Pro-Al Qaeda Rapper KRS-One: Treasonous Roots, Poisonous Fruits

Intellectual Conservative ^ | 16 November 2004 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

If KRS-ONE were merely an isolated imbecile, he would not be worth any bandwidth. But he is widely recognized as one of hip-hop's most outspoken and respected intellectuals.

Has sedition become a civil right?

In my previous column on pro-Al Qaeda rapper KRS-One (Kris Parker; hereafter, "KOP"), I cited the Daily News story from "Rush & Molloy's" gossip column (the husband-and-wife team of George Rush and Joanna Molloy) that quoted him as having "cheered" when Al Qaeda attacked America and murdered 3,000 people on 911, liberally quoted from KOP's rap/Hip-Hop (r/h) "songs," and discussed r/h's ties to black supremacist movements such as the Nation of Islam, the Five Percenters, and the New Black Panther party.

Rap's Treasonous Roots

The longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, "the Honorable Elijah Muhammad" (Elijah Poole; 1897-1975), spent most of World War II in prison for draft evasion and sedition. Poole/Muhammad had not only dodged the draft, but spoke publicly in support of our enemies, the Japanese. In those days, people actually went to jail for sedition and treason!

The Brits did us one better, in hanging William Joyce for his radio performances as "Lord Haw-Haw" for the Nazis.

During the War in Vietnam, Muhammad/Poole ordered his follower, heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay), to refuse to serve in the military, when the latter was drafted. Ali/Clay also made seditious statements: "I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong!" In a travesty of justice, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court exonerated Ali/Clay, who has since been "rehabilitated" through a fictional cover story, according to which the willing accomplice of a convicted draft dodger and seditionist was really a prisoner of conscience whose freedom of religion had been violated.

Despite the Nation of Islam having been responsible for the racial murders of at least 15 (the official number), and according to Clark Howard, the author of Zebra, as many as 270 California whites during the early-to-mid 1970s' Zebra crimes, periodically members of the NOI who found it insufficiently genocidal, have broken off from it, and founded their own racial sects, most notably the Five Percenters and New Black Panther party.

Honest Gossips

Let's look at the October 13 Rush & Molloy item.

KRS-One, decency zero

If Osama Bin Laden ever buys a rap album, he'll probably start with a CD by KRS-One.

The hip-hop anarchist has declared his solidarity with Al Qaeda by asserting that he and other African-Americans "cheered when 9/11 happened."

The rapper, whose real name is Kris Parker, defiled the memory of those who died in the terrorist attacks as he spouted off at a recent New Yorker Festival panel discussion.

"I say that proudly," the Boogie Down Productions founder went on, insisting that, before the attack, security guards kept black people out of the Trade Center "because of the way we talk and dress.

"So when the planes hit the building, we were like, 'Mmmm -- justice.

The atrocity of 9/11 "doesn't affect us [the hip-hop community]," he said. "9/11 happened to them, not us," he added, explaining that by "them" he meant "the rich ... those who are oppressing us. RCA or BMG, Universal, the radio stations."

Parker's screed drew a loud boo from novelist Tom Kelly, who was in the audience. "I lost six friends there on 9/11," Kelly told us afterward.

Parker also sneered at efforts by other rappers to get young people to vote.

"Voting in a corrupt society adds more corruption," he added. "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place.

Ex-Nirvana rocker Krist Novoselic, who was on the panel, yelled back: "That is wrong, man. Suicide is not the answer."

But, judging by Parker's downward-spiraling career, he's already bent on self-destruction.

KOP Fires Back

If anything, Rush and Molloy were too easy on KOP. Let's look at the rapper's "Rebuttal To NY Daily News Article" in All Hiphop.

Like everyone I was shocked to read that I and other African-Americans actually "cheered when 911 happened" and that I have "declared my solidarity with Al Qaeda." When I read my words taken out of context I was shocked and disappointed that the Daily News would go this far to assassinate my character and distort my views.

Such statements with no follow up explanation or interview from KRS-ONE as to what he may have meant or even a complete quote of my point is simply irresponsible journalism on the Daily News' part. I would never just say something as crazy as "we cheered when 911 happened!" I was making an objective point about how many Hiphoppas as well as the oppressed peoples of the world felt that day.

I am a philosopher and a critical thinker, I speak truth and I urge people to think critically about themselves and their environment. Yes, my words are strong. Yes, my views are controversial. But to call me a terrorist is simply wrong!

A young lady asked about what we can do beyond voting to change the political state of things in our country? I responded not by irresponsibly stating that "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place" and that's all. I am a poet and I speak poetically. My full statement was "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place."

If you want to go beyond voting American interests must put a gun to its head and commit suicide because as long as we are only interested in American interests we go out and invade the rest of the world. The real question is are you a citizen of the United States or are you a citizen of the world? And so for me, I would say voting in a corrupt society adds more corruption.

I was asked by the New Yorker magazine to discuss "different and personal beliefs musicians hold and the contribution artists like myself can make to the nation's political dialog." My views were indeed different and most were personal. However, when I was asked about why Hiphop has not engaged the current situation more (meaning 911) my response was "because it does not affect us, or at least we don't perceive that it effects us, 911 happened to them." I went on to say that "I am speaking for the culture now; I am not speaking my personal opinion." I continued to say; "911 affected them down the block; the rich, the powerful those that are oppressing us as a culture. Sony, RCA or BMG, Universal, the radio stations, Clear Channel, Viacom with BET and MTV, those are our oppressors those are the people that we're trying to overcome in Hiphop everyday, this is a daily thing. We cheered when 911 happened in New York and say that proudly here. Because when we were down at the trade center we were getting hit over the head by cops, told that we can't come in this building, hustled down to the train station because of the way we dressed and talked, and so on, we were racially profiled. So, when the planes hit the building we were like; mmmm justice." And just as I began to say "now of course a lot of our friends and family were lost there as well" but I was interrupted.

My intent is never to demean or disrespect anyone's loss or gain; and of course I did not literally 'cheer when 911 happened.' I made an objective statement about the feelings of those who were oppressed by world trade policies. I was just as saddened as everyone else on 911. However, for many of us that were racially profiled and harassed by the World's Trade Center's security and the police patrolling that area as well as the thousands of American protesters that spoke out against the World Trade Organization months before in Seattle, Washington there was a sense of justice, a sense of change, a wake up call watching the twin towers fall.

These are not my views only; these views represent a popular truth that few people are really ready to hear. No one wished death on anyone or just sat and "cheered when 911 happened." But some of us can see through the bullshit! America must change its approach to the world and its citizens. This, I believe is what all Americans should be thinking about. How do we make our country better?

KOP also told his readers not to believe anything the Daily News says. But they don't have to take the word of the News. In the same screed, he admitted that he cheered the 911 attack. "We cheered when 911 happened in New York and say that proudly here."

(And to think, back in 1996, white Daily News "reporter" Gene Mustain blackwashed the 1995 Harlem Massacre carried out by black supremacist Roland Smith Jr. aka Abubunde Mulocko -- in which Smith murdered seven people, before committing suicide -- and libeled the target of the massacre, Jewish shopkeeper Fred Harari. What's with these terrorists? Where's the gratitude?)

KOP denied having said that "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place," only to "correct" the record by saying ... "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place." ("America" means "white people"; KOP surely does not wish "authentically" black Americans to commit mass suicide. Black supremacists and leftists define blacks who support or engage in mayhem as "authentic," while showering racist epithets on blacks who oppose mayhem.)

"30 Cops or More": The Larry Davis Case

But when them come to arrest a black man, they need 30 cops or more.. well now
When they arrest a black man, they need 30 cops or more.. well now hey

Years ago a black man couldn't be a cop
They could only be great dancers
When the whole police department was white
Justice, was the Black Panthers
We've been robbed of our religion
our government and social position
And you won't see no quick solution
Until you see the black revolution
-- From 30 Cops of More, by KRS-One

The above KOP screed, from 1990, refers to the 1986 case of Larry Davis, a hero to black supremacists and white leftists. Consider the description of Troy Reed's 2003 "documentary" film, The Larry Davis Story, which introduced it to an audience at a free, black, Harlem Film Festival underwritten by the white-owned corporation, Martell Cognac.

At the age of 19, he took the NYC Police Department on one of the largest manhunts in the history of NY State. After this intensive 17-day manhunt, Davis turned himself in to the FBI, in exchange for their guarantee to investigate the NYPD's involvement in drug deals that he was forced to participate in as a teenager. For the first time ever, Davis speaks out about the night in 1986 when 30 police officers came to assassinate him for backing out of a drug deal.

Troy Reed's description of Davis is an exercise in fiction. Larry Davis -- who now calls himself Adam Abdul Hakeem -- was a suspected serial killer who was wanted for the robbery and murder of at least six drug dealers. It is because he was considered so dangerous, that police dispatched 20-odd officers to arrest him. And the police perception of danger proved accurate.

In the ensuing firefight, Davis wounded nine officers. There was no FBI agreement to investigate police corruption, because the cover story about rogue police officers was only concocted after Davis' arrest, by his radical defense attorney, William Kunstler. Kunstler also argued, contradictorily, that "black rage" justified Davis' acts. Kunstler could mount such an outrageous, contradiction-riddled defense, because the jury was so racist and criminal-friendly, that it had decided in advance to engage in jury nullification and acquit Davis, no matter what Kunstler's defense was.

(Following another racist jury's exercise in nullification on behalf of O.J. Simpson, David Horowitz explained the rise of urban, black jury nullification. Horowitz observed that, "... figures like the ever corrupt Marion Barry, the felon Rodney King, the thug Damian Williams, the cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, and now O. J. Simpson himself have all been embraced as heroes of the struggle as worthy of admiration as Rosa Parks. This inability to discriminate right from wrong and heroes from perpetrators suggests that what now calls itself the civil-rights movement has not only lost its moorings and its morality, but in some sense has lost its mind as well.")

As Michele McPhee of the New York Daily News has written, "The shootout turned Davis into a criminal folk hero."

In 1987, Davis was acquitted of all of the counts of attempted murder and assault on the 20-odd cops he fired on, including the nine he wounded, but was convicted of possession of an illegal weapon, and sentenced to 5-15 years in prison. In 1991, he was convicted by a different Bronx jury of murdering a drug dealer. He will be eligible for parole in 2016.

To Bronx juries, the lives of drug dealers are worth more than the lives of police officers.

To recap, KRS-One, the apostle of non-violence who founded the Stop the Violence movement, but who also has been known to assault rival rappers, wrote a paean to one of the most bloodthirsty criminals of the most violent, racist borough in New York City, in which he wistfully recalled the days when the Black Panthers murdered police officers, and looked forward to a bloody, "black revolution." Got it?

Racial Profiling and Corporate Oppression

I think we can safely disregard KOP's statements alleging police and corporate oppression.

If, as KRS-One contends, Port Authority police officers at the World Trade Center had assaulted young black men, based merely on the color of their skin, it would have been news around the world. Race hustlers would have sued the Port Authority for $1 billion. Just last year, race hustlers succeeded at shaking down the City of New York for $167,500, via a frivolous "racial profiling" lawsuit.

On the other hand, if KOP's complaint about the WTC police "because of the way we dressed and talked, and so on," was a code phrase for engaging in the sort of disorderly conduct and racial harassment of whites that so many New York blacks consider their birthright, and that is tolerated and even encouraged by local authority figures, it is possible that Port Authority (PA) police did run black toughs out of the complex. (The PA Police is a regional force composed of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, and which serves in both states.) For unlike most of New York City, which is daily terrorized by "and so on," is policed by the racially whipped NYPD, and is a wreck, the World Trade Center actually functioned.

If girly-man KOP were half as tough as he depicts himself, he wouldn't complain about getting smacked around by the PA police. Real tough guys don't go around crying, "The mean, old poweece gave me a boo-boo!" Since the charge of "racial profiling" is a race hoax that in its present form was concocted in 1999, and since KOP is a fan of murderous black criminals and has a homicidal hatred of the police, the most reasonable conclusion one can draw, until proven otherwise, is that his claims are pure fiction, and that he is just another black race hustler.

When KOP speaks of "thousands of American protesters that spoke out against the World Trade Organization months before [911] in Seattle, Washington," he is referring not to "protesters" who "spoke out," but to anarchist terrorists who rioted.

It's a White Thing, You Wouldn't Understand

As for the notion that white corporations "oppress" black hiphoppers and blacks in general, white-owned corporations made r/h a cultural and commercial force. KOP owes his celebrity to the white-owned corporation, RCA, which not only signed him to a recording contract in 1987 through its subsidiary, Jive, but stuck with him, after his recording partner, Scott La Rock (Scott Sterling), was shot to death in 1988. And as Rolling Stone reported on October 14, "in recent years he actually served as an executive with Dreamworks Records." KOP is a creature of white, corporate America.

While blacks have gladly forked over their money to those same white-owned corporations, it is whites who have made r/h the multi-billion-dollar business that it is. There are three simple reasons for this: There are six times as many whites as blacks in America; unlike blacks, who rarely spend money on white singers, whites have always bought recordings by blacks; and black billionaires and multimillionaires are unwilling to invest billions of dollars in the production, distribution, and marketing of music cds and videos, r/h or otherwise.

Every time a black entertainment form has become popular, whether it was the art of jazz or Motown, or the garbage that is r/h, it was whites that made it popular and lent it legitimacy. Were whites to boycott r/h, it would disappear tomorrow. Even black supremacy exists as a cultural and political power, only to the degree that white elites and white parents indulge it.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

After an earlier version of this essay appeared on the Web, I heard from none other than "Grouchy Greg," as the editor and publisher of allhiphop.com calls himself. (Mr. Greg? Mr. Grouchy?)

Subject: Re: Nice Article on KRS

In a message dated 10/24/2004 2:08:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, grouchygreg@tmail.com writes: Can I run this in our editorial section?
GROUCHY GREG/FOUNDER/ALLHIPHOP.COM/

Fifteen minutes later, I responded:

As long as you don't change it, be my guest!

Regards,

Nicholas Stix

The next day, Greg wrote me,

Subject: Re: AllHiphop

I won't change ONE word. Thanks so much, it adds the great balance I look for for our site. I don't agree with you, but that's cool, we don't have to agree. Thanks again and if you ever want to post your editorials related to hip hop (I know you probably don't write them frequently), please let me know.

KRS is not as revered in the game as you may believe. Other rappers have consistently pointed out his contradictions, but few will battle him due to his prowess on the mic. A friend of mine has challenged him to a debate he has yet to accept.
GROUCHY GREG/FOUNDER/ALLHIPHOP.COM/

Can we stay in touch?
GROUCHY GREG/FOUNDER/ALLHIPHOP.COM/

I wrote back:

Dear Greg,

The piece looks great at AHH, and I'm already getting tons of "love" mail. You're right that I probably won't be writing a lot of work on Hip-Hop -- not due to lack of interest, but an ever-widening gap between my interests and the time it takes to research, write, and rewrite a piece. But I greatly appreciate the offer, and will think of you first, if I decide to write on Hip-Hop again. And of course, I'd like to stay in touch.

I think it's great that you ran my piece. The 'Net tends to be as provincial as the mainstream media, with people preaching to their respective choirs. I want to reach people who disagree with me, but most editors are not as open-minded or interested in healthy debate as you are.

Thanks again for running the piece, and we'll both try and keep in touch.

Regards,

Nicholas

Four hours later, I had reason to write to Greg again:

Dear Greg,

I just checked the link to my article, before sending it to some people, and it didn't work. Then I went your site's home page, and it was gone ... with the wind. What happened?

Regards,

Nicholas

I never heard from Grouchy Greg again.

And what a shame that is. All I ever wanted, was to reach out to my black brothers and sisters, and feel the love.

I'm serious, even if I'm grinning in recognition of my unrealistic hopes. There is nothing loving about the black and white racial demagogues who fill young blacks' minds with genocidal hatred, or the white "conservatives" who skirt the issue, while shouting from under the table, "I love MLK!"

I first spoke out against black supremacy in 1975, when I was 17. Beginning in 1974, I was a token white in a federally-subsidized black supremacist program, the Youth Justice Program. We were all supposed to be juvenile delinquents, what today would be called "gangbangers," though some working-class fellows I knew from Roosevelt, Long Island, like Mark Renwick, Memlon Williams, and Phillip McDowell were much too clean-cut for that sort of life, and few even of the tough guys were the sort of stone-killer sociopath that seems to sprout today like weeds in the cracks in the cement in poor, working-class, and even middle-class black neighborhoods.

During the intensive summer program in 1975, our middle-class, black counselors had us read Sam Greenlee's James-Bond-in-Blackface novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, in which the CIA's first black agent ("Freeman" -- get it?) organizes black youth gangs in America's cities into a revolutionary army, which by the end of the story pulls off a successful, bloody, racial revolution. I debated our black counselors, who insisted that Spook was not only great literature, but a realistic plan for action. The most enthusiastic counselor was an upper-middle-class psychology student from Harvard.

By 1998, such suicidal notions had become academic dogmas. That year, while teaching at the City University of New York, I was the only one of CUNY's 12,000 faculty members to publicly attack black supremacist Khalid Abdul Muhammad's call for young black men to kill New York police officers in the "Million Youth March" in Harlem. I wrote that Muhammad wanted Harlem's gutters to run red with the blood of young black men. All of my "progressive" colleagues (i.e., virtually everyone) considered me a racist; they supported leading young black men to their deaths. How does trying to get blacks killed, make you a progressive?

Well, the progressives aren't laying down their lives, or those of their loved ones.

The Mainstreaming of Madness

If KOP were merely an isolated imbecile, he would not be worth any bandwidth. But as r/h writer Steve Huey reports, "to this day, he remains one of hip-hop's most outspoken and respected intellectuals." Intellectuals. Huey continues, "Taking on issues like black-on-black crime, police brutality, education, and spirituality, KRS-One found his audience growing and the mainstream paying attention to his message. The New York Times invited him to write editorials, and he found intense demand for his views on the college lecture circuit." Presumably, the Times had an editor re-write KOP's illiterate utterances into a semblance of English.

Beyond the r/h subculture, racist and anti-American statements by black New Yorkers are as much a part of daily life in the big city, however, as are black-on-white racial assaults. And yet, there is a virtual "blackout" on reporting such incidents and statements in the New York media. The blackout is the work of racist, black newsroom enforcers and their white allies. (In January 1991, after I was attacked in the subway by a spontaneously-forming black-and-Hispanic gang, a white NYPD detective acknowledged that such racial assaults on whites are a daily occurrence, but that for political reasons, "there are some things you can't say." And things only got worse under Mayor Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001). The much-vaunted crime-fighting revolution under Giuliani involved the systemic fudging of crime statistics.)

It is because the Daily News violated the "blackout," that KOP is so angry. Perhaps because they were gossip columnists, Rush and Molloy hadn't gotten the memo. (On a personal note, I used to freelance for New York Newsday, New York's most leftwing daily. In 1991, I violated the blackout, and was punished by being "whitelisted.")

Recall that KOP complained that he was misquoted, only to show that he had been quoted exactly. Logically, he was engaging in self-contradiction. Psychologically, what was going on was more like this: The Daily News writers criticized KOP. The media are not supposed to criticize "authentically" black men. The truth of what KOP said is for him beside the point. As far he is concerned, the News was obliged to put a positive spin on what he said, and air-brush his most treasonous statements. That's called, "respect" (read: deference).

Ultimately, the mystery isn't why reporters typically don't report on black racism and anti-Americanism, but why, as in KOP's case, they occasionally do.

New York-based freelancer Nicholas Stix has written for Toogood Reports, Middle American News, the New York Post, Daily News, American Enterprise, Insight, Chronicles, Newsday and many other publications. His recent work is collected at The Critical Critic.

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[Awestruck]

if one idiot is respected by a large group of idiots, it does not make him or them any less stupid. This person will be forgotten except by his family in years to come. No one will even remember his existance, so what he says does not matter.

[SandRat]

Got it Freepers?



GOT RAP SCUM?

[Choose Ye This Day]

Isn't this KRS-One idiot the rapper that R.E.M. had on their tune "Radio Song"?

The one with the stupid lyrics:

What are you sayin'?
Who you obeyin'?
Day out and day in...

[Tuba Guy]

(upmf - umpha - upmf-pha) -- Ooh-papa-dee-dah, Osama our leada' -- (upmf - umpha - upmf-pha) -- repeat ad nauseum

[rdb3]

I ain't no joke

I used to let the mic smoke

Now I slam it when I'm done

And make sure it's broke

When I'm gone

No one gets on

Cuz I won't let

Nobody press up or mess up

The scene I set

I used to stand in the crowd

And watch the people wonder, "Damn!"

But think about it

Then you'll understand

I'm just an addict

Addicted to music

Maybe it's a habit

I gotta use it

Even if it's jazz

Or the Quiet Storm

I hook the beat up

Convert it to hip-hop form

Write a rhyme in grafitti and

Every show you see me in

Deep concentration

Cuz I'm no comedian

Jokerz are wild

If ya wanna be tamed

I'll treat you like a child

Then you're gonna be named

Another enemy

Not even a friend of me

Cuz you'll be fried

In the end if you pretend to be

Cuz I just put your mind on pause

And I can beat you when you compare my rhyme with yours

I wake you up

And as I stare in your face you seem stunned

Remember me?

The one you got your idea from?

But soon you start to suffer

The toon'll get rougher

When you start to stutter

That's when you've had enough of

Bitin' it'll make you choke

You can't provoke

You can't cope

You shoulda broke

Cuz I ain't no joke.

[Righter-than-Rush]

[CrazyIvan]

"But he is widely recognized as one of hip-hop's most outspoken and respected intellectuals."

Yup, and I'm widely recognized as one of interior decorating's most outspoken and respected heterosexuals.