KRS-ONE Interview on the Alex Jones Show
Wednesday
May 20, 2009
In January, shortly before Barack Obama took the oath of office, legendary Hip-Hop pioneer KRS-ONE phoned into the Alex Jones Show and offered an interview. Jones hosts a syndicated radio program and he is a conspiracy theorist who propagates warnings to his listeners daily. These warnings predict that the world will fall victim to a global restructuring of power, a New World Order. Currently, there exists a sect of followers in the world who blindly submit to such theories, and the primary prerequisite for this class of individuals, it appears, depends mostly on the group of people they seem to hate (or fear) the most. It could be foreign entities, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, socialists, communists, or capitalists.
Regardless of who they believe is piloting the black helicopters that they claim are flying overhead and transporting weapons in preparation for a government take-over, they are content to recess into the cracks and crevices of civil society and stockpile weapons arsenals and ammunition. They exist in all shapes and sizes, but the one specific message that seems to reign consistent across all of their rhetorical musings is revolution by force. They are your paramilitary militias, neo-Nazi skinheads, Underground Weathermen, Black Panthers, Branch Davidian sympathizers, Oklahoma City bombers, anthrax mailers, Minutemen, and even your modern-day tea baggers.
While Alex Jones may not align himself with any of these specific groups, the whispered undertones of his message remain the same. He sits within a circle of conspiratorial shock jocks who willfully pollute the airwaves with piercing propaganda, and he is among a privileged few radio personalities who rose to great heights by lying for a living, utilizing the power of language to manipulate vulnerable minds. Previously, I wouldn’t dream of associating KRS-ONE with this same category of misfits, but his recent alignment with Jones on the subject of New World Order conspiracy theory made me think twice.
It can be unsettling, at least, to learn that a single interview might crumble the perceived understanding a person has of someone they admired for so long. To some degree, I believe that Jones used KRS-ONE as a prop to embellish his own distaste for so-called “bad” Hip-Hop and its “shoot ‘em up” culture. Despite his praise of the emcee on the air, it seemed apparent the guy was not a familiar fan of KRS-ONE’s work, referring to DJ Scott La Rock as simply, La Rock, and fumbling to get KRS-ONE’s own stage name right, calling him KSR on several occasions.
In the interview, I was surprised to learn that KRS-ONE dismisses Barack Obama as a mere puppet. Last year, I was proud after stepping into the voting booth and casting my ballot, not for an African American, but a person who I felt represented me and my generation better than any politician before him. Barack Obama is young, intelligent, educated, humble, aggressive, cultured, and admittedly imperfect. He had a reputation for standing up against strong and powerful forces, and he knew how to organize people into action. He was my candidate for President and, like many others, I did whatever was in my power to ensure his election.
When Obama’s administration took office, they inherited the largest deficit this country had the misfortune of experiencing, which was the unfortunate bi-product of a pro-capitalist, anti-socialist regime that raped tax-payers, nullified the Constitution, and metaphorically crapped on the world’s carpet as they tromped through its house uninvited. Nobody in their right mind would want to be the person responsible for cleaning this mess. Still, rather than offer the man some benefit of the doubt, the legendary Blastmaster gave Americans, specifically blacks, his harsh assessment of Barack Obama as a cunning agent of the devil. At this point, I’m positive that I could hear my neo-conservative, fanatically religious in-laws cheering loudly within the deep recesses of my brain.
I get it, man. I really do. The rich don’t care about the poor, Barack Obama is just another politician, and young people won’t get anywhere by placing hope in anyone but themselves. It’s a message that all people should heed, but there is something inherently wrong with encouraging young people to stop the violence in one ear and telling them to have their guns ready for the revolution in the other. It’s a counterproductive and damning message, which implies the country cannot overthrow the incredible forces of industry through non-violent means. Nobody argues that democracy is perfect, but when it works the way it should, suddenly a nation of millions have clean water to drink, health labels on their food, traffic lights at dangerous intersections, and maybe even clean air to breath. These things only happen when people have faith in their ability to govern, and that is Obama’s message.
In the Jones interview, KRS-ONE compares the presidency to a management position at Burger King, which is ultimately beholden to the franchise owner. In America, he says, the banks and corporate executives own the franchise. This is where I respectfully beg to differ. In the real world, it is the American people who hold that title and the inherent problem lies in the fact that too many of us don’t care, understand our potential for influence, or take advantage of the powers granted to us by the Constitution. The evidence lies in the number of citizens who actually vote, and how often they contact their so-called representatives.
Barack Obama is “our” president because we put him there. African Americans are one of many groups that elected him and, for the first time in their history, a great majority of blacks now share the awesome burden of holding their President’s feet to the fire. KRS-ONE points out in the Jones interview that Americans should not stand idly by and “mindlessly” follow Barack Obama. An excellent point. Still, he doesn’t seem to offer any useful advice for newcomers to the system that lies outside the realm of conspiracy-driven doomsday scenarios that predict a New World Order.
I once read that KRS-ONE dreamed of taking over a small town and building it into a Hip-Hop City. I’m curious to know who would manage that city, and how they would tend the store. How would they work with their neighbors to accommodate the flow of commerce and exchange of ideas? Would they publicly repudiate technology, apparently a tool of the New World Order? This is really what the new world fear is all about. Globalization is, as KRS-ONE would say, “truth.” Human beings populate the Earth at an exponential rate, and cultures collide as a consequence. Yes, it is frightening, but it’s also reality. Ignoring lavish theories about a looming New World Order, the problem we actually face today has everything to do with how we construct a system that maintains our sovereignty while responsibly addressing the influence we have on those outside our borders.
