Public Enemy’s “Burn Hollywood Burn” Doesn’t Mean What TikTokers Think It Means

Chuck D, one of Hip-Hop’s most definitive voices, is dispelling assumptions about Public Enemy’s 1990 single “Burn Hollywood Burn” featuring Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane.

As Los Angeles continues to fend off the worst natural disaster in the city’s history, Chuck D hopped on Instagram to both explain the meaning behind the Fear of a Black Planet track and encourage people to stop using the song for their social media videos.

“Burn Hollywood Burn is a protest song, extracted from the Watts rebellion monikered by the magnificent Montague in 1965 against inequality when he said ‘Burn Baby Burn’ across the air,” he wrote. “We made mind revolution songs aimed at a one sided exploitation by an industry. Has nothing to do with families losing everything they have in a natural disaster. Learn the history.”

Chuck added in the caption, “Please don’t use our song on your reels and pictures of this horrifying natural disaster.”

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Those unfamiliar with the track, mostly the younger TikTok generation who’s likely ignorant of Public Enemy’s enormous impact in the late ’80s and early ’90s, can Google the lyrics for a better understanding. Like Chuck often points out, everyone has a tiny computer in their pockets these days.

@ralpheboynyc1♬ Burn Hollywood Burn – Extended Censored Fried To The Radio Version – Public Enemy & Ice Cube & Big Daddy Kane

Ice Cube’s verse, for example, begins, “Ice Cube is down with the P.E/Now every single b#### wanna see me/Big Daddy is smooth, word to mother/Let’s check out a flick that exploits the color/Roaming through Hollywood late at night/Red and blue lights what a common sight/Pulled to the curb, getting played like a sucker/Don’t fight the power, the m###########

“As I walk the streets of Hollywood Boulevard/Thinking how hard it was to those that starred/In the movies portraying the roles/Of butlers and maids, slaves and hoes/Many intelligent Black men seemed/To look uncivilized when on the screen/Like, I guess I figure you to play some j######/On the plantation, what else can a n#### do?”

Chuck D even starts the song with, “Burn Hollywood burn I smell a riot/Goin’ on — first they’re guilty, now they’re gone,” an obvious reference to the Watts rebellion he mentioned in his post.

The L.A. fires began on Thursday (January 7) in the Pacific Palisades area, just west of downtown Los Angeles. Five other fires sprouted up—the Sunset Fire, Kenneth Fire, Lidia Fire, Eaton Fire and Hurst Fire. On Saturday (January 11), Gov. Gavin Newsom provided an update: the Sunset Fire is at 100 percent containment, Lidia at 75 percent, Hurst at 37 percent and Kenneth at 35 percent. The most dangerous and destructive, the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire, are at 8 and 3 percent, respectively.

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