“The
reason I wear this clock is because it represents time being the most
important element in our life. Time can't afford to be wasted (cause)
God only gave us one life. Each minute we live, we got to live each
second to our best value. Time brought us up in here, and time can
also take us out. I always say, I'm 'clockin', I'm 'clockin'; that
means I'm paying attention... so you can't pull a fast one on me,
cause I know what time it is.”
--William Drayton a.k.a. Flavor Flav
--William Drayton a.k.a. Flavor Flav
William
Johnathan Drayton Jr. a.k.a. Flavor Flav, was born in Roosevelt, New
York. He grew up in the nearby municipality of Freeport, New York and
both these locales are ensconced in the town of Hempstead, Long
Island. He was a member of a church's youth choir and was considered
a prodigious musician who also played piano, drums and guitar. Chuck
D is quoted as saying that William is proficient in 15 instruments.
Even
though William didn't enjoy the rote academics of the american
educational system, he graduated from culinary school in 1978. He's
cooked in several restaurants, thus, when he pursued a career in
music, he gave himself the moniker 'Flavor Flav'.
In his young adulthood, William attended Adelphi university. There he met graphic design student Chuck Ridenhour, who would eventually become 'Chuck D'.
William and Chuck, along with the Shocklee brothers, who would eventually become the musical production team called the 'bomb squad', would go on to form the rap group 'Public Enemy'. They named themselves after the single they put out called 'Public Enemy #1'.
In 1984, the Public Enemy #1 track brought the group to the attention of 'Def Jam' record executive Rick Rubin. Rick only wanted to sign Chuck to a solo artist's deal, but Chuck was insistent that if Rick and Russell Simmons wanted him, they'd have to take his 'posse'. Thus, the whole of 'Public Enemy', including William as Flavor Flav, was signed to Def Jam in 1986.
The group's first album, Yo! Bum rush the show, was released in 1987. Although it put the group on the commercial music map, by the time the record was released, it sounded dated compared to the emerging rap stylings of master emcees like Rakim. So Public Enemy (PE) went back into the studio and created their magnum opus.
'It takes a nation of millions to hold us back' was PE's second album, and this record is nothing short of a masterpiece. Released in 1988, this album spoke directly to the american government's campaign to flood poor and working class Black neighborhoods with rock cocaine, i.e. 'crack'. PE put this crisis to music with songs like, 'Night of the living baseheads' and 'Black steel in the hour of chaos' (“a cell is hell, I'm a rebel, so I re-bel”). Their single 'Fight the power', which came out in 1989 for the 'Do the Right Thing' movie soundtrack, was the sonic masterwork that quickly made them a household name.
Now, while PE's star shined brightly, several pseudo-scholars working in the music industry, namely Rick Rubin and Public Enemy's publicist Bill Adler, didn't understand what function William as 'Flavor' played in the group. Well, this happens when whitebois are in the Hip-Hop culture but not 'of' it.
A wise brotha once said that Flavor Flav was, “The spoonful of sugar that made PE's bitter medication go down more effectively.” This brotha understood that Chuck's delivery was so powerful that Flav was needed to attract the general masses of casual Black listeners who just wanted to party and dance. In essence, Flav was PE's stealthy secret weapon.
Now, several years after PE's monumental run in mainstream music, Flav became a household name to a whole new generation with his 'reality' TV show 'Flavor of Love'. At this show's zenith, 7.5 million viewers tuned in for the Season Finale of 'Flavor of Love 2'; and this propelled the episode to the #1 telecast on cable for that night, and gave the show the accolades of being the #1 non-sports telecast in all of basic cable for the entire year.
William parlayed his TV success into retail franchises, namely 'Flavor Flav's house of flavor' in Las Vegas which opened on his birthday in March of 2012, and a restaurant called 'Flavor Flav's Chicken and Ribs' which opened in December of that same year.
Now, you may be asking why I'm aggrandizing a buffoon like Flav when I'm a Black Nationalist. Well, the answer is because I know, as should every Black person, that Flavor Flav is the illusionary character William Drayton created to make himself rich.
Basically, the TV show 'Flavor of Love' was an interpretation of the whole Hugh Hefner/Playboy mansion mythos, and William showed he was able to capitalize on his former culinary experience with his 'chicken and ribs' franchise. We should understand that William is not the happy-go-lucky, buck-dancing minstrel that he's selling to mainstream audiences...again, Flavor Flav, the character William created, is an illusion. The real William Drayton is the man that waxed philosophic about the meaning of time under this post's header, which answered the question of why he wears those colossal clocks on his chest.
Then Flav's clocks got me thinking about the illusion of time itself.
And it also got me thinking about when I used to take the train to work. In my city, music is pumped into the subway system. And what's played exclusively in this system, is up-tempo european classical music. Now, the average commuter probably doesn't even notice this music playing half the time, and if they do, they don't realize the sublime conditioning they're ingesting during their commute.
Firstly, the playing of european classical music sends the message that this is the soundtrack of urbane, upper-scale people; so in essence, we should all acquaint and associate ourselves with this stuffy old music that lost its relevance centuries ago. Second, it says that europeans are superior because they listen to and create the majority of this music. And third, these up-tempo songs are meant to get the commuter to their job, school or place of worship, more quickly...or in a more 'timely' fashion.
This eventually got me thinking about the white fascist construct of hours, minutes and seconds.
Now, you may be thinking, c'mon MontUHURU, fascist concept of hours, minutes and seconds? You're reachin' for stuff now bruh!
So let me expound on what I mean...
There's a difference between the earth's 'natural' time, and the 'constructed' time of white fascists. We need to understand that once white fascists got rid of the 'barter system' and replaced that paradigm of trading goods for services with their 'currency' or money, they had to devise a way to get the proletariat into some sort of orthodoxy where they could toil to make their currency.
In order to accomplish this and have more control over the proletariat and nature itself, they instituted an artificial time to not only get the working classes to their jobs regularly, but to keep our minds mired in this white fascist system from the cradle to the grave. Remember, if the working masses didn't have a job, a school or a house of worship to go to; or a million channels of cable to watch, some of us might start to think. And the conclusion we might draw is, this whole fascist system is built on our backs, so if we just refuse to participate, it will collapse. This would actually give the power back to its rightful owners, the proletariat.
So the white fascist's artificial time keeps us toiling over jobs, makes sure we get 'educated' and keeps us watching an assortment of movies, sporting events, fashion shows, reality TV programs, etc. while we're raising children. So in the white fascist social order, there's NO time to really think. Again, we're purposely kept busy so we don't have any moments to reflect on rebelling against this system.
Now, the earth's natural time doesn't run in hours, minutes, seconds, etc. The earth's natural time is SEASONAL. So while you're toiling on a job and raising children, you and your neighbors actually have time to think about which direction you want your life to go in. Rather than having your life plotted out before you're even born. In this paradigm, you're not stuck obsessing over getting dressed in a half hour, so you can make the train or bus that'll get you to your job in forty-five minutes,etc.
So I've said all this to say, we need to realize that the LAST place you're gonna' find out the truth about any white fascist social order, is IN that white fascist social order.
You have to come up out of it mentally, to get an objective perspective on it and decide which parts of it you'll abide by, and which parts you won't.
And this is especially crucial for Black men and women, here's why...
We're made to hate ourselves more than any other kind of person on the planet because we have the most genetic power to breed our oppressors (i.e. white people) out of existence.
And because of this, it's imperative that we know that the LAST place we're gonna' find out the truth about the white fascist social order that produced our self-hatred, is IN that white fascist social order. We have to come up out of this social order mentally, to look objectively at our white-fascist induced self-hatred, so we can ultimately get rid of it.
Now, what does this mean?
It means the first way, or the most immediate way, any Black man or woman can get out of our conditioned self-hatred is by realizing that WE ARE NOT BORN HATING OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER!
We need to understand at a very conscious and visceral level that Black people go through a very intensive conditioning process, more than any other kind of person, over the course of decades, that turns us into self-hating men and women.
And we also need to realize that any dysfunction we see, especially collectively in the Black Diaspora, is a direct result of our being conditioned to hate ourselves more than any other ethnic group.
Once we do this, then we can look at ourselves and each other with more affectionate eyes, thus, we'll begin the healing process that will not only end the rift between Black men and women, but will begin the process of saving the Black 'nuclear' family.
Now, if we wanted to do this with more permanency, we could go about the work of reconditioning ourselves at sub-conscious levels. This would require more intensive work rituals that would probably include methods of traditional meditation, chanting, breathing exercises, self-hypnosis, etc. But for the Black man and woman who's not ready to go there yet, the first step is recognizing what's been done to us and why.
Now, if we don't get an outsider's objective view of what's been done to us, here's three things that'll happen:
One: a Black man or woman who doesn't realize how they've been conditioned to hate themselves and everyone who looks like them will see some kind of dysfunction displayed in a member of the opposite sex, and condemn ALL Black men or women for the dysfunction they see.
Two: at some point this same person, seeing this dysfunction displayed in their own gender will draw the conclusion that ALL Black people are born like this, and will cast an aspersion on ALL Black people.
Three: this same person consciously or sub-consciously, will have these experiences reinforce reasons why they should hate themselves for being Black.
And you and I know this happens all day, every day.
I remember recently, I was talking to a young Black woman at a gas station, and when she saw another Black person smoking a cigarette near the gas pump, she said: “...don't they know that's a fire hazard? That's why no one likes Black people.” A second later, I pointed out a white person doing the same thing.
Then I remember an older Black man and I were discussing something about the Black Diaspora, to which he stated: “Well, Black people destroy each other.” When I told him that white fascists have conditioned us to destroy each other, he nodded his head realizing the statement made sense.
And that's the white fascist plan for us, to keep us in cycles of self-hatred from the cradle to the grave, just like this young Black woman and this older Black man.
So, the real question is do we ultimately want to get rid of our self-hatred?
Have we become so comfortable thinking our dysfunction(s) are natural to us, that we'll never recondition ourselves out of them?
That's the question every Black man and woman needs to ask themselves.
And we need to do it in a timely fashion!
Later...
MontUHURU MImia
In his young adulthood, William attended Adelphi university. There he met graphic design student Chuck Ridenhour, who would eventually become 'Chuck D'.
William and Chuck, along with the Shocklee brothers, who would eventually become the musical production team called the 'bomb squad', would go on to form the rap group 'Public Enemy'. They named themselves after the single they put out called 'Public Enemy #1'.
In 1984, the Public Enemy #1 track brought the group to the attention of 'Def Jam' record executive Rick Rubin. Rick only wanted to sign Chuck to a solo artist's deal, but Chuck was insistent that if Rick and Russell Simmons wanted him, they'd have to take his 'posse'. Thus, the whole of 'Public Enemy', including William as Flavor Flav, was signed to Def Jam in 1986.
The group's first album, Yo! Bum rush the show, was released in 1987. Although it put the group on the commercial music map, by the time the record was released, it sounded dated compared to the emerging rap stylings of master emcees like Rakim. So Public Enemy (PE) went back into the studio and created their magnum opus.
'It takes a nation of millions to hold us back' was PE's second album, and this record is nothing short of a masterpiece. Released in 1988, this album spoke directly to the american government's campaign to flood poor and working class Black neighborhoods with rock cocaine, i.e. 'crack'. PE put this crisis to music with songs like, 'Night of the living baseheads' and 'Black steel in the hour of chaos' (“a cell is hell, I'm a rebel, so I re-bel”). Their single 'Fight the power', which came out in 1989 for the 'Do the Right Thing' movie soundtrack, was the sonic masterwork that quickly made them a household name.
Now, while PE's star shined brightly, several pseudo-scholars working in the music industry, namely Rick Rubin and Public Enemy's publicist Bill Adler, didn't understand what function William as 'Flavor' played in the group. Well, this happens when whitebois are in the Hip-Hop culture but not 'of' it.
A wise brotha once said that Flavor Flav was, “The spoonful of sugar that made PE's bitter medication go down more effectively.” This brotha understood that Chuck's delivery was so powerful that Flav was needed to attract the general masses of casual Black listeners who just wanted to party and dance. In essence, Flav was PE's stealthy secret weapon.
Now, several years after PE's monumental run in mainstream music, Flav became a household name to a whole new generation with his 'reality' TV show 'Flavor of Love'. At this show's zenith, 7.5 million viewers tuned in for the Season Finale of 'Flavor of Love 2'; and this propelled the episode to the #1 telecast on cable for that night, and gave the show the accolades of being the #1 non-sports telecast in all of basic cable for the entire year.
William parlayed his TV success into retail franchises, namely 'Flavor Flav's house of flavor' in Las Vegas which opened on his birthday in March of 2012, and a restaurant called 'Flavor Flav's Chicken and Ribs' which opened in December of that same year.
Now, you may be asking why I'm aggrandizing a buffoon like Flav when I'm a Black Nationalist. Well, the answer is because I know, as should every Black person, that Flavor Flav is the illusionary character William Drayton created to make himself rich.
Basically, the TV show 'Flavor of Love' was an interpretation of the whole Hugh Hefner/Playboy mansion mythos, and William showed he was able to capitalize on his former culinary experience with his 'chicken and ribs' franchise. We should understand that William is not the happy-go-lucky, buck-dancing minstrel that he's selling to mainstream audiences...again, Flavor Flav, the character William created, is an illusion. The real William Drayton is the man that waxed philosophic about the meaning of time under this post's header, which answered the question of why he wears those colossal clocks on his chest.
Then Flav's clocks got me thinking about the illusion of time itself.
And it also got me thinking about when I used to take the train to work. In my city, music is pumped into the subway system. And what's played exclusively in this system, is up-tempo european classical music. Now, the average commuter probably doesn't even notice this music playing half the time, and if they do, they don't realize the sublime conditioning they're ingesting during their commute.
Firstly, the playing of european classical music sends the message that this is the soundtrack of urbane, upper-scale people; so in essence, we should all acquaint and associate ourselves with this stuffy old music that lost its relevance centuries ago. Second, it says that europeans are superior because they listen to and create the majority of this music. And third, these up-tempo songs are meant to get the commuter to their job, school or place of worship, more quickly...or in a more 'timely' fashion.
This eventually got me thinking about the white fascist construct of hours, minutes and seconds.
Now, you may be thinking, c'mon MontUHURU, fascist concept of hours, minutes and seconds? You're reachin' for stuff now bruh!
So let me expound on what I mean...
There's a difference between the earth's 'natural' time, and the 'constructed' time of white fascists. We need to understand that once white fascists got rid of the 'barter system' and replaced that paradigm of trading goods for services with their 'currency' or money, they had to devise a way to get the proletariat into some sort of orthodoxy where they could toil to make their currency.
In order to accomplish this and have more control over the proletariat and nature itself, they instituted an artificial time to not only get the working classes to their jobs regularly, but to keep our minds mired in this white fascist system from the cradle to the grave. Remember, if the working masses didn't have a job, a school or a house of worship to go to; or a million channels of cable to watch, some of us might start to think. And the conclusion we might draw is, this whole fascist system is built on our backs, so if we just refuse to participate, it will collapse. This would actually give the power back to its rightful owners, the proletariat.
So the white fascist's artificial time keeps us toiling over jobs, makes sure we get 'educated' and keeps us watching an assortment of movies, sporting events, fashion shows, reality TV programs, etc. while we're raising children. So in the white fascist social order, there's NO time to really think. Again, we're purposely kept busy so we don't have any moments to reflect on rebelling against this system.
Now, the earth's natural time doesn't run in hours, minutes, seconds, etc. The earth's natural time is SEASONAL. So while you're toiling on a job and raising children, you and your neighbors actually have time to think about which direction you want your life to go in. Rather than having your life plotted out before you're even born. In this paradigm, you're not stuck obsessing over getting dressed in a half hour, so you can make the train or bus that'll get you to your job in forty-five minutes,etc.
So I've said all this to say, we need to realize that the LAST place you're gonna' find out the truth about any white fascist social order, is IN that white fascist social order.
You have to come up out of it mentally, to get an objective perspective on it and decide which parts of it you'll abide by, and which parts you won't.
And this is especially crucial for Black men and women, here's why...
We're made to hate ourselves more than any other kind of person on the planet because we have the most genetic power to breed our oppressors (i.e. white people) out of existence.
And because of this, it's imperative that we know that the LAST place we're gonna' find out the truth about the white fascist social order that produced our self-hatred, is IN that white fascist social order. We have to come up out of this social order mentally, to look objectively at our white-fascist induced self-hatred, so we can ultimately get rid of it.
Now, what does this mean?
It means the first way, or the most immediate way, any Black man or woman can get out of our conditioned self-hatred is by realizing that WE ARE NOT BORN HATING OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER!
We need to understand at a very conscious and visceral level that Black people go through a very intensive conditioning process, more than any other kind of person, over the course of decades, that turns us into self-hating men and women.
And we also need to realize that any dysfunction we see, especially collectively in the Black Diaspora, is a direct result of our being conditioned to hate ourselves more than any other ethnic group.
Once we do this, then we can look at ourselves and each other with more affectionate eyes, thus, we'll begin the healing process that will not only end the rift between Black men and women, but will begin the process of saving the Black 'nuclear' family.
Now, if we wanted to do this with more permanency, we could go about the work of reconditioning ourselves at sub-conscious levels. This would require more intensive work rituals that would probably include methods of traditional meditation, chanting, breathing exercises, self-hypnosis, etc. But for the Black man and woman who's not ready to go there yet, the first step is recognizing what's been done to us and why.
Now, if we don't get an outsider's objective view of what's been done to us, here's three things that'll happen:
One: a Black man or woman who doesn't realize how they've been conditioned to hate themselves and everyone who looks like them will see some kind of dysfunction displayed in a member of the opposite sex, and condemn ALL Black men or women for the dysfunction they see.
Two: at some point this same person, seeing this dysfunction displayed in their own gender will draw the conclusion that ALL Black people are born like this, and will cast an aspersion on ALL Black people.
Three: this same person consciously or sub-consciously, will have these experiences reinforce reasons why they should hate themselves for being Black.
And you and I know this happens all day, every day.
I remember recently, I was talking to a young Black woman at a gas station, and when she saw another Black person smoking a cigarette near the gas pump, she said: “...don't they know that's a fire hazard? That's why no one likes Black people.” A second later, I pointed out a white person doing the same thing.
Then I remember an older Black man and I were discussing something about the Black Diaspora, to which he stated: “Well, Black people destroy each other.” When I told him that white fascists have conditioned us to destroy each other, he nodded his head realizing the statement made sense.
And that's the white fascist plan for us, to keep us in cycles of self-hatred from the cradle to the grave, just like this young Black woman and this older Black man.
So, the real question is do we ultimately want to get rid of our self-hatred?
Have we become so comfortable thinking our dysfunction(s) are natural to us, that we'll never recondition ourselves out of them?
That's the question every Black man and woman needs to ask themselves.
And we need to do it in a timely fashion!
Later...
MontUHURU MImia
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