming up in the Nation and Chuck in Black Nationalism why not something like Uhuru? Why did you guys decide on music?

G: I think we had already did those things. I was already teaching I was already having study groups; I was already having classes and training people in martial arts. So it just happened at the right time. R&B couldn’t have done it. Jazz couldn’t have done it. Gospel couldn’t have done it. Blues couldn’t have done it. It took something like hip-hop, which incorporated all those genres of music to do it. Hip-Hop was militant enough, Hip-Hop was outspoken enough, and Hip-Hop was to the left. They said at the time Hip-Hop wouldn’t last for 20 years. That was perfect for us to start a revolution.