http://home.att.net/~phosphor/week1a.html Imagine a white country-western singer performing lyrics that call on whites to torture and kill blacks, and imagine him rising to fame with backing from major record labels. The image is not believable. If a white singer tried to build a career today by spewing out violently racist lyrics, the outcry would be immediate and overwhelming, with denunciations, pickets, and perhaps even violence at music stores. The double standards of the entertainment industry are such, however, that viciously racist lyrics do become popular when the artist is black.
For the past ten years now, the major music companies have promoted the black rapper Ice Cube who writes or performs lyrics that call for the killing of whites. Released late in the year after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, The Predator album seethes with a tone of wild empowerment and describes the riots as righteous acts. Death threats are issued at the white police officers who participated in the beating of Rodney King, at the jurors who acquitted the officers, and at whites in general. The title track issues forth:
"Riots ain't nothing but diets for the system. Fighting with the Beast, 'no justice, no peace'. . . [censored] are sick of your white man tricks, with no treating us right. Now it's on, on sight. . . . Farrakhan for president of white America. . . . Put my chrome* to your dome*, watch it bust like a cantaloupe. . . . So who's Ice Cube? I'm a rapper, actor, macker. Got a little problem with the redneck cracker."
The caveat that follows is printed on pamphlets inserted into The Predator CD's: "Ice Cube wishes to acknowledge white America's continued commitment to the silence and oppression of black men. . . . White America needs to thank black people for still talkin' to them 'cause you know what happens when we stop."
Ice Cube fills his lyrics with the beliefs held by members and followers of Nation of Islam, the Chicago-based black group which has mosques in cities across the nation. The group's doctrine was built from racial interpretations of the Koran and the Bible, and it included the book called Message to the Blackman in America in which Elijah Muhammad, the group's founder, proclaimed that whites, or "devils" as they are often referred to in the book, would be annihilated in racial Armageddon. First printed in 1965, Nation of Islam uses the book today as its founding doctrine. Louis Farrakhan, the group's vocally racist leader, has an ability to get millions of blacks to listen to him, as demonstrated in the 1995 Million Man March. Some prominent black leaders such as former NAACP head Ben Chavis show allegiance to Nation of Islam. Many black leaders and ministers such as Jesse Jackson demonstrate a reluctance to denounce the extremist group and instead show a willingness to cooperate with it.
Becoming a follower of Nation of Islam by 1991, Ice Cube begins a 1993 track called "Enemy" with a speech by Khallid Muhammad in which the Nation of Islam officer scoffs at racial integration and refers to whites as the "enemy." Ice Cube continues the track with indoctrinations about racial Armageddon, and he sees a need for blacks to assist Allah in killing off the whites: "When God give the word me herd like the buffalo, through your neighborhood. Watch me blast*, drive up your past, getting that ass." When blacks commit crimes against whites, the rapper commands, they are "putting in work for Master Farad Muhammad," the man of light complexion who, as Elijah Muhammad relates in his book, originally taught him the Nation of Islam doctrine during the 1930's in Detroit, Michigan. Master Farad's real name was W. D. Fard, and he disappeared during the 1930's. Ice Cube advises blacks to be up close to whites when shooting them: "don't bust 'till you see the whites of his eyes, the whites of his skin, the whites of his lies." Nation of Islam professes that 1555 marked the beginning of whites enslaving blacks in America, and that shortly after 400 years, God would free the blacks in racial Armageddon. In the 1960's, Elijah Muhammad gave 1965 as the beginning of the final conflict. On the 1993 "Enemy" track, Ice Cube gave 1995 as the ominous date: "After 1995 not one dev[il] will be alive. . . . 1995, Elijah is alive, Louis Farrakhan, NOI*, Bloods* and CRIPS* and little old me, and we all getting ready for the enemy." Elijah Muhammad would have to have risen from the dead in 1995 for he died in 1975. Nation of Islam's doctrines uphold that Farad Muhammad was Allah in human form and that Elijah Muhammad was a prophet. Ice Cube upholds the following on the "Enemy" track: "I know that Farrakhan is your baby Jesus."
The pamphlets inserted into the 1991 Death Certificate CD, in fact, show a photograph of Ice Cube standing and reading a copy of Nation of Islam's newspaper, The Final Call. The weekly newspaper's title refers to the final warning God gives in order to get blacks to pledge to Nation of Islam doctrines just before the onset of racial Armageddon. In the background of the photograph, looking ominous behind Ice Cube, stand members of Nation of Islam's security force, the so-called Fruit of Islam. On the pamphlet Ice Cube recruits: "The best place for a young black male or female is the Nation of Islam."
Ice Cube puts onto CD's his ideas of violence directed at law enforcement officers and white officers are singled out. In "U Ain't Gonna Take My Life," the rapper threatens: "[censored] sheriff* can't wait to tear him a chunk of a [censored] ass. But watch a [censored] blast* and get a white [censored] fast." He magnifies his personal commitment to his cause by placing himself in the song: "Just because you gotta badge did you think Ice Cube was gonna wave the white flag? Cracker, please." Ice Cube cannot hold in his violently racist fantasies: "when I saw Rodney* it got me so hot it made me wanna go out and pop me a cop." In the song the rapper refers to his own face as "the face of the original man," referring to Nation of Islam's belief that blacks were the original race on earth. On his 1991 track "The Wrong [censored] To [censored] Wit," the Los Angeles rapper says that he will shoot off the head of former Los Angeles police chief Darryl Gates if the rapper catches him in a traffic jam.
The only common target besides whites and law enforcement officers is black men, in particular and most often those men who are rival rappers or drug dealers. In some songs drug dealers or gangbangers are threatened because the rapper views them as a detriment to predominantly black communities, yet in other songs either the same types are described matter-of-factly without faulting them or the rapper glorifies himself to be a drug dealer. Occasionally the lyrics attempt to persuade listeners that blacks who act too much like whites should be killed. Demeaning references to women are commonly made, and sometimes the rapper voices threats at them. In "You Can't Fade Me" Ice Cube raps that he is thinking about shooting a woman in the head who tried to trap him falsely as the father of her child in order to make him pay for child support. In "Cave [censored]" white women are degraded and he suggests that blacks should kidnap white women and hold them for ransom. Demeaning synonyms for female are thrown at men also, as are derogatory synonyms for homosexual. Homosexuals, although rarely pointed at by the rapper, are threatened in "Enemy" and in a few lines of "You & Your Heroes," the later being a song that claims black entertainers and athletes are superior to white ones; however, in both songs being white overrides being homosexual as the reason for targeting. Violence directed at white Jews occurs in one phrase of one song called "No Vaseline," and at white Christians it occurs in many phrases of several songs including "When I Get To Heaven."
The proliferation of Ice Cube's violently racist lyrics among millions of consumers is ensured by all major music retailers and by mainly one distributor, the music giant EMI Group PLC of the United Kingdom. The EMI Group's subsidiary, EMI Music Distribution, has manufactured and shipped all along for Priority Records, the company that has marketed over 11 million of the artist's CD's (SoundScan ®). Key titles spread around by the Priority/EMI Group team are AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (1990), Death Certificate (1991), The Predator (1992), Lethal Injection (1993), Bootlegs & B-Sides (1994), and Planet of da Apes (1994). Time Warner labels Elektra and Eastwest originally handled Guerillas in tha Mist. Viacom's MTV promotes Ice Cube in music videos. If not in stock, consumers can order the titles through any retail store.
Lyrical References
*blast: discharge bullets from a gun.
*Bloods: black gangbangers loosely affiliated by the act of wearing red clothing, by the proximity of neighborhood streets, or by a history of retaliation between other gangs. In the Planet of da Apes CD inserts, Da Lench Mob rappers dedicate the CD's to Bloods, referring to them as "Street Soldiers."
*bust: shoot a firearm.
*chrome: handgun having a metallic luster, due to chrome plating, nickel plating, or made of solid stainless steel.
*CRIPS: black gangbangers loosely affiliated by the act of wearing blue clothing, by the proximity of neighborhood streets, or by a history of retaliation between rival gangs. In the Planet of da Apes CD inserts, Da Lench Mob rappers dedicate the CD's to CRIPS, referring to them as "Street Soldiers."
*dome: a person's head.
*NOI: Nation of Islam.
*Rodney: Rodney King.
*sheriff: Los Angeles County sheriffs patrol pockets of South Los Angeles that are not incorporated but are as urban as the cities surrounding them, and the pockets often have black or Latino gangs.
Textual References
"The Predator" is from The Predator, 1992, Priority Records, EMI Group.
Message to the Blackman in America was authored by Elijah Muhammad. It was originally published in 1965, and later in 1992 by United Brothers Communications Systems of Newport News, Virginia. For a summary of the book go to (click on) Message to the Blackman in America.
Go to (click on) Reference Week1A for information about the reluctance of black ministers and Jesse Jackson to denounce Nation of Islam and about their willingness to cooperate with the group.
Ice Cube became a follower of Nation of Islam by 1991: Ice Cube attended a Farrakhan rally in 1989. (NY Times, 7-14-91.); Ice Cube intently watched Farrakhan on television during an interview (Rolling Stone, 10-4-90, page 83.); in a 1991 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Ice Cube said the following: "With my next record, Def Certificate, you'll see how the Nation of Islam has influenced me. . . . I listen to Louis Farrakhan a lot because he teaches self-love. They say he teaches hate, but if we don't hate somebody after all the stuff we've been through. . . . I think the Nation of Islam is the best organization for self-love when it comes to black people, and I listen and learn from that." (7-14-91.); "Cube has joined the Nation of Islam." (Chicago Tribune, 11-10-91.); Ice Cube "is also closely linked to the militant black nationalist group the Nation of Islam." (Independent, London, 11-19-91, page 9.); paragraph seven of the present article explains how he recruits for Nation of Islam with his 1991 CD; Ice Cube said the following: "I'm hanging out with brothers from the Nation of Islam." (Interview magazine, December 1991.); "Surrounded by security guards from the Nation of Islam, Ice Cube spoke" publicly at a Los Angeles high school. (Los Angeles Times, 12-16-93.); "Ice Cube, 24, who has become a follower of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam . . .". (NY Times Magazine, 4-3-94, page 42.); "After joining the Reverend Louis Farrakhan's radical Nation of Islam sect, Ice Cube began to . . . ". (1995 Current Biography Yearbook, page 269.)
"Enemy" is from Lethal Injection, 1993, Priority Records, EMI Group.
Death Certificate, 1991, Priority Records, EMI Group.
Every issue of The Final Call has a column written by Elijah Muhammad. The columns are often excerpts from Message to the Blackman in America. Inside the last page of every issue there is a photograph of Elijah Muhammad, and the accompanying text is divided into two parts. The upper part, "What the Muslims Want," lists Nation of Islam's demands as follows: "Equal justice. . . . regardless of creed or class or color"; a separate territory for blacks; equal employment opportunities as long as blacks are not granted a separate territory; no taxes for blacks as long as they do not get equal justice; separate schools for blacks where their children are taught by "their own teachers"; and an end to racial integration. The lower part, "What the Muslims Believe," gives a list of twelve beliefs and some of them are as follows: calls for cessation to racial integration and for creation of a separate territory are repeated; "the so-called Negroes in America" are the chosen people spoken of in the Bible and the Qur'an; blacks must change their names that were imposed upon them by their "former slave masters"; blacks should not fight in wars for America unless they are given a separate territory; and W. Fard Muhammad was a prophet.
"U Ain't Gonna Take My Life" is from Bootlegs & B-Sides, 1994 , Priority Records, EMI Group.
"The Wrong [censored] to [censored] Wit" is from the Death Certificate album.
Violence directed at blacks who act too much like whites: blacks with PhD's who do not "roll" with the blacks against the system will be killed, occurs on the "Endangered Species" track of the 1990 AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted album and the 1990 Kill at Will album; "But is Willy Williams down with the pilgrims? Just a super slave, we'll have to break his ass up like Super Dave," are phrases that occur on the "Wicked" track of The Predator album. Willy Williams became the chief of the LAPD after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots; "Hang that police chief named Willy" is a phrase that occurs on the "My Skin Is My Sin" track of the Bootlegs & B-Sides album.
"You Can't Fade Me" is from AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, 1990, Priority Records, EMI Group.
"Cave [censored]" is from the Lethal Injection album.
"You & Your Heroes" is from Guerillas in tha Mist, 1992, Eastwest and Elektra, Time Warner.
"No Vaseline" is from the Death Certificate album.
"When I Get To Heaven" is from the Bootlegs & B-Sides album.
Elektra and Eastwest labels: In 1992 when Guerillas in tha Mist came out, it was handled at Elektra and Atlantic through channels that specialize in the promotion of black music. Elektra was owned by Time Warner's Atlantic Records in 1992. Other major record labels also have executives whose titles contain the phrase "black music." Directors of "Black Music Marketing," "Black Music Promotion," "Black Music A&R," or "Black Music Sales," exist at the following companies: Columbia Records, Island Records, MCA Music Entertainment, RCA Records, and Warner Brother Records.
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http://home.att.net/~phosphor on May 6, 1998.
Last editing was posted October 15, 1999.
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Topic: Racist Rap Crap, Ice Cube: The Violent Racism of Ice Cube I hope Icy Melts! (Read 2415 times)