Indeed there is winter in the heads of amerikkka. I’m not talking about the change of weather, I’m talking about the mindset right now in the states. Being kept away from key information about the world one wonders, do amerikkkans really care? Coming out of Brazil this past week made me realize, in at least a hip hop cultural way, how much American hip hop has reflected the mindset of the oppressor. A country of 80 million black and people of color within the total population of about 150 mil, there is a need to address the issue of the condition of the peeps within the rich culture of the Brazilian beats, and now through their hip hop. While down in Brazil completing PE’s 50th tour the scenario was perfect. We were scheduled to play the TIM FESTIVAL, which is basically the country’s pop music fest, and then head to open the week’s activities where we would participate in the HUTUS FESTIVAL, which in essence is their hip hop fest.

I had gotten the first inquiry to revisit BRAZIL before the summer, getting an e-mail from FAB FIVE FREDDY not long after he had written an article on BRAZIL for VIBE. Eleven years back a couple of Fred’s partners, ROY CORMIER and MICHAEL FISHER, had brought us down there and we pretty much introduced a higher lever of hip hop to the land. I make it a point to study a place before I perform there, and then follow up by asking an interviewer just as many questions as they would ask me. Slavery so-called was abolished in BRAZIL in 1888, being the shortest route land to land, new world wise, from AFRICA to the so-called new world. The Portuguese participation in the slave trade was as brutal as any in the EURO-union. In BRAZIL they had to come up with a different way of letting black folk know we were inferior. A light to dark social caste system was put to order, in essence splitting the blacks up as many as eight ways based on complexion. The closer someone was to white, complexion-wise, so were they mentally, separate from someone darker. I remember many street corner discussions and arguments in 1992 regarding letting someone know that they were really black in a land that the one drop of blood rule didn’t apply.

The ‘fight the power’ vibe that we put down in 1992 in the SAO PAULO STADIUM was mighty. Brazilian hip hop legends RACIONAIS MCS helped usher in that understanding of jelling the people together through the culture. The hip hop value system was in place adhering to the four major elements; DJing, MCing, graffiti and breakdancing. Combined with that, fast forwarding to 2003 it had indeed left an impression. The HUTUS FESTIVAL was something I had planned to participate in anyway. Plans to bring the group back through back and forth e-mail were in place. In the meantime the TIM FESTIVAL had popped up for us. We played in front of a capacity crowd although they were the more affluent peeps who could afford the $50.00 ticket. We knew to balance this off a weeks worth of activities for the HUTUS was mandatory.

The hotel was right smack dab on the Copacabana Beach, where the summer scene was as fantastic as you would expect, coconuts for one dollar getting hacked open with a straw for the milk, future Rolandos playing beach soccer and volleyball and the girls laying out in the South American sun. Transportation galore, buses, cabs and cars. The food was rich with few, if any, preservatives. The first night we were there my guys tripped over to one of the main black music clubs and the festive scene was that of a lower Manhattan summer night. The music from the states bled from the speakers, JA-RULE, 50 club vibes amongst Brazilian beats. Although we didn’t have DJ LORD for the RIO dates because of a customs technicality, PE with the backing live band of Bryan HARDGROOVE, Khyri WYNN and NEW YORK CITY MIKE FAULKNER compensated.

I must’ve done fifty interviews and interpreters were needed for almost every one of them. Each one was informative and inspiring indeed. On Monday FAB FIVE FRED and myself did a panel dissertation on hip hop music and film and it was a trip listening to the interpreter through the headphones, as well as watching the whole audience listening through headphones when we spoke. Some UN sh*t again proving that language is a barrier between like-minds. Tuesday I visited Brazilian rapper MV BILL in his ‘favilla’ the ‘CITY OF GOD’... I made it a point of getting there especially after peeping the movie of the same name, which depicts a storyline of young Brazilian kids who choose a life of gangsterism and crime to escape Brazilian poverty of the favilla. Sitting there with MV BILL, looking right at his crib, I suggested that next year we do a show and make a DVD there to raise funds as well as the standards… he was open to it.

Wednesday the HUTUS AWARDS took place and the vibe, fanfare and professionalism was one of the most dedicated I had seen regarding hip hop. In all the areas surrounding the genre here were young black folks stepping up to handle the art with care and dignity. Other cats were also contributing but it was refreshing to see the effort of young black people handling it all with such professionalism. Seriously in all aspects; presentation, speeches, set design, homage on down this show was one of the best and most electric I’d been to. It would’ve totally embarrassed the SOURCE AWARDS. We performed a small set closing the show and presenting the award for the best hip hop group of the year. The next night we closed out the performance stage with a full show after witnessing one of the most organized MC battles I’d seen.

Ah, so much for RIO as we headed to SAO PAULO to revisit and do a major show that Friday night. DJ LORD met us there and we torched the show. During the set we brought on Brazilian MCs BENIGAO (who I met and brought on the stage this past summer in Portugal), RAPPIN HOOD and others to close it out. LORD and I hung out in SAO PAULO an extra day to check out tour buddies BLACKALICIOUS do their thing in town. There are so many great Brazilian groups and rappers as there is a legacy of legendary Brazilian musicians who are so woven into the culture that young people are very familiar with them as their roots. Much different than here in the US where the radiation of a radio-TV- nation keeps heads locked into a consumer slavedom of a large dosage of now.

Yup back in the USSA where, based on world opinion, America is becoming a smaller part of the planet. I asked many Brazilians who were confused about black American’s happiness to being modern day slaves under the hypocrisy of US rhetoric and hype. When asked if they would want to move to the US many of them said no. Besides, down there there’s still a Mickey Ds on every other corner. It’s a true melting pot down there and the people are making sure that the bottom of the population doesn’t get melted. Right now the message to many rappers with a conscious approach is… Expand your game Attitude and mind… Extend your terrain… Increase your brain… That will be your freedom. Globally smart instead of American dumb.

Before I left for Brazil I spoke at BOB LAW’S ‘Turn Off the Radio’ campaign in Brooklyn. It seems that so many people are caught in the radiation that they underestimate today’s programming power of new mind control and propaganda. BOB LAW and others who understand know that the hidden hand of commerce has censored intelligent black voices, art and opinion over the airwaves. It trickles down to even this months URB magazine where rapper MURS from Def Jux asks rapper SLUG from Atmosphere/Rhymesayers ‘Why he doesn’t have any black fans and why Murs doesn’t have any at all?’ SLUG had no answer. At the root of this is post-slave mentality and good ole amerikkkan racism.

Black people follow programming wherever it’s at as long as it has a black voice or face with it. Radiation of a radio-TV-nation has folk pied-pipered like wallpaper to these formerly black owned niche institutions, now owned by ‘other’ based corporations for the so- called sake of green. If it ain’t on BET, 106 and Park, white-owned black-faced music urban radio stations, UPN, WB, or maybe some black athlete playing it loud in the back of some ESPN interview, it stands to remain UNKNOWN. That’s why MURS has no black fans and he doesn’t have white fans because the barriers between the relations are still high in amerikkka. The saying ‘if its hot it’ll shine anyway’ and ‘may the best jam win’ is bullsh*t when you talk about how and what is gonna get on the airwaves of amerikkka. Again, let the web at least be the foundation of setting your art free. More intellectual rap artists won’t get on the radio because it’s dumbed down for 12 year old consumption. Yes, hip hop and rap seems bigger than ever and appears the same but it’s like the first PLANET OF THE APES where Mr. NRA Charlton Heston finds his fellow captured comrade across the yard. He runs up to him expecting to be just as recognized, but to no avail. As he rolls up to him he notices a scar on the side of his temple. He screams "you bastards cut out his brain so he wouldn’t talk". So what the top 10 had all hip hop, the brain has been cut out along with what some say, the soul left long ago. All that appears is the body. Thus many say rap has had a lobotomy. The smarter and more skillful MURS becomes the more obscure he will be to his people. More on this below the kneecap of this t-dome.

The UK was splendid as we covered Bristol & Leeds for a second time. In Manchester we probably did our finest show of the year, a blazing performance by all members and parts that will most likely end up as a DVD titled MKLVFKWR Public Enemy; The Greatest Hip Hop Show On Earth. At Edinburgh up in Scotland where we witnessed the last day of CONCORDE flight, the gig was cut short because of promoter curfew. It was still a good vibe as Scotland in the fall is calm, serene and a beautiful scenic transition. Oh yeah, speaking of the Concorde FLAV, TERMINATOR and myself flew on it around 1989. After doing Saviors Day in Chicago we got a ride to DETROIT to catch a 6:00am flight to JFK where we caught the CONCORDE just in time to do a three man show in LONDON after EPMD and GANG STARR. The ride by the way was a pure rocket. Three hours across the Atlantic. One hour going up into dark blue, the rest descending to earth. All that so as not to get sued by the promoter.

Yeah, speaking of MKLVFKWR, it’s the working title not just of the current two year anti-war call out, but a PE-MOBY collab set for next year’s Olympics in ATHENS, GREECE. A cool dude, many think that he’s British or European, but he’s actually a native New Yorker. He told me he’s a DJ himself and used to spin on the lower west side. Cool… I think we’re gonna make an anthem with this, and I think this will at least chill out EMINEM on that classroom bully for now.

In the mix we did BUDAPEST, HUNGARY for a second time and this city is very electric. Again Eastern Europe feels closer to home because it has a soul. Rap speaks to the people and it was a gathering point for COMRADE, TUMA, and SLAM future vocalist TIJANA BASS all from Belgrade SERBIA-MONTENEGRO. Revolverlution SHUT EM DOWN remix winner the FUNCTIONIST drove from nearby Vienna, and although I put out a notice that Hungarian SLAM rappers PLUSSIDE were in the house we never met up. The next day, traveling for our second time to PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, yet another high octane show. This is perhaps because these situations have been free for 14 years or so with a forward thinking. Communists, capitalists, governments, terrorists are all synonymous to the people who say freedom does not mean free to be dumb.

I know that a ‘keep JAY Z in the music business petition’ is passing around and thus I responded to it like ‘hello???????’ and the question is......why???

1. He’s not going anywhere, he will record again; 2. Because what is he gonna do with his life? Run for office? Ain’t his thing… (But then again Cali has governator so…jigganor in 2014?) 3. Black people need to petition some clear things like how to not let the draft return, 2 million black folk in jail, Bush getting 87 billion (Real bling) for more war... not whether Kobe will get off (although that has political ramifications)or will Jigga give us more reasons to sip champagne and party...

Solution: Buy his old stuff and wait for his new stuff, he will be O-K… a letter sent to me said the BLACK ALBUM was a must pick up because this person wanted to find out how many more things, and how much more money Jig had than him in 2003. I say pick it up for the skills regardless of the same thing said OVA from HOVA.

I got one letter in reply to a response I wrote to SOHH’s letter to GOLDENEYES ENTERTAINMENT about JAY-Z’s album being available online because I said ‘big white man’ in reference to the corporate heads such as DOUG MORRIS and JIMMY IOVINE. Told this cat, please give me a break. Nothing personal but don’t you think UNIVERSAL head honcho Doug Morris knows he’s a BIG WHITE MAN? Again… please… I will print this chain letter scenario as well as my response to LYOR COHEN and LL COLL J in the next T-dome for sure; right now there ain’t enough room.

Oh yeah the SOURCE AWARDs… compared to THE HUTUS AWARDS in BRAZIL - pale. More on this below…

KOOL MOE DEE’s THERE’S A GOD ON THE MIC is out. It covers the top 50 MCs as judged by KMD himself. Yours truly wrote the forward. It’s very important that more of the contributors of the art form also cover the art itself. In sports you see former players go into broadcasting, coaching, writing, and analysis. In other forms of music cats have the final or at least partial say-so regarding their output. In hip hop, like the blues and other black music, we wait for someone else to have the final say-so on us. That’s bullsh*t. I do my best to answer critics, especially if I’m just as informed as them. Yes MOE like myself went to and graduated from college in 1984 in fact…participated and excelled and surely won’t tolerate an individual judgment call from a lesser qualified SOURCE. F**k that. Again, on MUSE SICK IN HOUR MESS AGE I hear very few give HARRY ALLEN credit for his prediction of the digital revolution in music. Now since ipod has commercials the streets are familiar, so who runs the streets? Holla.

Some of the backpacking journalists give the ghetto-gangster-slum life-rap more props than those that favor intelligence. It’s perhaps because they think that artists cannot possibly be as smart as them, just because they have a job lacing a few paragraphs together about what they so-call love. Maybe it’s because there’s fascination with the distance of drama. Everything is glorious because the burden is not dealt with. After dealing with 50 tours and 53 countries, I’m tired of hearing bullsh*t about how PE went ‘downhill’ after NATION and FEAR by cats who were too young to realize that our intention with music was to never make the same album twice, while making every song performable. The credo of rock. And we shouldn’t separate this from hip hop. Now that my favorite group OUTKAST is known and revered for taking those same artistic chances, a hip hop journalist who now turns over across the age of 30 (where I was during those albums) finally understands the pattern of musicianship. I hear cats talking about beats but what they mean is the total music of it all.

In the new book CLASSIC MATERIAL they cover the greatest albums in hip hop, and I’m thankful that they mentioned FEAR and NATION, two albums on which my blueprint was to cover uncharted territory. But Peter Shapiro’s evaluation of FEAR being ‘effectively the end of PE’ is some typical amerikkkan white boy journalistic ‘if it doesn’t hit me in the head it doesn’t exist’ bullsh*t. It’s like they couldn’t admit that cats like MOE DEE and myself not only PLAYED THE GAME but know all the intellectual bullsh*t that got them their journalistic jobs in the first place. TOURE’s a victim of this too. Because of their limitations beyond what they know, the judgment of their written evaluation stays unchallenged. There’s clearer analysis of music as they matured alongside the music during the nineties and into the millennium. I wouldn’t say that they’re ‘wack’ but I would say that they’re limited, and you cannot go without connecting HIP HOP AND RAP MUSIC to the forms of genres that helped make it. This all started from records. If we continue to pay attention to that rate of their acceptance we will never have BEATLES, ROLLING STONES, GREATFUL DEAD, BOB DYLAN, MADONNA, or damn at least JIMMY BUFFETT that some of these same cat’s bosses pay $200.00 to see. Artists like DE LA SOUL, CYPRESS HILL, DAS EFX are still doing their thing using the whole field like artists and performers are supposed to do. Not sit on their ass until they get accepted and sanctioned by the RIAA video-hit, or be afraid to perform in front of today’s marketplace because 1. Hip hop’s a perceived kid’s music and the kids don’t know this person’s music; 2. They don’t wanna look like they’re broke and they’re doing the show because they need the money; 3. They used to have a company machine to position them in front of a crowd and now lack the skills to run their own business in music.

Again we wait to be judged, we wait for a structure. Then again it took some white dude to manage JOHN LEE HOOKER and together make millions organizing his sh*t. Again hip hop has no color, but I think racism and arrogance hovers over it as well. The black cats are disorganized, sloppy and think that the quantity of money is the thing opposed to the quality of effort. Stacking money like it’s gonna disappear in a hustle. Replenishing and thus preservation are after thoughts. Black artists in rap are lazy, child-like and ignorant to what they’re within and when they do know something they continue the cycle of greed by attempting to make a killing of the business to the point of little or no growth behind it. Waiting for somebody to organize it like earthlings wait for Jesus in a blonde form. With this the white cat waits in the wings and keeps his distance upon evaluation. Somehow, because the artists choose to do the art, he thinks he’s the smarter cat. He starts off reflecting and ultimately starts dictating what is what, even down to creative. The slavemaster to slave roles are all played out here on the low. The most dangerous aspects get the most respect as long as it’s not dangerous to the status quo itself. Thus the NIGGER FACTORY begins. Niggers are favored and safe in amerikkka because they’re only harmful to black people like a cancer or a tumor. Negroes are chosen by the white business cats as gatekeepers to liquidate this all into green by any means necessary. Black people are always a threat so throw racism AND niggerism at them and they’ll spend a lifetime trying to fight both off. In essence last week’s SOURCE AWARDS reflected hip hop’s transition into the NIGGER FACTORY...niggers being sold to white America while negroes place their position in making money for the structure set by a white man corp, OK to turn it into green that black people will never see unless they’re spending it as robotic consumers in the USSA. Clearly it ain’t working together which it should be, and whether you’re black, white, blue (skin color categorization is ridiculous ain’t it, but since amerikkka is about as black/white as an old TV set, I gotta go there for most to understand) or whatever… amerikkkan hip hop can afford to de-stereotype these roles to go forward in a world that’s already moving ahead.

In fairness I will admit I changed my take over the world with a record approach after 1994 and just recorded things that were experimental and yet would work with PE. Thank god while initially many rap groups and artists waited for this thing to organize in the states, and people like DAVID MAYS to form the SOURCE, (again black folks waiting for somebody else to legitimize what we do) I took off for the world. I always thought out of the box, so at my first chance I took my art out of it. If you look back it was evident from the first minutes of NATION where I knew that we may never have a following within the radiation of a radio-TV-movienation where I showed that our music already had a massive following complete with crowd, forward thinking yet hip hopped out while pop black Americans sang I NEED LOVE by LL. Now that the UK is essentially the 51st state and TONY BLAIR is SON OF A BUSH’s vice president, there are other places to favor our view of hip hop.

We indeed pay full attention to the elements of hip hop - emceeing, deejaying, and respect graf and the breakers, and the founders KOOL HERC, GRANDMASTER FLASH and AFRIKA BAMBAATAA and the worldwide ZULU NATION. We know that these forms and people are not indigenous to themselves without connecting them to the black efforts of vocalists, musicians, dancers and artists who have contributed to the arts from our hooded existence. Since 1903, and THOMAS EDISON’S first recordings, there’s 100 years of tracing what’s before hip hop. We can learn thoroughly to build forward better. Thus back to the point KOOL MOE DEE’s book should be a benchmark on analysis beyond most things you’ve read because not only is he a very clear analytical thinker on the subject, but he has clearly not just pioneered but reigned at the rap game itself. To be judged by my peers as opposed to cats outta seemingly nowhere… we can use in a genre of rotted out rites of passage.

Rolled back into the states to do YORK UNIVERSITY in PA... UNCC in beautiful CHARLOTTE, NC and ended up in LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY on a packed house Friday night. I wasn’t as sharp as I usually am but that could’ve been because BRA-ZIL was still in my head. One thing I did enjoy was my first visit to WAFFLE HOUSE while in LEX - raisin toast, scrambled eggs, grits, and waffle I just couldn’t get in BRAZIL, EUROPE, or LONG ISLAND… alongside my sweet tea.

Ok, now the big 5 are morphing into the big 3...in case you didn’t hear. EMI is getting with TIME-WARNER, and SONY with the NOTORIOUS BMG. With this thousands of people better find jobs doing something else, and many artists will bite the dust. The cop out - awww, they’re blaming it alllllllllll on downloading. Again, its bullsh*t. Well, now there will be many, and better, opportunities for independent artist situations. It ain’t supposed to be easy, and one shouldn’t be only in this for the money, then obviously you gonna get your feelings and ego hurt as well as pockets freeze-dried out. I hear things on the enemy board about what’s the meaning of SLAMjamz, especially by my man CHILLIOUS who’s in the stores right now...props. SLAMjamz is simply how I see a label...it’s a personal thing I’d like to see grow out beyond my tastes.

People like Mgee, JOSHSAM, C-DOC, G-Wiz, and Johnny Juice have made what was a hobby into something I’ve been working on for two years. An outlet of distribution in the offline world (stores) and a solid area of web-mail order (midline) to break new diverse artists into the marketplace. The offline roster is slim as it should be, and the innovation of the label will be releasing CD/DVD dual pieces into DVD sections, as opposed to the swamped CD sections where I feel it’s impossible to break new acts without 3 million dollars behind them. Thus our first act will be THE IMPOSSEBULLS, the worlds first virtual rap squad. Each package will have their artist world self contained, videos, web links, etc. The other acts will emerge throughout the year. The other acts, outside of this, I will choose if there’s enough material, or relationship for midline-order. Beyond this www.slamjamz.com will inform, and be a niche area for songs and info. Other than that it’s just one of many independent artist labels trying to do the damn thing. And just because some cats are not riding the offline and midline roster doesn’t mean I don’t dig em.

Our motto is to be GLOBALLY SMART as opposed to being subject to being DUMB IN AMERICA within the radiation of a radio-TV-movienation.

Coming this week the new publicenemy.com home page; it’s an exciting direction of information done up by Dean Engmann and Gary G-Wiz, an example of a working together team of brotherhood based on dignity and respect, not that old crazy-sided exploitation thing that is happening across the music right now.

Last but not least how would you feel if you wrote a letter 8 years ago, and didn’t get a reply until yesterday? That’s how I felt picking up and then reading TUPAC’S book RESURRECTION 1971-1996. Page 194 has his response to a 7 page letter I wrote him while he was incarcerated in upstate New York. I had decided to write him whereas not long before ICE T and myself were waiting for him to join us as a third component to the EUROPEN AMERICA’S MOST WANTED tour then. He was shot 5 times while in NY handling his court case. He was then jailed and I wrote him a very personal hardcore note on what really was going on inside his head and soul. I really didn’t expect, or receive, a response but I had to say what I had to say regardless. I’m straight and no chaser, and look a cat in the eye. No, I don’t remember exactly what I said and what the letter looks like, (who copies their own letter before sending it?.. snail mail keeps no record) but I know that the next time I saw PAC he was rolling up with SUGE at the HOUSE OF BLUES in LA and we hugged and PAC talked of plans for kids and the hood. The next time I saw him disoriented, angry and lost about a year later at a post MTV Video awards party searching for NAS in a NYC park. Two weeks later he was shot dead in VEGAS. When everyone was crying I was angry as fuk because it was a waste of a genius, and everybody watched him heading into death like it was a movie or video. I didn’t get that return letter until yesterday, that in mind I had an idea deep down but never knew exactly how he was down with getting out and comprehending his paradox. I was there for him and somewhere out there he was there for me. Yeah, I know this for sure now. 2003… Yeah.

With all that transpired this past week I will reserve my commentary on Eminem, Mike Jax, Phil Spector, Son Of A Bush, etc… for when I get back from Australia back into the radiation of the USSA next month. Oh yeah, and I got yall on that letter about the DC thing in Oct, so much news and drama...I’m headin back to summertime yall.

Gone Mistachuck@rapstation.com