MTV Attempts To Censor Public Enemy

According to Public Enemy’s Chuck D., MTV has censored their "Gotta Give The People What They Need" video. Chuck D. said in a statement released to DaveyD.com that MTV objected to the song’s references to controversial incarcerated figure Mumia Abu-Jamal. "They’re playing the hell out of Nelly and Khia, dumbing American kids down to ‘its […]

According to Public Enemy’s Chuck D., MTV has

censored their "Gotta Give The People What They Need" video. Chuck

D. said in a statement released to DaveyD.com that MTV objected to the song’s

references to controversial incarcerated figure Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"They’re playing the hell out of Nelly and

Khia, dumbing American kids down to ‘its so hot imma take my clothes off’ down

from ‘my neck to the crack of my ass’ with a ‘shot of Courvosier’ .No offense

to the prior two artists, because I really don’t think they know any better,"

Chuck D. said.

"We’ve ( black people on screen ) been

reduced to comedy," he continued. "As an artist I’ve been fighting

all my career

in a genre that has been hijacked by ‘culture bandits’, simply cats who’ve used

rap music and hip-hop as a personal whatever without putting anything back where

they’ve got it from in the first place."

MTV came to what could be deemed a "compromise,"

by claiming they would air the video if the group agreed to edit the word "free"

before Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"I refuse to edit out the Mumia audio and

visual," Chuck said. "That’s crazy and they must be out of their f*cking

minds."

"They didn’t mention the H. Rap Brown (former

Black Panther Party leader who is accused of shooting and killing a police officer

in Atlanta, GA) Rap Brown part which befuddles me for he’s accused of the same

thing. Maybe they’re so unfamiliar and dumb that they don t know who he is and

think I’m talking about some Brown rappin cat or something. I play the race

card for real in this case. The charge of Viacom/MTV reducing us to comedy through

images forces me to flip that card out."

Chuck admitted that it wasn’t the fact that it

wasn’t about playing the Public Enemy video, as much as it was the fact that

they requested him to censor his view point. "If they think having a political

viewpoint in music is irrelevant, it’s because they’ve taken the Nazi approach

in censoring it themselves," Chuck D. said.

MTV had no comment.