“Please don’t use our song on your reels and pictures of this horrifying natural disaster,” rapper says
Chuck D called on people to stop insensitively pairing Los Angeles wildfire videos with Public Enemy’s “Burn Hollywood Burn” on social media and educated those misusing the track of the true meaning of the 1990 song.
Released on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted group’s Fear of a Black Planet, “Burn Hollywood Burn” was a protest anthem aimed at the film and television industry’s stereotyping of Black roles — “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,” guest Big Daddy Kane rapped on the track — as well as racial profiling in the Hollywood area itself.
Despite the song’s easily decipherable lyrics and meaning, its chorus — “Burn Hollywood, burn” repeated — somehow became a popular soundtrack for social media videos cruelly celebrating the wildfires currently sweeping through Los Angeles, which drew the ire of Chuck D.
“’Burn Hollywood Burn’ is a protest song,” the rapper explained. “Extracted from the Watts rebellion monikered by the Magnificent Montague in 1965 against inequality when he said ‘Burn baby burn’ across the air. We made mind revolution songs aimed at a one sided exploitation by a[n] industry. Has nothing to do with families, losing everything they have in a natural disaster.”
He added, “Learn the lesson. Godspeed to those in loss.”
More than 10,000 structures are thought to have burned down in multiple fires around the Los Angeles area, including in Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena. At least five people have been killed, with more than 130,000 people displaced by the blazes.
Chuck D added in the comments of his statement, “PRAY 4 LA,” and reiterated, “Please don’t use our song on your reels and pictures of this horrifying natural disaster.”
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