PART
TWO(Read Part 1)
AllHipHop.com: On the page preceding the opening chapter, you cite the
following quote from Edgar Cayce: “Heaven is not a place you go to, it is a
place you grow to.” Taken out of context, I would like to know when you first
stumbled upon that quote, as well as the immediate impact it had on you. And
then putting it back into context, I would like to know why you decided to open
your book with it. What does that
particular quote mean to you?
KRS-One: Well first of all, Edgar Cayce is the man. Straight up and
down. This dude, they used to call him “the sleeping prophet.” Most of the
quotes that are in the book are my attempts to guide hip hop to a further
spiritual or philosophical knowledge. So Edgar Cayce, right up at the top, is
telling you exactly where we are at. We are into psychic ability. We don’t
front on that. We are into speaking to the dead, speaking beyond time,
meditation, creative visualization, fasting, prayer; these things, we’re into
that. So, if you do research on Edgar Cayce, you’ll see right there where he’s
at, and you will already know what type of document this is, and what type of
politics, what type of spiritual paradigm I am coming from. On another level –
I’m going to be arrogant on this and say – real philosophers know about the
work of Edgar Cayce, number one. Number two, real American philosophers hide
the work of other American philosophers. Too many American-born philosophers
quote philosophers from Europe, quote philosophers from Asia, and quote people
from other times, too. The reason I put Edgar Cayce front-and-center is because
he’s from our time and he’s from the United States of America. Let’s start
right at home. Let’s start right here. These are the reasons. I believe in the
validity of the statement, “Heaven is not a place you go to. It is a place you
grow to.” That also tells you what the book is going to be about. Heaven is not
an abstract place. It is not far off. It is not unreal, an illusion of fantasy
or figment of your imagination. It’s not a cloud in the sky up in space. It’s
actually a state of mind. It’s not an illusionary state of mind, it’s actually
an adjusted state of mind where you can actually see heaven all around you.
Jesus spoke, and so many prophets spoke about heaven being laid out all around
us, but we just don’t see it because we don’t care to see it. So the point is
you’re going to live and grow to heaven. This is the first part. Second piece
of that is that it’s time for new knowledge. That’s what the Gospel
of Hip Hop is putting forward, anyway. It’s
time for new knowledge. It’s time for us to update the principles that we are
used to. Let us talk about growing to heaven, that heaven is a state of
spiritual maturity, not a place that you actually go to. That’s a slightly
different approach, but the hip hop approach, the way that we are all already
practicing heaven. In the inner cities, it’s just never been written down in
that sense. This is an urban philosophy, urban lifestyle. Our children will
call it a religion, but for us right now, it’s just a documentation of our
culture spiritually.
AllHipHop.com: In addition to Edgar Cayce, you also quote the Honorable
Minister Louis Farrakhan on several occasions. One quote in particular struck
me very hard. It’s kind of long,
but I’ll just cut to the chase. In
a nutshell, Farrakhan talks about the importance of teachers and how the artist
plays an important role in society.
In fact, he tells us: “The artist is the most important person! YOU ARE THE TEACHAS! The people listen to you, they don’t
listen to their preachers!
Preacher’s day is done!” I thought that quote was really, really
interesting. What social responsibilities should artists have to the
communities they represent? Although you are quite clear in expressing what an
artist’s social responsibility should be, what do you think it will take to actually make them responsible?
KRS-One: Well, you know, it’s interesting. When I heard Minister
Farrakhan say it, I was floored, because here you have a preacher. Minister
Farrakhan is a preacher, in every sense of the word. And here he is
acknowledging the truth. And the truth is hard. See, this is where it goes back
to philosophy. Sometimes the truth will even destroy you. And that’s why a lot
of people don’t want to really look at the truth. They want to skirt around —
and it’s cool, I mean, I’m not criticizing. But I am separating. I’m making a
separation here, quickly, between the analysis that you’re talking about and
where everybody else is coming from. First of all, we don’t quote American
philosophers. I had to stick Minister Farrakhan in there. As it was written,
this is not about anybody’s religion, at all. We respect everybody. I even
think that Satan has sinned there. Everybody gets respect. No doubt. Hip hop
stands independent, no doubt. However, there has been one dude that’s been in
our ear since…
AllHipHop.com: …forever!
KRS-One: Yeah, man!
Since the ’70s. Forever, this dude’s been in our ear. Minister
Farrakhan! Now keep in mind, too,
this is an elder. Minister Farrakhan’s been sick. He beat cancer. He’s always
getting criticized. His work was hard – death threats, all that s**t. And then
the Nation of Islam itself don’t let Minister Farrakhan start talking about the
internal structure of the Nation. He’s brutal, even with his own people. He’s a
leader. So, at the end of the day, I felt it fitting in a book like this that
goes down forever, and also is a book from the youth — like I’m the youth
compared to Minister Farrakhan – let’s start the book off with the dude that
Public Enemy rapped about, that Kane quoted, that we all heard and admired and
saw the struggle first-hand. And even if you don’t agree, you’ve got to agree
with this dude’s eye on hip hop. From day one, Minister Farrakhan’s been
pointing at us, telling us we are divine and we need to stop this nonsense.
Minister Farrakhan’s never pulled punches with hip hop. He’s called us out,
called cats out. Big gangsta
dudes, he had them on their knees, crying. He had Ja Rule crying – straight up
and down! This is a man in our culture taking meetings and summits. Sad to say,
I ain’t see no Jews do that. I don’t see no Christians come like that. There’s
one Christian that I mention in the book. His name’s Clarence McClendon –
Bishop Clarence McClendon. I met him out in California. He was running a hip
hop church in California and was getting heat for it. And I went there and I
got saved in his church, right there.
AllHipHop.com: Oh, wow!
KRS-One: But I mention him in the book because he put out a thing
called The X Blessing. And he
talked about how biblically hip hop is the new way in the new world. And he, as
a Christian minister, this dude was saying, these dudes are going to come
smelling like weed with guns in their pockets, and we Christians are not going
to know how to deal with them. We’re not going to know. He was telling them:
“Get prepared. This is how God always works. It’s the least one, the one you
don’t expect, the one who looks like they bugging – that’s the one God’s gonna
pick and raise up.” I quoted his whole thing. That, too, is in the Gospel as
well. But that’s about it. Everybody else was dissing. And to get back to your
question about what’s the responsibility of the artist. Preacher’s day is done.
Of course you got to read into that, I mean, because the preachers day is not
done. It has only just begun. But what Minister Farrakhan is speaking to is
that old style — “We gonna make it.” Same old quotes. “No weapon formed
against me shall prosper.” Same old quote on the Muslim side. “All praise to
Allah.” Farrakhan says all that is over now. There’s a new day popping, and
everybody feels it, but very few people have the courage to step up in their
position because you’re going to get dissed by those who have to hold on to the
old power. And you’re going to get praised by those who are standing at the
door trying to get in. And so you’ve got to decide yourself in even putting a
gospel like that forward — which goes back to the question you posed about the
responsibility of the art. You’ve got to ask yourself the question: “Who am I?”
AllHipHop.com: Yes! It is a
question that many of us spend an entire lifetime trying to answer.KRS-One: This is why your question is half-half for me. It’s yes and
no with this responsibility to the artist, because really to be honest with
you, it’s not even about the artist. It’s about the man or the woman. It’s
really about what type of person are you. And I honestly believe that you’ve
got to be ordained to do these things. Like to feel like a Poor Righteous Teacher
or a Public Enemy or to feel like any of X-Clan — that’s an inner thing. That’s
a thing that motivates you, like you as a man or as a woman are the type to not
let injustice go past you. You as a man, as a woman, cannot be bought or bribed
in that sense. So you’ve got to be a certain kind of person to want to help
people, to want to save people. I used to get criticized for that, too. They
said I had a savior complex. I was trying to be a messiah. I was starting a
cult when I mentioned the temple of hiphoppas. People were like, “Oh, Kris is
starting a cult.” And when I put out Spiritual Minded. Then it was: “Oh, Kris is a Christian, now.” And
when I started talking about hip hop building its own secret society. Folk
said: “Kris is with the Illuminati, now.” And I can imagine, what’s people
going to think now of the Gospel of Hip Hop? [laughing]
AllHipHop.com: It’s enlightening to hear you say all of this, because I get
a lot of heat from people, because I’m really big on artist responsibility. I
know you said you were half and half on it, but when I had the chance to study
abroad in college, I was floored by how international audiences digest American
culture. 99% of the time, that is
the only way in which black people, and hip hop culture in general, are
introduced to the world – through multimedia. No disrespect to Charles Barkley and other superstars who
use the recycled — “I’m not a role model. That’s not my responsibility.” –
line. But I feel that once you have elevated yourself via some platform and you
make your life work available for mass consumption, you have to embrace that
and say, “I am a role model even if I don’t want to be.” So, with all that
being said, there is a quote in the Gospel of Hip Hop where you breakdown and create an acronym for the
word sin – selfish,
inconsiderate, needs. There are a lot of artists out there who are claiming,
“I’m the best rapper alive. I’m the best rapper ever.” But I don’t really feel
like the product they’re putting out is changing lives. It’s selling albums,
but I don’t really feel like it’s making the type of music that would inspire
social or political change. So when I look at an artist like yourself, who
doesn’t have that commercial success, but for some reason, people are coming
back to you and doling out mounds of critical acclaim, what does that say?
KRS-One: Well, to be perfectly honest, the music doesn’t match the
statement. Your music is not matching your claims. And this is what the issue
really is.
