connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes)

Question: Who’s the man in the above picture?

I admit the visual reference might not be enough for anyone that isn’t a Hip hop head, so I’ll give you even more of a hint:

Sorry for the set-up; I wouldn’t expect many people to know that he’s Boots Riley from The Coup.

I also wouldn’t expect many people to know the depth of the man and his music.

Or even that Boots blogs.

I’m using Boots as just one example of someone who represents one particular slice of a culture, Hip hop, that most people don’t know anything about — no matter what they think.

More on Boots and his colleagues in a bit.

What You Hear Is Not A Test

Today, Ed Cone ventured into a pretty lightweight deconstruction of “rap” lyrics, and only after numerous people and media outlets — local and from afar — made a stink about Don Imus catching flak for his pointed remarks a few weeks back, arguing that African-Americans and/or “rappers” actually drive the use of this harmful language.

Ed’s introduction to his column:

[…] “For my newspaper column, I listened to the lyrics of Billboard’s top ten rap tracks and tried to contextualize the Imus affair.” […]

I can’t remember the last time someone in Hip hop, out-of-the-blue, verbally assaulted a specific group of innocent people like the Rutger’s Women’s Basketball team. Admittedly, I’m not twisting the context of the offense to the use of a particular word or phrase and instead, keeping it focused on the nature of the attack from a broadcaster.

Along those lines, IMO, it would be more productive to review the context of Imus’ bile by looking at the rest of the shock-jock industry, like this gem from Neil Bortz:

Boortz: For instance, or for goodness sakes, jump in and I’m gonna say — I’m gonna start out with something controversial. I saw Cynthia McKinney’s new hair-do. Have you seen it, Belinda?

Skelton: No.

Boortz: She looks like a ghetto slut.

Skelton: Well, how is it?

Boortz: It’s just — it’s hideous.

Skelton: Is it braided? Or –

Boortz: No, it’s not braided. It just flies away from her head in every conceivable direction. It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. It’s just hideous. To me, that hairstyle just shows contempt for — no, it’s not an Afro. I mean, no, it just shows contempt for the position that she holds and the body that she serves in. And, I’m sorry, there’s just no other way to — it’s just a hideous and horrible looking –

Marshall: It looks better than the braids she was wearing.

Boortz: No, the braids had some dignity. They had some class.

Marshall: The braids had dignity?

Boortz: They had more class than this thing.

Marshall: This says, you know, kinda 2000s, you know, stepping up to the plate. Contemporary look, you know?

Boortz: She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence.

Pam has great context for those of you who might think of these comments as harmless.

But the point of this post isn’t about Don Imus, nor is it about those people out there that are obfuscating the context of his comment. There’s a whole other angle of misinformation in Ed’s post, based more in ignorance than intent, that I wish to dissect.

I’m One Of A Kind And I’ll Shock Your Mind

Whether he knows it or not, Ed made a bunch of generalizations in his column. This particular paragraph stood out the most to me:

[…] “I’m bothered not just by what rappers say but why they say it. The lyrics and the popularity of the genre aren’t happening in a vacuum; they reflect something about the realities of a larger culture that is coarse, consumerist and often violent. Public Enemy’s Chuck D famously said that rap is like “CNN for black people.” Maybe part of the problem is that these days, the best-known member of the socially conscious Public Enemy is Flava Flav, who once rapped about the harsh reality of life in poor neighborhoods but now does clownish “reality” shows on corporate television.” […]

People like to talk about Hip hop as if they know everything about anything, so I’m not surprised by Ed’s perspective — even with him being alive during The Sugarhill Gang’s debut.

How Ed jumps from “a larger culture that is coarse, consumerist and often violent” to Public Enemy — without pause for at least a paragraph on the current administration of the Executive Branch — is beyond me.

You know, it wasn’t Flavor Flav that told America to go out and buy shit just a few days after the towers went down on 9/11.

I’ll play along for shits and giggles, though.

So, Flav has become the king of reality tv, but as the de facto hype man in the carefully orchestrated membership of Public Enemy — something that would take another post entirely to detail — that shouldn’t shock anyone.

Flav was never the point man of PE, the guy “rapping about the harsh reality of life in poor neighborhoods.” For every 911’s A Joke, there are a hundred songs with Flav explicitly playin’ his role in the group as comic relief while shadowing Chuck.

So how does that play out 20 years beyond the zenith of Public Enemy’s career?

While Flav does his reality tv and flashes his grill, Chuck D does his speaking gigs and radio shows covering everything from anti-DRM to politics. The whole of Public Enemy prospers from their individual focuses — which draw in new audiences from distinct demographics — far more than simply being a sum of its parts.

But if you’ve seen any of the Flavor of Love shows, you know that he doesn’t represent himself as a foul-mouthed “rapper.” I honestly don’t see how Flav acting like Flav with a viking cap and oversized clock necklace and sunglasses has anything to do with the topic at hand — except for serving as a convenient segue from the bridge of the CNN line.

All that said, Ed is pretty much on point when he ruminates over “rap” lyrics and the ills of a larger culture.

The point begging to be made about this particular element — the crux of his column — is that he doesn’t realize to what degree and how narrow of a focus that truly is within the culture of Hip hop.

What we need is the Teacher to break this down to a digestible format:

More KRS-One:

(by thecnote)

[…] “ ‘Hip hop has nothing to do with rap. Rap is an element. There is a consciousness that makes you rap, graffiti or break, for example.’

KRS-One talked a great deal about the importance of being one’s own self, the most essential part of Hip hop culture. ‘Hip hop begins with the courage to be yourself. Being you has consequences,’ KRS-One said.

Want to find out if you’re Hip hop? You know you are if ‘you gravitate toward it. You see graffiti art and you try to make out the words, you see breaking and you say, ‘Man, I could do that,’ KRS-One said.

And, of course, one should know the proper way to actually identify the culture. Hip hop is a culture; therefore, it should function as a proper noun. Hip hop is the music, and referring to the culture in the hyphenated form, KRS-One claimed, is degrading. The rapper’s explanations of the technicalities of the Hip hop world could have left audience member confused; if Hip hop is not the music, what is?

Listeners were enlightened about the differences between Hip hop and rap. ‘Hip hop is not rap music,’ KRS-One said. ‘Rap is controlled by corporations. A rapper rhymes for corporations, and an emcee rhymes for culture. A rapper talks about himself, what he has. An emcee talks about what’s already on your mind. An emcee raps about what you need, not about fantasy.‘ Ultimately, a point stressed heavily throughout the night, Hip hop is something that is lived, a consciousness of the world around us.” […]

That’s a much more expansive description of Hip hop than “rappers” being misogynistic and foul-mouthed, but culture can’t be locked down to one set of definitions either — passing the mic back to Boots Riley, from a long, lost interview at Davey D’s spot:

(by bagelradio)

[…] “When the first Sugarhill Gang record came out and it was on the radio I was already living in Oakland then but there were people who had recently moved out here from the mid west and the south and I remember us saying they had a hambone record out on the radio. My whole thing with that is there’s a lot of elements of hip hop… like the four elements of hip hop is really just a commercialization and a way to commodify things because you have to put things into easy categories in order to sell it. It’s a lot easier to sell as an invention that kind of slipped and fell together by a series of events that happened in one place than it is to tell it as a history of a people. So that’s something that I feel is left out of hip hop. That was my first connection to rapping [hamboning]. Another more obvious one is beatboxing. That was something that was very much a part of hip hop. I first started hearing the four elements maybe from the early 90s. I don’t know who started that but it’s full of shit to me.” […]

Contradicting, yet accentuating points of view within a culture — a hell of a lot deeper than “bitch” and “ho” framed within the bullshit corporate constructs of a genre.

The CNN For ALL People Who Care To Tune-In

If all this isn’t new to you, glad to have you in my digs. To those of you who are learning something new, you might just dig checking out a few CTD alumni.

One bit of advice: focus on the message, the intent and the wordplay — leave the curse count for Tipper Gore.

• De La Soul
• Immortal Technique
• The Roots
• Public Enemy / Paris
• The Coup
• Brand Nubian / Common
• Rage Against The Machine
• KRS-One
• Talib Kweli
• DJ Danger Mouse
• Chuck D
• Mos Def

Thank God their standards for speaking truth to power and shedding light are higher than CNN.

(photo by Steve Rhodes)

Davey D
An Open Letter to Hip Hop About Some Real Important Shyt

Dear Folks who say they Love Hip Hop,

I wish there was a way to make this issue of Net Neutrality more interesting. I wish there was a way to spice it up and make it compelling like some sort of beef within the rap industry. Maybe I should get Brad and Angelina to talk about it instead of their baby. Maybe Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton can utter a few words and force us to take more of an interest.

I wish Cam’ron spent his vast money holding press conferences, dissing punk ass Congress for taking tainted money from Verizon, SBC, and Comcast instead of going after Jay-Z. Im glad Jay-Z ignored Camron, unfortunately he remained silent as the President of Def Jam on this important issue. We’ll see what happens after Def Jam finds it difficult or too costly to send out their e-post cards alerting me and others of their latest releases

Im sorry Miss Jones on Hot 97 was so upset and enraged that she felt compelled to make headlines calling Mary J Blige a bitch for not shouting her out at last weeks Summer Jam. Its too bad that she didn’t use her 3-4 hours a day of airtime in the nations largest city to call the greedy Congress people who accepted money from these corporations Bitches. There ain’t gonna be any shout outs if the Senate follows Congress in passing this bill. Maybe she’ll step it up when her parent company Emmis finds that folks from all over the country can no longer easily access their archived interviews on their website.

It’s too bad that many of us found this issue ‘too complicated’ and ‘too overwhelming’ and hence directed our attention to Ludacris and Ice Cube’s beef with Oprah. This is the feedback I got after stories ran on my website as well as AllHipHop.

Shyt I’m sorry Oprah was too busy telling Ed Lover that she really does love Hip Hop and that she listens to 50 Cent and his violent ass all damn day instead of alerting her millions of viewers about the issue of Net Neutrality.

Im sorry that KRS-One and others used these Internet airways to tell us about the Hip Hop Nation they want to build, but didn’t issue a call to action to protect a main arm of our communication. Whether youre a Hip Hop or Rap Lover the elimination of Net Neutrality is gonna impact you..

Here’s what’s happening folks. The house has gone passed the COPE bill and rejected proposals to insure Net Neutrality. Those who sided with the Comcast and Verizon are well aware that the ability of ordinary people to communicate to the masses is a problem because its been the only thing holding them accountable. For the last 5 years, the biggest stories about government corruption, corporate swindles, global warming and no weapons of Mass Destruction has come through Internet bloggers who were able to push an issue to the masses and force Fox, CNN and other News outlets to pay some sort of attention.

Anyone who is an activist and championed causes ranging from Election fraud and Diebold Machines, police brutality Freeing Mumia, Global warming, Media Reform and Saving the South Central Farm in LA just to name a few this is will especially hit you hard, because the Internet and its neutrality provisions have enabled many of us to counter biased mainstream media outlets get information out about particular causes all over the world.

Yesterday that ability took one step closer to coming to an end. The mantra being sung on Capitol Hill is Shut it down, Shut that shyt down and redirect traffic to a handful of places and media outlets that they can influence and control.

Like Ice Cube said ‘Laugh Now and Cry Later’, because many of us will soon be crying when we see the Internet gets parceled up and we start paying outrageous tolls for basic amenities. And speaking of which why didn’t Ice Cube talk about this issue instead of not being invited on Oprah?

Anyway your next steps should you choose is to call your Senator’s office and tell them to stand up and protect your interests. Ignoring this, waiting for others to take on your responsibility or acting like the issue will simply go away will not change this.

While many of you may shrug this off and think it doesn’t apply to you, stop and think of all the activities you do on the daily that involve the Internet. Such activities range from using phone cards which use Internet connections-(Many of y’all didn’t realize that) on down to peeping your favorite blog… Many of y’all like to surf and check out my site, AllHipHop, Sohh, HipHopGame etc.. Folks that shyt is about to change in a big, big ,big way.

You’re soon gonna be left with only being able to peep monthly issues of The Source and XXL, who neglected to address this issue. The Source bypassed this in their Media Watch column and Elliot Wilson from XXL obvious saw his shyt talking editorials as more important then keeping you informed. I guess I can understand, all these Hip Hop Internet websites were eating into business.

All you artists who felt like you can easily get your music out there via Myspace and the other sites, that’s about to change. Oh yeah lets not forget the punk ass RIAA who like to sue everybody. They stayed silent on this and in fact while all this is going on they have quietly been lobbying Congress to change laws so that they can fundamentally change the copyright laws in such a way that it will make it damn near impossible to pass things around via the net or do Internet Radio.

Also let’s not let Steve Jobs and his vast iTunes network off the hook. Perhaps I missed it, but I didnt see him alerting us when you went to download your favorite song or stepped into his stores. Perhaps he figures he’s rich enough to pay for the inevitable increases while the rest of us cant. In other words controlling 90% of the market is not enough.

Shame on former Black Panther, Congressman Bobby Rush for selling us out and supporting these corporations. Shame on the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and any other Civil Rights group pretending to represent our interests while selling us out and taking the money to front for these groups. And while Im glad former Congressman Ron Dellums did well in his Mayoral bid in Oakland, we should not forget that he’s also a lobbyist with one of his main clients being Verizon so shame on him as well. How’s Oakland gonna be a world class city that is a beacon for new technology and innovation when his client is one of the main people trying to shut down the Internet?

In closing I’m gonna say this and it may be sobering for some… It’s what my pops told me after I got caught fuccing up and then went home and tried to kiss up to him so I wouldn’t get in trouble. He told me to stop acting like a wuss and start acting like a man. He told me it was time I grow up and accept responsibility. He then punished me for 3 weeks not for the fucc up, but for me trying to kiss his ass instead of owning up to my mistakes. This is about to happen to all of us…

My point is this. Hip Hop is over 30 years old. We’re not kids no more. This industry is not run by kids. To not involve ourselves in shaping the institutions that we rely on to get our information and music out is irresponsible. Thats some thing to pond about. Here’s another breakdown on this issue courtesy of www.playahata.com

Peace out for now
Holla at your Senator before you holla back at me…

Davey D

(via Navaho Gunleg)

Artist: Boogie Down Productions
Song: Poetry

==========

[KRS-One]

Well now you’re forced to listen to the teacher and the lesson
Class is in session so you can stop guessin’
If this is a tape or a written down memo
See I am a professional, this is not a demo
In fact call it a lecture, a visual picture
Sort of a poetic and rhythm-like mixture
Listen, I’m not dissin’ but there’s somethin’ that you’re missin’
Maybe you should touch reality, stop wishin’
For beats with plenty bass and lyrics said in haste
If this meaning doesn’t manifest put it to rest
I am a poet, you try to show it, yet blow it
It takes concentration for fresh communication
Observation, that is to see without speaking
Take off your coat, take notes, I am teachin
a class, or rather school, cause you need schooling
I am not a king or queen, I’m not ruling
This is an introduction to poetry
A small dedication to those that might know of me
They might know of you and maybe your gang
But one thing’s for sure, neither one of y’all can hang
Cause yo I’m like a arrow, and Scott is the crossbow
Say something now … thought so
You seem to be the type that only understand
The annihilation and destruction of the next man
That’s not poetry, that is insanity
It’s simply fantasy far from reality
Poetry is the language of imagination
Poetry is a form of positive creation
Difficult, isn’t it? The point? You’re missin it
Your face is in front of my hand so I’m dissin it

[KRS-One]

Scott LaRock is innovating, decorating hip-hop
The beat may drop but not like all the others
They just cover while I just smother
Every single stupid mutha — wait wait brotha
KRS-One will have to show another
MC or self-proclaimed king or queen
Or gang or crew or solo or team
That I mean
Business
So tell me what is this?
See I come from the Bronx so just kiss this
Boogie Down Productions is somewhat an experiment
The antidote for sucka MC’s and they’re fearin it
It’s self-explanatory, no one’s writin for me
The poetry I’m rattlin is really not for battlin
But if you want I will simply change the program
So when I’m done you will simply say “damn”
So this conversation is somewhat hypothetical
Boogie Down Productions attempts to prove somethin
I say hypothetical because it’s only theory
My theory, so take a minute now to hear me

[KRS-One]

So what’s your problem?
It seems you want to be KRS-Two
From my point of view, backtrack, stop the attack
Cos KRS-One means simply one KRS
That’s it, that’s all, solo, single, no more, no less
I’ve built up my credential financially and mental
Anytime I rhyme I request the instrumental
I speak clearly and that’s merely
Or should I say a mere, help to my career
I’m really not into fashion or craze
Just the one who pays and how soon I get a raise
You’re probably in a daze, acting out of sympathy
Wrote a couple of rhymes and think that you can get with me
But what a pity, I’m rockin New York City
And everywhere else, you put the jams on the shelf
You as an amateur is outspoken
I’m looking at your face, you seem to be hopin
That I might stutter, stop, or just mess up
But everything’s live that’s why I don’t dress up
“Blastmaster KRS” a synonym for “fresh”
I’m the teacher of the class, I do not pass no test
Got DJ Scott LaRock by my side, not in back of me
Cos we make up the Boogie Down Productions crew faculty
Get it right, or train yourself not to bite
Cos when you bite you have bitten, when I hear it, that’s it
I do not contemplate a battle cause it really ain’t worth it
I’d rather point a pistol at your head and try to burst it

I’m teaching poetry
I’m teaching poetry
We’re teaching po-e-try

Artist: KRS-One
Song: The Truth

==========

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

Listen to the lyric as the negative is shrinkin
It’s shrinkin out your life when you decide to change your thinkin
One of the first things we gotta switch around of course
Is Jesus Christ, and him dying on the cross
You’re looking at the cross, surrounded in it’s mystery
With Jesus on the cross in a, total misery
Now seperate Jesus from the cross so you can see
The truth about the cross, and the cross’s history
The cross was created by the Roman government
It’s only purpose and use, is cap-i-tal punishment
But Jesus Christ, was all about the revolution
While the cross was used as Jesus Christ’s execution
See what if Jesus Christ, was hung upon a tree
Upon every church wall, that’s exactly what you’d see
If Jesus Christ, was shot in the head with no respect
We’d all have little gold guns around our neck
If Jesus Christ was killed in electic chair, now get it
You’d be knealing to the electric chair with Jesus, still in it
You gaze upon the cross, and you see the execution
You yell stop the violence but the cross you’re still using

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

So I say listen, listen, open up your third eye vision
God is not down with religion
Religion they be sellin it, listen up, God is intelligent
Reading of the bible is irrelevant
You gotta look within yourself, not a scripture
KRS-One comes to rearrange the God picture
If you sit and believe, you can acheive
If you sit and accept, you don’t know, what’s correct
or incorrect, take for instance Adam and Eve
The first two people on the planet, or so you believe
Their first time in heaven kids they had, Cain and Abel
Huh, now let me show you why the story’s unstable
According to the story, according to what you believe
There was only Cain, Abel, Adam, and Eve
on the whole planet, now use your intellect
and tell me, what did Cain and Abel do for sex?
Upon the whole planet there was not another
Could it be for sex, heh, they were looking at each other?
Hold up! I thought the church wasn’t into that
But wait, still yet, there is another fact
How did the world get populated?
Now tell me if I’m wrong, but obviously Eve had it goin on
Think for a minute, I know it gets notorious
But yo G, check out the chorus

(Chorus)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Her truth is not hard)
It’s not natural (If it goes against God)
It’s not factual (Gimme the truth!)

Al Gore is not fucking around.

Gore’s latest venture has him stepping up to the plate with an innovative approach to changing the stagnant nature of civil discourse in America… and he’s doing it by swinging for the fences and at the establishment. Here are a few quotes from his keynote address at The Media Center’s We Media Conference:

"I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America’s fabled ‘marketplace of ideas’ now functions."
…

"The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the World Wide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy’s future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom."

Did Al "My Wife Wants To Censor Hip-Hop" Gore just come within a few words of quoting Malcolm X, not to mention one of the most revered hip-hop albums of all-time? Take a few moments and dig through his speech. It’s completely laced with philosophical principles espoused by Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent, the propaganda model, etc.). Good old Noam can’t get even get on public access in America. With his political power behind him, Al Gore is coming correct.

What’s going on? Well, Current TV (Gore’s new venture) is going to try to change the way people watch TV; they’re going to make them get off the couch. Take this quote from the Newsweek article, "Do-It-Yourself News" as a glimpse at their approach:

"The network’s broadcasting approach takes heavy cues from the emerging world of Internet news, eschewing traditional half-hour broadcasts in favor of two- to seven-minute "pods"—short-subject features submitted, in many cases, by Current’s own viewers through a screening process on the network’s Web site. Programmers maintain that the jarring subject jumps—from street violence in California one moment to street performers in Colombia the next—allow the network to cover the broad scope of world news. Interspersed amid these features are brief headline roundups from Google News."

Web 2.0 begins to describe the concept, but you have to throw in some Convergence 2.0 for good measure. This goes way beyond my call for Google and Yahoo! News to index blogs alongside traditional news publishers (even though I still think that is an imperative next version).

While the majority of Americans will probably surf this channel like any other, a concentrated group of early adopters will dive into this interaction model and extend the concept even further. Of course, only 20M people have access to the channel and I’m not one of them.

Did I say something about looking at a skyline from afar?

(Gore speech via Hip Hop Blogs)

The master of framing the moment within a gut-felt emotion is back, providing clarity beyond the crystal clear. Take a listen to Chuck’s response to the natural and federal disaster of Katrina, the Children of Eris remix, “Hell No We Ain’t All Right”

Chuck D’s rhymes flow so natural and powerful they take form within your psyche while you latch onto his beat. That’s because Chuck doesn’t twist to the beat of a loop; Chuck’s direct, unflinching words twist a beat of their own.

Can’t you feel him in this latest drop?

I follow his words, like “the new world is upside down and out of order” as a flip from the past, as back then he was taken aghast, as the polar opposites were set-up, the Axis of Evil corrupt…

Man…

I often wonder if the 17 to 23 year-old crowd nowadays gets the same dose of reality in the Hip hop nation.

Sure, the crew of Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and The Roots bring consciousness to each of their narratives on multiple levels. Underground hip-hop, like Head-Roc, sticks to the grimy reality, and J-Live lives and keeps it real as a teacher in Brooklyn, but where is the channeled anger of this generation?

Maybe he/she/they are out there and the gray in my chin is talking all of this junk — if so, feel free to let me know. To the extent that Chuck D and Public Enemy pumped out perspective and knowledge in the late 80’s to the mid-90’s (along with KRS-One and Brand Nubian), I just don’t hear the same form of consistent passion in these modern day cats.

Yes, Mos Def was crazy conscious with his tabulations in Mathematics, and has kept ‘em coming leading right up to the in-the-moment response and drop of Katrina Klap. Artists such as Kanye West have proven to have a conscious, yet even Kanye still goes back and forth with club songs chock full of faux diamond dissing, gold-digging lyrics.

Chuck D earned the lead Public Enemy #1 tag with his straight up, hardcore responses to social issues of the time; I’m talking about consistent responses to real-time events, like:

• dropping “By the Time I Get To Arizona” when Arizona refused to honor Martin Luther King’s birthday
• or when Chuck tried to shut down the malt-liquor industry in “1 Million Bottlebags” for targeting young black males with their poison
• even in their twilight, in 2002 Public Enemy dropped “Son of a Bush” at a time when political commentary in hip-hop was ripe for the picking, but rare due to the climate of blind patriotism. Only Eminem made any Bush accountability waves, but he waited until a safer year of 2004 to drop his Mosh video, pre and post 2004 elections.

Enough.

Like that dude on Enter the 36 Chambers said, “Ah yeah, again and again!”

Bring the noise, Chuck.

UPDATE: Here’s the original Public Enemy release of “Hell No We Ain’t Alright“