Customer Reviews

Fight the Power

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fight The Power, by Chuck D examined everything in the current world today from the education system right down to where he thinks our culture is headed and why. Chuck D breaks everything down in the world and examines it to the fullest. At first glance it may seem like he is a grumpy, washed up rapper but look closer and you will find so much more meaning in the words than you can possibly imagine. Like in the following quote, "Whatever you do, don't go to war for your country." Chuck D is very opinonated and set in his ways. He goes into a full chapter about why you shouldn't be in the army because it changes you forever and how you will never be the same. Therefore, he also shows how the army tricks you by coming to your school and showing all this glitz and glamor to you. People shooting big guns, driving tanks, waving the american flag which essentially is not what the army is like at all. It's very gratifying that a successful rapper has finally released a book like this. It's a great break from the mundane evening news and daily paper. And in the following quote, "There's only a few serious black roles on TV. We have to put pressure on the networks and station groups where pressure hurts." Chuck D make his book universal by showing both sides of the issue and he shows the reader what can be done to help rectify the current problems he addresses in his book Fight The Power. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes any kind of hip-hop or anyone who wants a break from their day to day life and have a great read and whats wrong with our culture and what we can do to help it.

This was an honest account about one of the Iconz of the rap game. He gave a background about his family life that took us back to the 1960s in New York City. He was a cool kid who got in heavy into the hip hop game from college. Perhaps that set the tone for the book in my view. For Chuck D. Rap and Hip Hop are educational vehicle more than just news reporters about urban life. He insisted that only through education and higher learning are black folks in oppressive conditions around the world and mostly in the inner cities ever going to free themselves. I especially enjoyed the international aspects of his experience with Public Enemy. He loved travelling and rapping around the world from the US to Asia and Europe and the Motherland-Africa. Chuck should have a permanent position in a Comparative Studies program at a university. He lectures regularly at colleges which he wrote about in the book. I wish that he had written about his encounters with the students and the fans at concerts. Some of the highlights were his comments about his days as a DJ, opening and travelling with BONO of U2, Travelling to Africa-Ghana, specifically and his encounters with the press especially the troubles with being accused of anti-semitism.

Public Enemy was an experiment about the truth. They were a group of brothers who loved the game of Hip Hop and wanted it to grow so they did something about it by making opportunity and taking the ones that were offered. It was enlightening to read about the record deal with Def Jam and their relationship with Russel Simmons (he could have elaborated more about that). In the end I learn that rap (the old 80's & 90s style)was primarily a strong means of communicating a message about the conditions of life for young urban black (males).

I wish that Chuck D. would have addressed the issue of black on black that was so prevalent in the 1980s New York. I was dissappointed that he shied away from African American negative reactions to Haitians in particular. I mention this because Chuck D. is an Afrocentric who sees himself as an internationalist. However, he is mute when this perspective is not well received by others in his group.

There were practically no mentions of Christopher Wallace or Biggy Smalls, Lil' Kim, or the ill nana and many others who were well known in New York and in Hip Hop at the time. Published in 1997 I expected more about the violence within Hip Hop and some thoughts on how to solve it.Also, there was no accompanying cd. This would have been great. A sample of selected cuts from Public Enemy.

Finally, the structure of the book was well thought out. It was very influenced by newspaper and magazine layouts. On various pages some of his words were highlighted in and he listed his all time favorite Hip Hop artists and their work throughout the book. In all, the layout was a winner. We need a sequel from a now elder spokesman of the hip hop game about what has happenned since 1997 and the new involvement of hip hop in politics.

Been a huge PE fan for years. Gotta agree with someone earlier that he focuses on black/white problems too much, when his arguments could be used for poor/rich as well. But the points he brings up about the black community and relationto white america are absolutely 100% correct, and I'm just wondering if that is a problem with the other reviewr. Also at points it seems like he is just bouncing ideas off of the wall that he isn't entirely sure if he agrees with the things he's saying. But overall it gets a rise out of you on topics like, atheletes, entertainment, and music, and what America does to represent these things (and vice versa). Good stuff!

Chuck D takes his talent with words from the mike to the pen, sharing his views on these current topics.

Although he writes as he speaks, with a..."colourful" vocabulary, I found that the tone is one of urgency, such that if the language is distracting, the reader hasn't grasped the gravity of the content.

Chuck D and Public Enemy continue to produce music for higher purposes than simply to make money and entertain; they clearly wish to educate, stimulate and elevate any who are willing to seriously look at what's going on in our world.

"RAP, RACE and REALITY by Chuck D (with Yusuf Jah) is a blueprint for empowerment! Chuck, master orator and ever the visionary, offers keen observations to help this generation recognize and understand the interaction of prophets, players and pawns in our society. He offers insights into a range of diverse factors which contribute to the current state of Blackness in the world and outlines an action plan to help us combat these forces.

Chuck ties it all together in a cohesive fashion which makes knowing what we need to do plain and simple. I couldn't put it down....AND I was literally taking notes!

In other words, he shows where the power is in our society, who's got it, why we need to fight it, how to fight it and how to get it for ourselves!" True Genius.

--Walt Goodridge, President
Hip Hop Entrepreneur Association
(Walt is also author of Rap: This Game of Exposure andThis Game of Artist Management, two success tools for the Hip Hop Entrepreneur)

I only gave this book 4 stars because aside from the rappers personal opinions, he does give a very extensive focus into the rap world at a time when his group Public Enemy were in full effect. My second reason is because the book is written well to point of me actually hearing Chuck's voice while taking me down memory lane. Third reason is the rapper's suggested reading list at the end of the book which holds a lot gems in it. Fourth, it's Chuck D.

However the book is not without it's flaws. Knowing what Public Enemy's about, you already have an idea of what you're getting into.

But I will say that thankfully, race relations have improved drastically over the years since this book was written. Sure things are not socially perfect but I find that people are more open and accepting of others than they were 20 years ago. I feel that he points the fingers at certain people which is typical of certain African American's who want go over the obvious of things without properly going after those within the African American community who keep the mindset stuck on poverty, ignorance and general laziness.

I would say use your own discretion but overall, it's not a bad book, just don't believe the hype.

Twenty-three years after buying the cassette tape of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, I still hold Public Enemy as the best rap group of all time. Half the tracks on my iPod shuffle are Public Enemy. They stand alone in both the sound and the content of their music--Chuck D's insightful, socially and politically provocative lyrics mirrored by Flavor Flav's wacky antics, all driven by the assaulting, dense wall-of-sound mixes of the Bomb Squad. There is not, nor has there ever been anyone like them. I picked up this book because I wanted a little more insight into the man behind the lyrics. I wanted to know where he came from and get some background to the songs. The book was published in 1997, so it's a little dated. A lot has changed in the world of hip hop, media, race, and Public Enemy, but it seemed like it would be an interesting read nonetheless.

From the start, Public Enemy was a controversial group. Rap music had been white sneakers, tracksuits, and rhymes that were clear and simple. And then comes this group out of New York that was loud and angry, a musical and visual personification of black militarism. They had a security force decked out in black and white fatigues and armed with uzis, a logo that showed a silhouetted b-boy in a crosshair (although many, including myself when I first saw it, mistook the silhouette for a police officer), and lyrics that took aim at seemingly everything: the media, the music industry, political leaders, liquor companies, daytime television, and anything else they believed to have a negative impact on the black community. They were raw, real, serious, and they made parents nervous. To a white teenager growing up in the suburbs, they looked and felt like rebellion.

At its best, Public Enemy leveled smart, sharp criticism, often picking surprising targets. One of my favorite verses:

I like Nike but wait a minute,

the neighborhood supports so put some money in it.

The corporations know they gotta give up the dough,

or else we gonna have to shut `em down.

-"Shut Em Down"

This lyric in part caused Nike to examine its business practices, be honest with itself about who its market was, and begin to support inner city youth programs. This is socially conscious music at its best.

But at its worst, Public Enemy wrote lyrics or fired off statements that made them seem hypocritical and/or not on the same page. Like in 1989, when Professor Griff, a member of this band that supposedly stood for equality, mired the whole group in controversy with a series of anti-Semitic remarks in an interview. Or Chuck's kooky sidekick, Flavor Flav, kicking off "She Watch Channel Zero," a song criticizing the effect of trash TV on the black community's perception of itself, with "You're blind, baby. You're blind to the fact of who you are because you're watching that garbage," only to years later star in some of the most low-brow reality television ever. But I digress. This book is Chuck's story.

Chuck D was born in 1960, which made him older than most rappers, and he was hesitant to even get on the mic in the first place because of his age. But growing up in the 60s also gave him more insight into the civil rights movement, so when PE hit the scene in the early days of rap, they pushed the envelope sonically, but they also came with a serious point of view. Chuck's lyrics were in the tradition of Dylan, Baez, Hendrix and the 1960s protest songs, written in a different day and style of music. And Flavor Flav, conscious of it or not, represented another element of the 60s. Chuck, who insisted on Flav's inclusion in the band despite some trepidation on the part of the record execs, wanted a call-and-response man, a kind of Bobby Bird to his James Brown. Like his name, Flav was meant to add flavor. And with his gold teeth, weird sunglasses and oversized clock hanging around his neck, he certainly did.

Even stranger than his look are Flav's lyrics, which tend to be nonsensical or, again drawing from the 1960s, straight up psychedelic:

Ya eatin' death cause ya like gittin' dirt from da graveyard - ya put gravy on it

Den ya pick ya teeth with tomb stone chips

And casket cover clips - dead women hips ya do da bump with - bones

...

We got Magnum Brown, Shoothki - Valoothki

Super-calafraga-hestik-alagoothki

You could put dat in ya don't know what I said book.

-Cold Lampin' With Flavor Flav

Although Flav is often criticized as being a sideshow clown, his goofiness serves as the perfect counterbalance to Chuck's rhymes and adds yet another element that makes PE wholly original. Chuck, who majored in graphic design in college, achieved with just the right balance of meaning and incongruity with PE's image. He knew how to work the media and he was going to make certain that, love them or hate them, PE wasn't going to be ignored.

As for the specifics of Fight The Power, the most enjoyable parts are the personal stories: Chuck and Flavor goofing around as young guys working for a delivery company, the time on tour when Flav was MIA and Chuck had someone else dress up as Flav for the show, and Chuck's amazement at the size of U2's production when they toured together. At one show near Chicago, Chuck watched in amazement as one after another of U2's helicopters landed--one full helicopter just for their luggage. He spent the tour realizing time and again that, although they might be on the same bill, they were in different world. He ends the chapter with the statement, "We have U2 stories up the ass."

Beyond the personal stories, the book is about Chuck's worldview. Chuck D is a man of many opinions on many, many topics. He'd like to see more black representation in politics, in corporate America. A better representation of the black community in general in the media. He'd like for "black" radio stations to actually be owned by black people. He'd like for rap and hip-hop to be about more than gang-bangin' and materialism. He'd like black citizens to have control over what he calls the "three E's" of their communities--economics, education, and enforcement. For black folks to support black businesses. In short, he's a man with a keen interest in improving the black community, and he has a lot of ideas about where to start.

Since 1997, Chuck has continued to be very vocal about these issues. I'm interested to see how or if his views have evolved at all. He's still dedicated to community improvement, using his music as a springboard to add his voice to the conversation. He gives lectures at schools around the country, contributes to social, political and human rights projects. So in addition to his social criticism, he actively works for change, which is admirable.

I hardly agree with everything Chuck has to say. He has extreme views and isn't one to pull punches. He sees racism as the primary conflict in situations where I don't think it plays much of a role. He claims to notice less hip-hop being played in NBA arenas, which he sees as racist (again, this is 1997). There are fewer white vs black boxing matches, which is somehow racist. And most record companies are headed by racist management. As a white guy who grew up with as much privilege as anyone could hope for, it makes me uncomfortable to dispute these claims, but some of them seem more credible than others. There may be some racism, but the record industry has plenty of examples of black execs ripping off black artists and white execs ripping off white artists. I would contend that profit is the greater motive and that corporations will almost always try to squeeze the last penny out of their artists. I have no point of view on hip hop in NBA arenas.

The claim that I found most abrasive was when he called athletes and entertainers "high-priced slaves" because of their exploitative contracts. I'm willing to give some artistic leeway in the context of song lyrics, but to compare slavery to guys whose contracts don't pay enough for them to buy a third house is, I would think, an incredible offense to anyone whose ancestors came over on a slave ship. One of the most moving parts of the book is Chuck's recollection of his visit to the slave dungeons in Ghana, which makes the pro athlete/slave comparison that much more egregious.

That said, I respect Chuck quite a bit. At one point in the book, when he's on a panel with a politician, Chuck says he agrees with her "about 70%." I probably agree with him about 70%. Mostly I agree with what he stands for, with what he believes in and what he does as an artist. In a sea of music and media garbage, it's good to have someone producing work that challenges convention and is thought provoking. I appreciate anyone using their influence to build communities and promote peace. And he makes really good music to work out to.

This book is absolutly the truth and a very important book. I just finished it after starting it only a week or so ago (it usually takes me a good month or two to finish a book, even one of this length). Chuck gives a great combination of PE history, politics, and world issues into on solid text. If you love Public Enemy's music and want more in depth discussion and disection of their lyrics and what Chuck stands for read this book. It will leave you inspired, angery, and ready to fight the power!

Chuck d is a wise man.The world communite (usa most)dont have much of them.We need to read these books to understand the power of people.Fighting the power we will understand that is rotten and we must bury this into the ground .No more to say .PEACE brothers

Chuck D is perhaps the most intellegent rap artist of all time. His insight into racial issues, as well as his honesty, is amazing. Chuck tears down the media and exposes the institutionalized racism in media and government. Reading this book was an incredible experience, and is a must read for every American. This is in my top five books of all time, in any genre.