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~@ Conversation
TH E SECRET DOCTRINE
A conversationithKillahPriest
KelefaSanneh
There is perhaps no contemporary mu-
sic more concerned with stereotypes
than hip-hop. Against a pastiche of
rhythmic loops from I970os funk and
soul records, new synthesized sounds,
and snippets from radio and television,
the most marketable fantasies of black
and white alike come to life: proud
mothers and roughnecks, black scientists
and licentious women, all laughing and
shouting at one another, loving and
cursing, praying and studying. But no
character in this exaggerated landscape
is more central-or more surprising-
than the AfricanAmerican preacher, hat
figure of cultural and spiritual enlight-
enment whose truth derives less from
sincerity than from bravado.The black
preacher is the prototypical rapper, a
charismatic vernacular performance
artist. Rappers-priests and gangstas
alike-are obliged to talk so much that
they can't help but talk shit;they end up
professing what they do not necessarily
believe.
Those of us who love rapoften try to
downplay its roots in the black vernac-
ular tradition of bullshitting.True devo-
tees call rap music and culture "hip-
hop," echoing "bebop," and the rapper
himself is renamed the MC-the mas-
ter of ceremonies, the microphone con-
troller-as if to bestow on him a title
that reflectsthe seriousnessof his calling.
While it is true that rap lyrics do reveal
truths about partsof the country that are
consistently misrepresented in main-
stream media, it is precisely this insipid
insistence on "truth" and "reality"that
has come to dominate hip-hop criti-
cism. The sad deaths of Tupac Shakur
and Christopher Wallace have been an-
alyzed breathlessly and luridly as artistic
milestones, as if two unsolved murders
held the key to understanding some of
the most compelling pop music of the
decade. Frank Sinatra ran with equally
unsavory characters,but he lived to be
eighty-two-and no one has suggested
that we regard "Young at Heart" as a
162 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
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Courtesy of
Geffen Records
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harbingerof future cardiac arrest.Those
who search for "reality" n raplyrics in-
evitably blur the distinction between bi-
ographyand art,
celebratingtabloid
"facts" that soon pass into urban myth-
ology. And poetry is no match for an ur-
ban myth.
The "reality," f course, is that rappers
are paid to brag and to boast, to make
things up and to talk shit. To those with
no real interest in this tradition-with
no real interest, that is to say, in the
African American vernacular-the vio-
lent imagery on StraightOutta Compton,
NWA's epochal I988 album,seems more
like prescription than performance. In
the decade since NWA's debut, gunplay
hasbecome an essentialcomponent of
hip-hop's tall tales,and rap's east in-
sightfulcriticshave almostgiven up in
disgust.As ghettolife is increasingly lorified
(and ampooned)n thelyricsof some of
the country'smost popularrecords,it-
eral-minded ritics ind confirmation f
the worst stereotypesof socialpathol-
ogy.Their search or "reality" ndsin-
evitablyn success:hevividrhymes hat
reach hip-hop's predominantlywhite
audienceultimatelyeemmore real han
theghettos heyoften claim o represent.
If this confusion has had a deleterious
effect on politicaldiscourse,ts effect on
hip-hop has been no less destructive.
164 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
Elijah Mulhammad
and Malcolm X
at 369th Armory,
1960
Magnum
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The conflation of rapand realityhas ob-
scured some of the most important and
interesting developments in hip-hop.In I993, as the world's attention was
focused on the slow beats and noncha-
lant boasts of Californian gangsta rap,a
new crew with bewildering new ideas
arrived on the scene in the East. From
the unlikely Borough of Staten Island,
New York, the Wu-Tang Clan parodied
hip-hop's carefully cultivated imagery
of violence by invoking far-flung aes-thetic and spiritual kin, although they
recited rhymes no less gruesome than
any other hardcore rap group. Named
for a fearsome martial arts movie dy-
nasty,theWu-Tang Clan equated stories
of neighborhood gunplay with obscure
sequencesfrom undergroundHong Kong
films, compared their lyrical sharpnessto
a ceremonial sword, and mythologizedtheir hometown: they claimed to come
"straight from the slums of Shaolin."
Over a dozen albums and countless sin-
gles later, the Wu-Tang family is among
the most profitable and respected in hip-
hop.
Almost unnoticed underneath the
sensational kung fu fury, avant-garde
production,and inventive wit was
the resurgence of hip-hop gnosticism.
If rappers from the Wu-Tang Clan see
ghetto gunplay in Asian martialarts, hen
they recall the Nation of Islam's Elijah
Muhammad, who saw a flying saucer in
the biblical parable of Ezekiel's wheel
and who derived a pure Egyptian her-
itage from his own mulatto skin. This
similarity is no coincidence. The Nation
of Islam has been amplified for the hip-
hop generation in the form of a small
but influential community of NOI dis-
sidents known as the Five Percent Na-
tion of Gods and Earths-so named be-
cause of their belief that the most "con-
scious" 5 percent of society forms a kind
of spiritual vanguard.The complex and
diverse teachings of the Five Percenters
were most famously disseminated by
an MC named Rakim-now widely re-
garded as the most skilled rapper of all
The sad deaths of Tupac Shakur and
Christopher Wallace have been analyzed
breathlessly and luridly as artistic
milestones, as if two unsolved murders
held the key to understanding some of the
most compelling pop music of the decade.
time. These teachings are rooted in a
certain literalization of urbanblackbrag-
gadocio, centered around the firmly heldconviction that the black man is God. In
the peculiar vocabulary of the Five Per-
centers, knowledges often used as a verb
and time is expressed as a strange
acronym: Truth I Master Equally. The
Five Percenters' creative use of words
makestheir teachingswell-suited for hip-
hop appropriation, and the sect's fiery
black nationalism resonatesthroughout
the community that calls itself the "hip-
hop nation."
This tradition of black hermeticism
provides much of the context for the
Wu-Tang Clan's kung fu mysticism.
There are scores of rappers affiliated
with the Clan, each with a differentlyri-
cal style and a different conception of
the black man'splace in the universe.But
even within this family of spiritual sci-
entists and verbal warriors, the MC
named Killah Priest stands out as the
most thoughtful and provocative expo-
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 165
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nent of black gnosticism.After guest ap-
pearances onWu-related albums such as
the Genius's Liquid Swords and the
Gravediggaz'Six FeetDeep,Killah Priest
released his solo debut, Heavy Mental,
in the spring of I998; his group, Sunz
of Man, debuted a few months later.
Like the black preacher whose show-
manship anticipated rap,Killah Priest's
rapping is a little too sly to be earnest.
He reads the Bible with feverish glee,
conjuring the most fantastic images and
beliefs from well-known parables and
visions, realizing the universe of possi-
bilities suggested by his identity as a hip-
hop priest.
Amid a millennial diasporic din, Kil-
lah Priest's rhyme style is surprisingly
calm. His voice is often more incan-
tatory than declamatory, even when
threatening to "drink the blood of an
In the peculiar vocabulary of the Five
Percenters, knowledge is often used
as a verb and time is expressed as a
strange acronym: Truth I Master Equally.
unbeliever." The title track of Heavy
Mental is a rap song without beats, un-
expectedly combining spoken words
with the low buzz of a didgeridoo-an
indescribably toneless Australian wind
instrument. The result is a kind of fu-
turistic Howl for the hip-hop nation, a
militant and contemplative diatribe that
shiftsimperceptiblyfrom non sequitur to
biblical esoterica. "I've been on Mars,"
Killah Priest declares, warming to thetopic, "building the Holy Synagogue for
the royal seminars / Long before they
had the Renaissance,there existed a He-
brew lodge ..."
The "Hebrew lodge" is evidence of
Killah Priest'ssingulartake on the Bible,
but "Mars"may come as more of a sur-
prise. Outer space, it turns out, is one of
Killah Priest's chief lyrical concerns, sig-
nifying an excess of possibility that is
fundamental to the freewheeling black
nationalism that his rhymes embrace.
Suspended within this greater galaxy is a
cosmopolitan alternative to the twin
specters of tradition and "reality" that
haunt contemporary African America,
a notion of black identity far more
worldly than the black American land-
scape of stifling urban centers and deso-
late rural nowheres. The notion of
voyaging through space mirrors and ex-
aggerates the dislocation of the Middle
Passage,and it echoes the plaintive song
of slaves entreating one another to
"follow the drinking gourd"-the Big
Dipper-to escapebondage.HeavyMen-
tal is filled with cosmic invocations that
update this tradition,deploying a vocab-
ulary of astronauts and microchips that
suggests science fiction. But in deference
to contemporaryperceptionsof hip-hop,
Killah Priest's galactic rap might better
be described as science reality.
Science reality .. . or just rapping?In
the rhymes of Killah Priest, Rakim, and
countless other rappers, spiritual claims
exemplify the boasts that are the heart
and soul of urban poetry. It's often im-
possible to tell where biblical allegory
ends and pure verbaljousting begins-
one stanza seems to retell the story of
Moses as an MC battle:
Actualday
Mathematics rought aysto his attic
What'stheweightof aflame?
Stateyourname
166 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
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:::::̂ ^ e'..' ... .................... . . ...........
"'::'":~' : '
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~..'. ..........: ...":.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..'....'.'..... . ,:,:,:
·.....
s.. ..K
..........
Gilberto ilson
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 167
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FromAncient Egypt,
byA. RosalieDavid
(Oxford: haidon)
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But he was afraidof the height
Gazed at the light
Strayed, ouldn't tay or the light
Ran to his bookof rhymes
Tookup sometime or the brothero hook
up a line
as if he had afishing rod
But my mission s God
Science be dishingout hard
Killah Priest is just gettingstarted.Or is he
just about ostop?One cannever ell: "Whothefuck want more essons? t's over!"
KIF FFA SANNEH: Were you inter-
ested in spirituality before you started
rapping?
KILLAH PRIEST: Absolutely. I came
up studying the Scriptures. I used to
meet with a lot of brothers, and we
would always read the Scriptures-because that's where we all come from.
KS: When you say "Scriptures,"do you
mean the Christian Bible?
KP: Yes.
KS: And black people are mentioned in
the Bible?
KP: Yes.Yousee, the nations in the Bible
still exist today, they're simply known by
different names. When you look in theScriptures, you can find the original
names. The black people in America are
known in the Scriptures as Israel. That's
what I learned as a young boy.
KS: Did you go to church?
KP: Of course-I think every child
went to church when he was little! But
I didn't really understand everything.
Anyway, I was in the street most of thetime. I had two lives:going to church all
Sunday,and hanging out at night the rest
of the week.
KS: When you talk about hanging out
at night, that's spiritual, too, isn't it?
Didn't you first encounter brothers from
the Five Percent Nation at night, on the
streets?
KP: Oh yeah. When I first saw those
guys around, in the early eighties, they
always tried to talk to me-they said
they wanted to buildwith me. They an-
noyed me at first. I was like, "Man, what
are they talking about?" But then I got
a little older,and I started to understand.Later,I hooked up with some broth-
ers from Israel-Black Israel-and they
said they wanted to build with me, too.
It got deep:we startedgoing through the
Scriptures. There's a song on my album
called "One Step,"where I say:"Under-
stand the jewel / Brought to fifty states
/ Deuteronomy 28:68 / It all relates."
Deuteronomy 28:68 tells you that thepeople will be enslaved if they disobey
the laws of the most high.We broke the
laws of the most high, because we were
making false idols, and that's why we
came into captivity.
KS: What "false idols" are you talking
about? Do you mean to say that African
religioustraditionsare false?I'm surprised
to hearyou saythat,
because it seems like
African traditions have become part of a
common black culturalheritage.
KP: Look: I'm not talking about ancient
black traditions.You have to understand
that there have always been lots of dif-
ferent races in Africa. That'swhy they're
fighting over there right now, because
people that don't belong there were
driven there-the Jews, everybody's
over there.They're fighting for their land
and for their cultures today. That's the
way the world was in ancient times, too.
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People saythat the Egyptians built the
pyramids. But when you look deeper
into it, you'll find that the pyramidswere
built by slaves. We did build the pyra-
mids, but that doesn't mean we were
Egyptian.The word Egyptmeans "bond-
age";black people were slaves. If Egypt
was all that great, believe me, Moses
wouldn't have had to lead us out of
there.
This is how Heavy Mentalstrikes,like
a modern-day Moses up in the projects.
America is like Egypt, and the projects
are a form of captivity-you've got all
The word Egypt means "bondage";
black people were slaves. If Egypt
was all that great, believe me, Moses
wouldn't have had to lead us out
of there.
these black brothers and sistersliving in
poverty. The president is the modern-
day pharaoh.When you check out an-
cient history, you see that a lot of Greek
philosophers took ideas from the ancient
Egyptian networks-they used Egyp-
tian knowledge to learn how to controlmasses of people.
KS: So what about someone like Sun
Ra, who made Egypt a metaphor for
spiritualawareness?Or Mustafael-Amin,
the author of Freemasonrynd the Islamic
Heritage,who claims that the pyramid on
the dollar bill should be a source of in-
spiration for African Americans?
KP: Well, the pyramids are part of thestory.We built them, and they are filled
with symbolism, because we're a mystic
people. We're a spiritualpeople. But the
pyramids were also a graveyardfor the
Pharaohs,built with slavelabor.We built
tombs for the rulers who were oppress-
ing our people! Every time you watch a
movie set in biblical times, the Egyptians
arewhite, the Israelitesarewhite, Christ
is white, everybody'swhite. But we were
there.We existed in those times.
KS: Who is this "we"? Are you claim-
ing that the people now called "African
American" existed as a group in biblical
times?
KP: Yes. I'm talking about the same
people. We're the same, it'sjust that the
names have been changed to protect the
innocent-and the guilty. Ecclesiastes
I:9: Ain't nothing new under the sun.
Water is still wet, fire is still hot, and
we're still black, so ain't nothing new.
Our forefathers were alive in ancient
times, but theyjust left us wreckage.And
in the years since, we've been taught the
Bible wrong. We've been taught to read
it as a religious text, when it's actually a
history book-it's our history book.
When you hear stories about King
David, you're actually hearing black his-
tory. Song of Solomon I:5 says,"I am
black."King Solomon was black, and so
was his father,and his whole nation.Andthey had a great kingdom and a great
civilization.
Whenever we study our history, we
alwaystalk about one thing: slavery.And
that's not history. That's more like a
holocaust. That's nothing to teach your
kids! If you want to hear about black
history, you can do two things: you can
study King David's life, or you can goout and buy Killah Priest's Heavy Men-
tal album.
KS: When you talk about the Bible,
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Painted limestone
statues of Rahotep
and Nefert
from the tomb
chapel of Rahotep
at Meidum
JurgenLiepe.Courtesy
oftheEgyptianMuseum
in Cairo
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KS: So where does this leave contem-
porary Africa?
KP: I'm going to say this:Africa is a big
part of the picture, but I'm not as con-
cerned with Africa as I am with Amer-
ica. Before we straighten out that prob-
lem over there,we have to straightenout
our problems here. People are going
back to Africa, but we haven't got our-
selves straight as a nation over in this
place.
Look at Nelson Mandela: as soon ashe got out of jail, he came to America,
he got his money, and he went back to
South Africa. He took care of business,
first.And that'swhat you have to do: first
you get the money, then you go back to
your people. At the United Nations,
everyone has a seat, even the African
countries. But Negroes in America don't
have a seat at the UN. We don't have arepresentative.That's because our repre-
sentative is God; he'srepresentedus from
the beginning. Ain't nobody else going
to speak out for us. But that'swhy Jesus
came to the planet:he was speaking out
for the less fortunate.
Now, the image of Jesus that you see
everywhere is false. The realJesus was
hanging out in the ghettos, in the gut-ters. He had feelings. He was walk-
ing around, going to the poor and the
broken-hearted and the meek. And then
you had your ancient cops-Roman
Centurions-trying to crucify him, be-
cause he was talking about peace and
justice and equality.
ButJesus was speaking of a new king-
dom for us, in a new world. NotEgypt,with its history of bondage; not Amer-
ica,with its Egyptian philosophy;not the
slave mentality or the Americanized at-
titude: he was talking about something
different. So I respect that. And all our
people should respect that. But back
then, people didn't pay any attention,
and they hung Jesus on the cross. That's
why Negroes were hanged throughout
the South. We were crucified the same
way he was.
KS: But what about this "new world"?
The story of black people in this coun-
try is the story of movement, the story
of a journey from Africa to America,
from South to North. Is this progress?KP: Yeah, we're talking about progress,
we're talking about movement, we're
talking about having our own indepen-
dent culture. But there are a lot of peo-
ple who don't really know what's going
on. A lot of people are lost, and that's
sad,but the Scriptures predict that: "For
many are called,but few are chosen." So
that's how it goes.KS: OK, so the Middle Passageis a kind
of progress, even if everyone doesn't
know what's going on. But so far,we've
only talked about movement on Earth;
why, then, do you rap so much about
outer space?
KP: Because that's where we're from!
Black people come from space. When
you look at the sky, it's black. Withoutthe sunlight-forget it, it's black. In the
beginning, there was darkness.
KS: When you talk about "the begin-
ning," do you mean seventy-six trillion
years ago?
KP: What do you mean, "seventy-six
trillion"?
KS: Elijah Muhammad wrote that time
startedseventy-six
trillionyears ago,
and
that the earth was created when the
moon was "deported" from this planet
sixty-six trillion years ago. Is that "the
beginning" you're talking about?
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KP: Nah, I ain't talking about none of
that. I'm talking about pure facts. In the
beginning, "darknesswas upon the face
of the deep." Man was made on a cer-
tain day,and man went and got corrupt.
He's been corrupt ever since: he's been
destroying the world, he's been hiding
identities, he's been lying, stealing-all
of that. But space travel is real. When
The Africans who sold us were of a
different nationality from us, and
that's why we ended up on the slave
ships. I mean, you wouldn't sell your
own brother!
William H.Johnson,
Swing Low,Sweet
Chariot. Ca. 1944.
Courtesy of the
National Museum of
American Art
they speak of unidentified flying objects,
a lot of people don't understand what
that means. Ezekiel saw UFOs back
then-only they were IFOs, because he
identified them. He knew what they
were. They were chariots of fire.
KS: That's Ezekiel's wheel, right? The
original flying saucer!
KP: Yes, they call them spaceshipsnow.
That's where the old Negro song comes
from:"Swing low, sweet chariot, coming
for to carry me home." The slaves actu-
ally saw angels, because angels policed
the earth on the regular.Sometimes we
are blessed or cursed to see them; it de-
pends.
KS: Are these spaceships different from
the Mothership that the Nation of Is-
lam preaches about-the craft that ab-
ducted Louis Farrakhan in Mexico in
I985?
KP: No, it's the same. People call it
Mothership, chariot, UFO ... but it's all
the same thing.
KS: Fard Muhammad always taught that
despite the Mothership, the true home
of the Original People was Earth. Do
you believe that this spaceship is going
to take African American people some-
place else?
KP: That'swhat's been predicted.Chris-
tians talk about the rapture:Christ com-
ing back and the sky cracking up. The
American government says that if any-
thing comes out of space,we should all
help fight it. The whole world has gone
mad: one group of people are waiting
for a spaceship, while another group
is waiting to shoot it down. Isaiah
66: 5-"the Lord will come with fire,
and with his chariots like a whirlwind."
He's going to come and wreak ven-
geance, because there are a lot of lies out
there.
KS: Are you talking about movies like
Independence ay? The Nation of Islam's
newspaperFinalCall attacked that movie
as a racist perversion of the Day of
Judgment.
KP: Word. Like the movie Independence
Day. There arepeople who know what's
going to happen. They are part of the
elite io percent of society, the ones that
know truth and hide it.When you talk
about religion, there's always a righ-teous 5 percent and a devious io per-
cent-the other 85 percent of people
are ignorant.
What's scary about religion is that it
does nothing but divide. Our people
have had many differentreligions forced
upon us because we lost our identity.
And when people have no identity, they
look for a way out. But you can identifyyourself by reading the Scriptures-
even though on TV, they change the
faces to protect the guilty.
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William H.Johnson,
Ezekiel Sawthe Wheel.
Ca. 1942-43.Courtesy
of the National Museum
ofAmerican Art
KS: You mean they change the color?
KP: They change everything! Every-
thing's changed, seasons and times; they
even created a leap year! But the Scrip-
tures will tell you the truth. We came
to this country with the Book, and the
Book was taken from us; t was translated
from Hebrew to Greek so that the mas-
ters could understand t and teach it back
to us.And we were taughtwrong. See, we
are supposed to govern them with our
knowledge, but right now is a difficult
time. Black people have been pushed into
the ghettos and reduced to rats, orced to
war againstourselves.We need to create
awareness:f you'reawareof what'sgoing
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on, you can surmount these things.
KS: Do you see yourself within a tradi-
tion of brothers who have been, as you
say,aware?Marcus Garvey,Noble Drew
Ali.
KP: Oh yes. Prophets will always rise
from out of our nation,just like they did
in biblical times, just like Ezekiel-and
just like Malcolm X. But then, instead of
sticking to the big plan, instead of
putting us back in tune with God and
spirituality,they wander off and lead usinto the slaughterhouse of religion. And
that'swhat kills us off every time. But we
are a nation:we build. Rap is part of our
tradition:rap,dance,and hip-hop, bebop,
all of that. And we are greaterthan what
we've limited ourselves to.
KS: So you see prophets in hip-hop,
too? People like Poor Righteous Teach-
ers and KRS-One seem to have hadsimilar ambitions.
KP: Sure. Those brothers are great;they
came out and they let you know the
truth. I'm coming out to show every-
body the new form of lyrical rap, just
like the brothers who came before me,
just like KRS-One. I'm adding my piece
to the pie. We came here together, but
we're all individuals, and we all have toseek our own salvation.We tend to stay
on one mental plane,but there aremany
different levels of awareness.Justas there
are many different points to the body.
You've got a head, you've got two arms,
two legs-
KS: -Arm, Leg, Leg,Arm, Head: Allah.
KP: Exactly! So there are different
worlds that we can go into.
KS: Do these "differentworlds" extend
beyond hip-hop? Are there other places
in music or in popular culture where
you perceive this kind of tradition?
KP: Hip-hop has definitely become the
primary voice for the struggle. Hip-hop
is a voice to the black youth and the
white youth, because he's listening, too.
I had a young white cat come up to me
yesterday.He said,"Yo, man,what do you
think about the state of Israel today?"
People arelistening. People have to know
the truth; the truth is for everybody.
The government knows the truth. And
they're withholding the truth, because
they're planning on doing their thing.KS: The government-that's the Io
percent again, right?
KP: Yeah, and I have to watch myself,
too. When Christ spoke out like this,
they came against him.
KS: What about someone like Lyndon
LaRouche? He's another person who
claims to be exposing truths that the
government is trying to hide. LaRouchehas had a high profile in the African
American community ever since his
1992 presidentialbid, when he chose the
black activist Reverend James Bevel to
be his running mate.What do you think
of LaRouche?
The whole world has gone mad:one group
of people are waiting fora spaceship,while another group is waiting to shoot
it down.
KP: Most people like LaRouche aretry-
ing to save themselves from the future. I
mean, the information is deep, but peo-
ple like LaRouche are patriots. They're
just trying to stave off what's destined to
happen.
KS: What aboutWilliam Cooper, whose
conspiracy classic,Beholda PaleHorse,has
become so influential in the hip-hop
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community?
KP: Yeah,that book is deep.He was partof the plan and they gypped him-I
don't know what they did. But Cooper
is like LaRouche: the Armageddon that
he wants to prevent is destinedo happen.
I appreciatethe effortsof LaRouche and
Cooper; I appreciate the fact that they
released the information. Those guys
know a lot, and they're willing to say
what they know. I don't think they
should talk to the average man on the
We have no choice but to use
technology, because this is what we've
been reduced to. So now we are biochip
men. But the soul is the same.
The outside is just a little bit cyborg.
Chesley Bonestell,
Our Galaxy from
a Hypothetical Planet.
1970. Reprinted by
permission of Bonestell
SpaceArt
street, though, because they'd probably
bug him out. He'd end up in a nuthouse.
That kind of information is only for the
person who wants to be aware.
We can talk about the tradition of
speaking out, but we are a new breed-
we're going to establish a new govern-
ment, a new beginning for the children
that are being born into this world. We
are planting new seeds. That's what it's
all about: we can see something new.
KS: I wonder how this all links up to the
new sounds on Heavy Mental.From the
droning didgeridoo to the out-of-phase
loops, the minimalist beats, and the
other-worldly vocal samples:this album
hasa lot of sounds that the world of hip-
hop isn't used to hearing.
KP: Those sounds on the album come
from our forefathers,the ancients. We're
just bringing them back so we can make
music to move people. The music talks
to the soul; it chastises and baptizes the
soul. Sometimes we have to brainwashall that dust that's n people'sheads.They
say,"Don't brainwash me!" But some-
times it'sgood to brainwashyourself,just
like you wash your clothes. See, the di-
alect is used differently.But we have to
clear our mind first.
KS: And how does technology fit into
all of this? Do you see your philosophy,
your music, as futuristic?
KP: "A suburban 666 database / inves-
tigate / entire race heading for a cyber-
space / riots break inside an empire state
/ every move you make / is recorded on
tape."That's how it is.Everything is run
by digital computers. They control the
mind. Technology is producing new
identities.
KS: Don't you think that some of those
new identities are musical? Reggae and
hip-hop-some of the most socially
conscious music that this part of the
world hasproduced-were both created
with modern production technology.
KP: No, no-it wasn't technology!
This music was really created by drums,
you know what I'm saying?Drums, and
people letting their souls out.
KS: Of course the music is descended
from the drum. But turntables and mix-
ing decks areprecisely what make it hip-
hop.
KP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, we had to
break it down differently.But it's not all
about technology: Grandmaster Flash's
song was called "The Message."We have
no choice but to use technology, be-
cause this is what we've been reduced to.
So now we are biochip men. But the
soul is the same.The outside isjust a lit-
tle bit cyborg.
As an MC, I utilize all of this. The al-
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bum may be fat-the beats and all-but
remember: you've still got a street outthere, and everybody meets each other
on the street. I speak out for the under-
ground MCs, with no record deal. They
still kick it, without beats or anything,
with no technology. So it still shines
forth. Some people just have it, "like a
phenomenon ..."
KS:" ... from out of the matrix"?
KP: Yes!Just
like Isay
onmy
album:
"Like a phenomenon from out of the
matrix / The world looks at me with
envy and hatred / Just because I appear
to them half naked / Rising out of a
spaceship / With an arm full of solid
gold bracelets."And some of us can re-
member or relate to things like that be-
cause some brothers walk on different
clouds.
KS: What does that mean?
KP: It means that some of us can still re-
late to those things, out there in the
galaxy. Some of us can take you there,
to the spiritualdimension, the fourth di-
mension.
KS: You're talking about leaving this di-
mension, and you're talking about new
forms. But a lot of other people say that
hip-hop is in a creative slump from
which it will never recover. Have we in-
deed reached the end of hip-hop?
KP: Yes. But it's a new beginning. It's
the same music, it just comes in differ-
ent forms. Everybody that'scoming out
with records now has a more lyrical style
of rapping.
KS: So it's actually an exciting time in
hip-hop?
KP: I think the music is more serious
now.You can dance all day,but eventu-
ally,things are going to get thick, things
are going to get hectic, and you'll need
something more. So it's important to
hear all this knowledge now, before theystartsmashing up all the records and the
tapes and the CDs.
You've got to watch out. There are a
lot of soothsayers out there, too. The
people who are running those psychic
hotlines are trying to tap into your third
eye-your consciousness-trying to
get you all computerized and digital.
To thisday,
there areJesuits practicing
witchcraft, waging a mental holy war.
KS: These "Jesuits practicing witch-
craft" sound like Freemasons. But there
is a long history of African American
freemasonry, dating back to the eigh-
teenth century.Where do Masons, Afri-
can American and otherwise, fit in? For
example,you talked earlier about "build-
ing" with the Five Percent Nation: isn't
"building" a masonic term?
KP: Yeah. That's deep, man. If you look
back, a lot of things are symbolic. It all
goes back to building the pyramids,
where they used bricks. But freemasonry
is based on secrets,and I don't deal in se-
crets. I have nothing to hide. A lot of
people out there have things to hide, but
those things won't be hidden much
longer. So I don't ally myself with the
Freemasons. These days, you also have a
lot of Black Muslims talking about the
end of the world, but I don't ally myself
with them, either.I study Christ,and the
knowledge that he was dropping. Christ
said, I'm going to lay down my life for
my people. And that'sdeep.
KS: So you are talking about religion,
after all?
KP: No, I ain't talking about no reli-
gion! I'm just talking about nationality.