Also this issue: No Looking Back After coming to terms with their past, Wire go back to the future. -Sam Adams David Alvarado -A.D. Amorosi Gene -Sam Adams Sparta -Andrew Parks Exile Follies -Chris Parker Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone -Sam Adams Rudy Adrian -A.D. Amorosi The Gig -Nate Chinen on Jazz

September 19-25, 2002

music

Burn, Viacom, Burn

MICROPHONE THUNDER: Chuck D. says Public Enemy's relevant as ever.

When the music biz destroys itself, Chuck D will get to say “I told you so.”

by Chris Parker

Public Enemy is back, which may come as news to those who lost track in the last decade. They’ve released two albums since 1994 -- the ostensible soundtrack to He Got Game, a clever riposte of gangsta using their own stripped-down sound, and 1999’s overlooked There’s a Poison Goin’ On, which signaled a shift for the band -- off rap powerhouse Def Jam and on their own, at least partially over the issue of downloadable music. But while the rap game may have changed a lot in that time, I wouldn’t question their relevance. Not to Chuck D’s face.

"When somebody says P.E. might be irrelevant you have to understand," says Chuck from P.E.'s Manhattan recording studio, "we're about explaining the situation to people and especially black people where we are, and if that's an irrelevant issue then, well, that gives you your own answer."

Their new album, Revolverlution (SlamJamz.com/Koch/In the Paint), continues Chuck's crusade in support of online music, as it features four old P.E. tracks remixed by the winners of a contest on Chuck's Rapstation website. Even beyond the remixes, though, a nostalgic flavor pervades the whole album that runs from the three live tracks ("Miuzi Weighs a Ton," "Fight the Power," "Welcome to the Terrordome") to new cuts like "Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need," which prominently samples "Rebel Without a Pause." It's almost as if Chuck's recounting his accomplishments, having taken to heart that "Rebel" sample with Flavor Flav saying, "Chuck, you're losin' 'em."

"It's always been that type of thing. You're always going up against the grain," he says. "People look at Public Enemy and they hold us against this standard of right here, right now. When it comes down to rock 'n' roll, jazz or other genres, even artists that are dead, it's almost like this long-term legendary thing, and when it comes to like Public Enemy ain't relevant' -- it's always this other thing. Post Public Enemy up next to Nelly. Come on now, they're two different categories."

Besides testifying on Capitol Hill on the subject of Internet music, Chuck's been cultivating his own Internet garden the last few years -- from the aforementioned Rapstation, to his music label startup, SlamJamz, on which he hopes to put out at least a dozen records next year, and his Internet radio station, bringthenoise.com. To Chuck, this isn't entrepreneurial, it's common sense.

"The old business model doesn't apply. I walk into Tower Records, and it's like a ghost town. So now, you have a business that prospered in the '80s and early '90s and now they're asking questions. This is the same business that made music digital to save them, only to have it come and spite their face," explains Chuck. "So as creators and musicians and people like us, we have to develop a different standard, a different business model, we have to develop a different love for the creation and making of music. I'm all about getting people music, and building the artistry. You can download the art, but you can't download the artist."

Chuck points to the recent slide in record sales. Sales for the first half of this year are down seven percent from the same period last year, which was down five percent from the year before. The powers that be have made their bed -- from payola, which now costs labels tens of millions a day to keep their hits in rotation, to their long-established M.O. of cheating and mistreating artists -- and Chuck would just as soon bury 'em in it.

"The record companies sacrificed artist development and decided to get into song development instead," Chuck continues. "If you don't have an artist that people love then you have to go into trying to come up with money to make people recognize that artist. But if that artist is just a plain kick-ass artist, it makes whoever else is an artist re-evaluate their existence.... We don't have those kinds of artists anymore because artist development hasn't been warranted at the companies, and by taking the shortcut, and getting paid on the shortcut for so long, it's coming back to affect the foundation of the music business in the long run."

Chuck, and by extension, Public Enemy, have never been as short-sighted as the labels. From the beginning they've seen the Internet as an opportunity to bypass major-label distribution bottlenecks, as well as communicate with the people on a less-mediated level, which Chuck does, through Public Enemy's bulletin board and SlamJamz. There's a Poison Goin' On was available as a free download from their website several weeks before it was released in stores. But unfortunately, even if you opt out, there's still no escaping the music business' self-serving hypocrisy. Recently, MTV told Public Enemy they would have to remove the recurrent chorus line, "Free Mumia and H. Rap Brown," from their new single, "Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need," before they would air it. (As if MTV even airs videos anymore.)

"My whole thing is that the nerve of Viacom to have its thumb on culture, to say what is and what isn't," says Chuck, with characteristic understatement. "I looked at Viacom and I was like, it can't be cool on one hand to pass the Courvoisier because it's hot up in here, I'm gonna take my clothes off to my back and the crack of my ass,' and to think that you have a problem with something all of a sudden."

The single features a tough African beat beneath P.E.'s more spare, late-'90s sound that's replaced the bomb squad's signature squall. Terminator X's retired, and been replaced DJ Lord. But the band's message of empowerment remains the same, and the single's message -- you have to give the people what they need before you give them what they want -- reflects what Chuck sees as his role as an elder statesman of rap and black activism.

"That's what older people are supposed to do, to give younger people a road map where they can really enjoy and understand what's in front of them to the best of their ability. I think that you're not going to be able to make a young person overnight see what you see, but that doesn't mean that you forfeit that responsibility." Chuck brings it back to the title track, asking, "How can they know what they need if they don't know themselves? How do you know what you want if you don't even know what you are?"

Public Enemy with Dilated Peoples and Blackalicious, Fri., Sept. 20, 9 p.m., $20-$22, The Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St., 215-336-2000.