Fight the Power

After extensive discussions with MTV, Public Enemy have reached acompromise with the network in their battle to get an unedited version ofthe video for the group’s song “Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need” onthe channel. MTV News will talk to Chuck D and examine the controversybehind the video on the premiere of a new program on MTV’s sister networkMTV2 called The Wrap. The video itself will air in its entirety on MTV2’s hip-hop show, premiering on September 30.

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Video courtesy of Rapstation.com.

The song, which is the first track on PE’s recently released albumRevolverlution, initially raised the hackles of the Standards department atMTV over the politically charged line, “Free Mumia and H. Rap Brown,” whichis repeated several times throughout the song. The line refers to the plightof two imprisoned murderers. The first, former Philadelphia journalist MumiaAbu-Jamal, is on death row for the murder of Philadelphia police officerDaniel Faulkner. The second, a Muslim imam and former Black Panther namedJamil Abdullah Al-Amin (known during his days as a ’60s radical as H. RapBrown), was sentenced in March to life in prison for the 2000 murder ofAtlanta sheriff’s deputy Ricky Kinchen.

“They tried to get me to get rid of the ‘Free Mumia’ line,” Chuck D told Blender.com in late August. “They say ‘Free Mumia’ is too politically charged for them. This is from a network that says it’s all right for black people to pass the Courvoisier and when it gets hot, take off all yourclothes, down from your neck to the crack of your ass.

“I think when you have a situation where they have so much powerover people, they basically reduce black faces to blackface,” he continued.“And that’s scary.”

In a statement from Chuck posted on the Public Enemy Web site, heclaimed that MTV initially asked to remove all reference, both audio andvisual, to Mumia Abu-Jamal. Later, after talks with the video channel, theyamended their request: simply removing the word “free” from the line.Public Enemy refused.

MTV spokesperson Marnie Malter tells a slightly different version of the dialogue between Chuck D and the network.

“We never asked for any of the names to be taken out,” she said.“It was just the word ‘free,’ because there was an artist taking a personal political stance on an individual, which is not something we generally allowartists on our network to do.”

After further discussions with Chuck D, though, the currentdétente was reached, which according to MTV’s Malter will allow the videoto be aired in its uncensored form, but “within the context of a newssegment, putting it in the proper context.”

Malter further denied Chuck D’s allegations of racism,maintaining, “We’ve been consistent in our policies through the years.”

A record-company executive who’s familiar with the workings ofthe network backed this up. “We’ve had white artists who have had to makechanges [to their videos]. Every video goes into Standards. And everyvideo is viewed completely independent of others.”

To some in the industry, the episode will represent a victoryfor Chuck D and Public Enemy. The group, once a staple of MTV in the late’80s and early ’90s, now releases records on its own independent label. Thegroup’s politically conscious hip-hop would have been an unlikely fit,regardless of its political content, on a play list that includes the likesof Ja Rule, Pink and Avril Lavigne.

“In this day and age, I’d be surprised if I saw a Public Enemyvideo get added at MTV,” the record executive said. “And MTV2 has becomepretty powerful. At this point, it might be the second most viable videochannel. So to get the video on MTV2, it’s definitely something.”