Shut 'em down – The Co-Opting of Black Revolutionary Rap

Shut 'em down – The Co-Opting of Black Revolutionary Rap 

Who count the money in the neighborhood
But we spending money to no end, looking for a friend
In a war to the core, ripping up the poor in the stores
Until they get a brother kicking down doors
Then I figure I can get bigger
Look 'em dead in the eye and they wince, defense is pressurized
They don't really want it to be another racial attack
In disguise so give some money back

I like Nike but wait a minute

The neighborhood supports, so put some money in it

All corporations owe, they gotta give up the dough

To my town or else we gotta shut ‘em down.

- Verse 3 of Shut ‘em Down by Public Enemy

            Wait a minute. Let me get this straight, how did the enemy of the public get co-opted by one of the public’s notorious corporations, NIKE. I need to know how much money exchanged hands? What was the threat to Chuck D? Who’s broke? Did Flava Flav own the rights to this song and just as he tried to make a career comeback with VH1’s Flavor of Love, he gave up the rights to this song like he gave up the rights to being enemy of the public. Listen, I love Public Enemy. I grew up being motivated to do scholarship in the area of Black liberation because of politically conscious brothers like Public Enemy, KRS1, The Roots, Dead Prez, etc.

            So, when I saw this Nike commercial with a young Black male gazing into his basketball future, with Shut ‘em Down playing in the background, I was baffled, dumbfounded, left undone. There were several stereotypical assumptions about this ad, like the prophetic gaze of this young black male that places him in the NBA, where statistically speaking, he has less than a one percent chance of making it the pros. He was playing with LeBron James, which would make LeBron about 50 years old when this kid leaves junior high school, play interscholastic basketball, and finally plays collegiate basketball (even if he did a one and done, i.e., playing only one year). One positive aspect of the ad is that he envisions himself playing for Duke University; not too shabby of an basketball school, most importantly they are great academic institution.

Anyway, regarding the co-opting of Black revolutionary rap, how did the focus of this song, shutting down transnational media corporations and transnational sport merchandising corporations, convert to shutting down a basketball team with a last-minute dunk? Listen, I was moved by these lyrics to economically boycott every corporation that does not invest in Black communities; which also includes Non Urban Dictates, NUDs – those companies that are not interested in the Black consumer. The enemy of the public was spot on regarding where Black people should spend their money, and that we should be more critical in investing in those corporations that are willing and proactive in investing in Black communities.

Nike is smooth though,  so smooth that one could easily miss how this Black revolutionary rap song has just been co-opted by the marketing genius of NIKE. We can easily get caught up in the big dreams of this young Black male making something out of his life, becoming socially mobile, and leaving the city streets, which haunted the background of this ad, all the while, the fat beat of Shut ‘em Down, concocted by Terminator X, no doubt, and the voice of the rap revolutionary lyricist himself, Chuck D, is looming large and motivating and projecting this youth to greatness. It is not a far stretch of the imagination, since too many young Black males have been socialized and preoccupied with making it through the avenue of sport. The media is saturated with Black male athletes at the college level generating revenue and as professional getting paid. So, for many young play males who are consuming this sport media content, a daydream to entertain and a logical conclusion to draw is that athletics can be their ticket to a better life.
Well, this is not the first act of co-opting the movement by capitalist and/or the white establishment. It was only a matter of time before the machine of capitalism absorb radical forms of protest and either co-opt them to mean something else or something less. So, shutting down corporations that distort the reality of Black life or profit off of Black communities without investing in those communities has been muted because one of the most powerful corporations in the world through the most powerful media platform in the world, TV, has hijacked the meaning and purpose of this song.

I would like to think that Chuck D would not have signed off on the use of this song in this manner, where the meaning of this song has been co-opted and converted into a capitalist advertisement jingle. So, I had to follow the ownership trail, where the record label Def Jam is owned by Universal Music Group (it was MCA records during the recording of this release of the album Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Back), which is a subsidiary of the French media conglomerate, Vivendi; which was founded in 1853 by Napoleon III. In a capitalist society, Black owned does not necessarily mean owned by Black, or exclusively Black owned.

So, the question becomes, who really owns the rights to this song and the right to use it for whatever purpose they desire, even if the desired use is contrary to the original meaning of the song? Well, this trail was enough for me to further question who really owns the revolution, at least the revolution that is played out in rap music? What happens when capitalist own the instruments used in the liberation movement? If the current social movement is dependent on social media, who controls the social movement; or who can determine the reach and effectiveness of that movement? Did the visionary lyrics of Gil Scott Heron in The Revolution Will Not Be Televise, inform us that the “real” revolution will not use conventional means or the tools of the master to proceed and succeed? The Black Liberation Movement (BLM), a movement to emancipate Black consciousness, is an ongoing movement. So, stay woke and consume media content critically.

Billy Hawkins, Ph.D.