The aftermath of the MTV Video Awards carries a ‘business as usual’ stench across the ever influenced cultural, uh, black planet. The new power elite in America…the selection board of MTV. If I closed my eyes and ears and went back in time it would’ve been an oily Rockefeller gathering in the 20s, or a scotch and politic driven Kennedy gathering in the 40s. The new power breed of selectors who govern images being fed to the world youth, invisibly anonymous to most, while being the choosers of who, what, when, why, and how. In the words of my friend Kyle Jason … we (black people on screen) have been reduced to comedy. All of my career, as an artist, I’ve been fighting in a genre that has been hijacked by ‘culture bandits.’ Simply, cats who’ve used rap music and hip hop as a personal whatever without putting anything back where they got it from in the first place. That’s the ongoing complaint by the figureheads that started this thing and I don’t blame them. The lack of image balance is killing us.
MTV is refusing to play the new Public Enemy video unless PE removes references to Mumia Abu-Jamal in their lyrics. Chuck D's response is
"EMpTy V ; BLACKFACES REDUCED TO BLACKFACE … SILENTLY DESIGNING A DUMBED GENERATION IN AMERICA.
(also on
Davey D)
Comments
Corporation Doesn't Show Video They Disagree With: News at 11
MTV is in the business of making money. It's not a civic organization or a newsgathering/reporting station. They're not obligated to play any video.
Posted by: Oliver | September 13, 2002 9:37 AM
Sure, MTV isn't obligated to air videos they don't want to. Likewise, artists aren't obligated to keep their mouths shut when the MTV censors make racist decisions.
Posted by: ben fried | September 13, 2002 10:19 AM
Ben - I agree entirely (obviously).
Oliver, I take it you're not interested in interrogating the motivations or ramifications of MTVs decisions? What does it say that they're reluctant to show a video, by one of the top rap groups of all time no less, where the protagonist is politically active?
Would Fight the Power be shown today? Would a white group have the same problem with MTV censors?
Posted by: david | September 13, 2002 10:39 AM
also, videos don't get chosen or discarded because someone at mtv just happens to like or not like them. these decisions, like the editorial decisions at any radio station or newspaper, are political, made explicitly from the subjective viewpoint of view of the editors, and clearly reflects the level and type of social commentary they are looking to make or avoid making.
so while of course i'm pissed like dd, dj, and ben, i also am not really suprised. oliver's correct in asserting their motivations are about profit only. if it's a duck, it ain't gonna cluck. guaranteed, it will only quack. as a commercial institution, their are beholden to none of us. it sucks, but mumia does not sell, unless people in positions of relative political and economic power (those who allow RATM to play at huge concert halls despite threats from police, big-name publishers who don't cave, and others) say so. i don't know what the strategic options there are for attacking mtv's ratings or profit margin, but i'm sure that some smart radical media person or group out there could devise a way of leveraging the power of mtv's concious viewerbase segment into applying sufficient pressure. it's been done lots before and will be done again. question is, is it worth it and will it work? stay tuned, so to speak...
Posted by: elihu | September 13, 2002 11:38 AM
I agree with dj and elihu, but I think there's more to that article than a grip about whether or not MTV played a particular video or not. There's also some analysis of rap and black artists as being used/perceived differently than white artists. I think that's a larger critique than the censorship angle.
Posted by: zagg | September 13, 2002 12:45 PM
Was Fight the Power shown then? I don't remember seeing any Public Enemy video on MTV - only on The Box.
Posted by: V.S. | September 13, 2002 1:46 PM
Obligatory racist MetaFilter discussion: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/20005
Posted by: sudama | September 14, 2002 9:00 AM
Why is it you label anything that disagrees with you as racist? Hell of a conversation stopper.
Posted by: Oliver | September 14, 2002 10:23 AM
PE was a a staple of Yo! MTV Raps back in the day. "Fight The Power" , "Nighttrain" and "Can't Truss It" were definitely played.
PEace
mGee
Posted by: mGee | September 14, 2002 3:19 PM
Mgee: thanks for your comment. I'm still curious - do you think those three videos would be played on MTV today?
Posted by: david | September 14, 2002 4:09 PM
How is MTV being racist? MTV plays tons of black artists. If fact, I'd say MTV built it's popularly with black artists, which includes Public Enemy. MTV seems to be disagreeing with a particular message in the song. The song was not being aired for its content, not the ethnic background of the song's creator.
As an aside, MTV has almost certainly done the best thing it could do for Public Enemy and the song. The publicity that has been generated by this controversy will likely increase demand for the song, and thus, increase the number of people who hear the song and see the video.
Posted by: Bag Man | September 14, 2002 4:14 PM
perhaps the real question is to wondery why political statements, even ones certain individuals or even most individuals might find distasteful, are less agreeable than more prurient fare?
And is this censorship dependent on who the messenger is? What if U2 made the same statement on a record?
There are rampant double standards throughout the music industry (record labels pick and choose which albums get the parental advisory sticker...almost without fail every hip hop record gets a sticker even if there is little to no objectionable language on the album because they believe it will sell better while more mainstream artists will rarely get the sticker even though they may throw a "fuck" or a "bitch" in a song once in a while; Alanis can "go down on you in a theatre" without bleep or deletion at all hours of the day but Luke can't "pop that coochie" until the wee hours) and none of it makes any sense. The overwhelming popularity of a song ("Me So Horny") can make it less objectionable over time when its obvious that money is at stake.
The question is why? The deeper mystery is if its more likely to happen to certain artists than others and if its content or something else that's really at stake.
And the root of what Chuck D is saying is this: It's okay for black artists to present themselves as sexual beasts, entertainers, gangsters and comedians but not okay for them to be political?
He doesn't buy the argument that race isn't a factor there. Do you?
Posted by: Jason | September 14, 2002 4:32 PM