by B.J. on 1/31/2003 10:04:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

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[Edited 11/07/03 to correct stuff what I learned about Mr. D which was: Bush is a dolt, and commercial rap nowadays sucks]

NOT ChuckAChuckBChuckC, Chuck D !

At about 1 pm yestrday, good ole Oakland-raised-hip-hop-dazed-Conan-glazed Dan bolted into my room asking "Did you get the tickets ?" to which I responded, "Naw, MAN ! Sorry." About a minute or 2 later, I said, "Aww man, wanna get em ?" Then, we got the tickets and thought, "Seven dollars ?! He BETTER ENLIGHTEN us."

So a few hours later at 7:15 we were there.

After an hour delay to get in, the show finally began AND all I could do was check the time because I had an Oceans midterm the next day (just a few hours ago), which I felt needed a bit more polishing on. After the initial turn-your-head-away-from-this-crap holdups, out came Chuck D, gouteed, huskied, basketball-haired, AND tired. He pulled up The UCal podium, and I thought it was going to be a LECTURE. Great.

But it wasn't. And I got enlightened ! About politics and the state of hip-hop.

Son a Bush. He's got it right. . .

Put a hummer and a malnutritient Somalian side-by-side.

Someone takes a wrecking ball and smashes up that Hummer while the malnutrient Somalian drops dead.

And according to today's abundant lust for machines rather than people, people would cry over the Hummer. People die every day and its flipped over in the news by anchors as if its a sports score. When did America stop caring for people ? [note: America never cared for people that were poor] Does that bug anyone ?

. . .doesn't matter cause, we have to start now, by getting our common senses back, getting in touch with people. He told us funny-but-you-have-to-be-there stories about his rap prototypes lacking the complicated knowledge of flushing a toilet.

He shook his head and hammered these points into our head: Use your intelligence. Get our bang for our buck (not that kind of bang !) in college. Stick to what you believe in. Challenge things, he said.

One thing he himself is challenging is the current state of pop hip-hop. Music is supposed to make you feel good and communicate something to us. With today's commercial hip-hop, and people blindly buying into all the illusions of bling blingin' and materialism, he doesn't seem suprised with the lack of quality face-to-face communication. As a result, people stop caring.

He also challenged Bush. He doesn't like him very much, and about 100% of the people I've conversed with at SCruz agree. [note: There have been many a Conservative here, namely in that brown bag newspaper Redwood Review which I use as a doormat]

Mr. D was funnier than I could ever elucidate on paper or oralize, but then deep enough to sort of grab me and shake up my beliefs. Made me feel good. Hella intelligent, but still real cool. [note: Though Daniel has not hesitated to call him "a loser of sorts"]

I recommend you see Chuck D whenever he comes to your neck of the woods.

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