One can play the game, two can play the game.
A Letter To The New York Post by Public Enemy.
When Public Enemy and The New York Post square up over the moral high ground it is the ethical equivalent of a tall dwarf competition.
In one corner, the rag that brought you ‘Headless Body In Topless Bar’. The New York Post is the epitome of sensation-seeking tabloid tawdriness.
In the other corner, a hip-hop act with a track record of homophobic and anti-Semitic commentary, a group with a penchant for self-aggrandisement and a song called “Don’t Believe The Hype”. Public Enemy is politically incorrect and irony blind.
The pair of them share as much high ground as the Low Countries.
The story behind this episode goes something like this.
- Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav allegedly, apparently has some kind of physical altercation with his girlfriend. Indeed he was convicted of doing so (see New York Times piece below).
- The New York Post prints a story about the incident.
- Flavor Flav and, by extension, Public Enemy take exception to the story and produce an excoriating riposte in the form of a rapped open letter which is released on the Apocalypse ‘91… The Enemy Strikes Black album.
Why would they do that? Flavor Flav was convicted for the assault and admits to it in the song. So, whilst The New York Post might not have printed the whole truth, the basic premise and the most damaging aspect of the article appears to have been accurate. Unfortunately The Post’s online archive doesn’t go back far enough to check.
Public Enemy’s beef appears to be that they weren’t consulted prior to publication:
Should have checked with me before you wrote it.
Got it from another source and quote it.
And:
Ah, looks like somebody slipped up here
Anyway here’s a letter to the New York Post
Black newspaper and magazines are supposed to get the real deal from the source y’all
Sorry Jet, you took the info straight out of The Post
Burned us just like toast
So when it comes to getting your facts straight about the P. E.
Get your shit correct
Domestic violence and dirty laundry are not, on the face of it, the most auspicious circumstances for song writing.
And yet out of this murky moral morass emerges a technically brilliant protest song.
Brilliant, that is, if you can suspend your distaste and your moral outrage long enough to appreciate, divorced from context, the innate linguistic and technical panache of both the lyrics and their delivery. That is probably easier said than done.
A Letter To The New York post is searing, intense and relentless. There isn’t a single wasted beat or syllable. It may be short on righteousness but it is long, oh so long, on indignation. It is a fierce piece of rap oratory.
It is also a duet (of sorts) between Flavor Flav and Chuck D, each of whom adopts quite distinct roles.
Chuck D is MC Ridicule. He indulges in some savagely eloquent name calling, using the paper’s own marketing messages against it to sardonic effect. The rap equivalent of a judo throw.
Here’s a letter to the New York Post
The worst piece of paper on the east coast
Matter of fact the whole States
Forty cents in New York City
Fifty cents elsewhere
It makes no goddamn sense at all
America’s oldest continuously published daily piece of bullshit
His lyrics are scornful, beautifully metered, and delivered with the brutal, rhythmic intensity of an ack ack gun.
Here’s a letter to the New York Post
Ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on
Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton
That’s 190 years of continuous fucked up news
Flavor Flav, meanwhile, is MC Protocol. He tackles head on the fragile symbiosis that exists between celebrities and the media. Despite being bang to rights with respect to this story, he feels that a line has been crossed and he calls the newspaper out for biting the hand that feeds it.
Yo New York Post don’t brag or boast
Dissin’ Flavor when he’s butter that you put on your toast
Somewhat perversely he also adopts the persona of MC Victim. He has been wronged. He is unfair game. Apparently he is as much the injured party as his poor girlfriend.
Flavor Flav is the one that makes The Post money
Writers make embarrassing headlines funny
Tryin’ to undress my past until it’s naked
Won’t stop Flavor from sellin’ more records
I doubt that he really believed it. This is arch posturing, even by the standards of Public Enemy.
I think he did believe that it didn’t matter. Today’s newsprint would be tomorrow’s chip paper. The New York Post might have sold some extra copies but not at the expense of Public Enemy record sales.
This isn’t a zero sum game. One can play it. Two can play it. And there is no loser.
There is no such thing as bad Public Animosity.
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