Public Enemy rapper Chuck D on the unifying power of hip-hop in OKC: 'Be that energy'

Rapper and activist Chuck D praised Oklahoma City's Jabee as the epitome of activist musicians. The hip-hop icon, visiting OKC for a recent conference on violence intervention , also offered his veteran perspective on music's ability to transcend cultures, unite people against gun violence and ignite social change.

Chuck D was the keynote speaker Friday for the Peace Needs Conference hosted by LiveFree OKC , a community violence intervention program headquartered along the city's northeast corridor. With Jabee as its executive director, LiveFree OKC's goal is to reduce local gun violence by intervening in high-risk situations and providing a "PeaceTeam" who can facilitate access to support and resources.

Chuck D rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as lead rapper of the hip-hop group Public Enemy, whose albums gained massive success for their heavy-hitting political commentary. Their hit single "Fight the Power" — immortalized as the theme for Spike Lee's 1989 film "Do the Right Thing" — earned numerous accolades and is considered among the greatest songs of all time by music critics.

Since then, Chuck D has gone on to release albums as a solo artist; appeared in numerous television shows; started a social media network and radio station; worked with singer Meat Loaf and the band Rage Against the Machine ; won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy and been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame .

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Jabee invited Chuck D to answer questions after a panel on the power of art and music as a form of violence intervention that also involved Tulsa rapper Steph Simon, California rapper Mistah F.A.B., and Oklahoma City Thunder DJ Emcee One.

Chuck D had been supporting Jabee through music and social media for years, and he stopped by Jabee's Eastside Pizza House before making his appearance downtown. His interview with The Oklahoman served as a preview of topics from his keynote address, including the social impact of rap music, the traumatizing effect of gun violence on generational hip-hop talent, and a critique of celebrity culture and unjust systems of power.

Q: Can you talk about your relationship with Jabee and why you're here at the conference?

A: Jabee is amazing, man. He’s been amazing. The fact that you can take a seed and be able to sprout it into a bush that bears fruits and vegetables or whatever, I try to tell artists that all of the time.

The arts and the culture is a thing that I think could get supported by our communities as much as sports, and you’ll have a society that’s well-rounded. Sports is one of the things that nurtures young talent and skills, and people figure out whether they can be a professional or not. Well, arts is the same thing. Not too far from here, they gave me the Woody Guthrie Award in Tulsa a couple of years ago, because we believe that words can change the world for the better. But also, at its damnedest, it also can make the world worse by not speaking at all and saying the worst words.

Jabee is the epitome of somebody who’s able to activate and not just be culturally innovative and musically sound and all of that stuff; he’s able to deal with real people doing real things, no different than Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. Everybody’s used to praising those other guys because their musics are different, but Jabee has done it in hip-hop and rap music. And he's done it local — to make sure that the local is the axis of change and innovation. Don’t worry about hitting the world, because we know that bad news travels fast. A catastrophe could happen here, like in the bombing years ago that resounded around the world . It was a bad, tragic event that happened, and everybody knew about it. Good things need to have energy and effort nurtured behind it, and you don’t worry about the end result — you just keep on doing.

Q: Hip-hop has been a space for creative expression, political activism, and even wealth creation for communities that have often been sidelined. But it also feels like, especially in recent years, we’ve lost so many prominent people and talented individuals to death in this field that you and Jabee are working in. Why do you think this keeps happening?

A: One is just the passage of time. But no one (leading hip-hop) has passed away in their 60s. I’m 64, and myself and Ice-T and Flavor Flav (are) in our 60s, but everybody has been younger. And it’s happening in their 30s, 40s, sometimes 20s and now we’re seeing 50s for a bunch of different reasons, from bad situations to bad health. A lot of these issues we’ve addressed over the years unfortunately are also coming to pass, and it’s not that we predicted anything. It’s just that, with clarity, you’re able to see certain things.

Q: How do you think we can course-correct this current direction with the younger generation?

A: You’ve gotta get rid of mythology, and you have to be clear. I think communication is very key. Education of the arts and culture could take place, where we understand that hip-hop and rap music is not a bubble to itself and it’s not just a thing that’s over there that’s different from everything. I think it’s all interwoven, and if you’re able to teach art and culture that brings human beings together for our similarities and knocks the differences to the side, whether it’s film, art, music, whatever — it brings us together. If you can’t teach that, then it’s gonna be a myth, and people are gonna keep grasping for the myth, and that’s a problem. Mythology takes over and people tend to believe a hype.

Q: Something that I’ve noticed during this conference is that people have been doing this work for a long time. Some of the feedback I heard equated to “let’s not reinvent the wheel” or fighting against a sort of analysis paralysis, reinforced by the thought they’ve already tried so many things and, to them, nothing is really changing. But you’ve been doing both activism and music for decades, so how do you fight against that feeling of “nothing changing” and what do you advise younger generations to do when it comes to those feelings?

A: Everything changes, and nothing remains the same. I wrote the record “Fight the Power” in 1989, and a lot of the people that was in the middle of that mix are no longer here. New people have been born since, which means you always have to adapt. There’s new generations coming in as old generations move out. You want to always be able to navigate, and even change and alter, the system if it’s been angled toward you to destroy you. You’ve got to put in the effort. Bad things happens automatically. You know why, though? It don’t take much energy to go down a hill. But to go up the hill, you’ve got to have energy, effort, a plan, knowledge of where you’re going and all of that stuff. That’s positive energy, and that’s just the way it is.

And in Oklahoma City, the efforts that Jabee has done are commendable. And my advice to people is, OK, go take a measurement of other cities and see where you rank. And I think the same thing goes for each and every individual. It doesn’t mean you count your blessings and go to sleep. You count your blessings and you build up from that. You’ve got to be constructive.

I think also, celebrities in the United States of America have been misdirected. The job of a celebrity is to be able to take that light and spread it like a prism across the many other people doing real things in real time. You had artists like Johnny Cash who’d come out, and Johnny Cash would look at the regular person doing a regular thing trying to come up, and relate that story and also be that energy. When that person heard a story about Johnny Cash, whether he sat in Folsom (Prison) or not , they felt that inspiration. Inspiration comes from the artist, and light comes from the artist. It doesn’t mean the artist soak up all the light for themselves, and then all of a sudden, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all of this light that I got.’ Yeah, you’re supposed to distribute it, like a prism.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Public Enemy rapper Chuck D on the unifying power of hip-hop in OKC: 'Be that energy'