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
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.
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.