Rapper Chuck D doesn’t like to think of his public appearances as lectures. Rather, he considers them to be ‘vibe sessions.’ So when he spoke last night in Goldstein Auditorium, the mood was decidedly relaxed as he described his plane’s descent on the city of Syracuse.

‘I was at the University of Florida in Gainesville last week,’ he said, ‘and people were running around in shorts and cars with the top down, which they haven’t done in Syracuse since August. I was in the plane looking down on Syracuse, and I was like, ‘Damn, fuckin’ snow!”

Chuck D’s speech, ‘Rap, Race and Reality,’ covered just that. He was informed of Syracuse University’s blackface incidents on the way to the campus, and made a point of adding this into his conversation.

‘The problem is that the United States still treats everything as black and white, like an old TV set,’ he said. ‘Just because you see black folks on TV doesn’t mean that it (racism) doesn’t exist. It’s not what you are; it’s what society makes you.’

Chuck D cited Eminem as an example of the media forcing an entertainer to adhere to his stage image in real life. The recent hype surrounding the rapper’s use of the formerly forbidden n-word was not just the fault of the artist, he said, but a manipulation on the part of the entire media conglomeration. Source magazine does this by promoting the idea that street cred, thug life and ‘gangsterism’ are more real than someone going to Syracuse for four years and getting a degree, he said.

‘Rap music is supposed to give a panoramic view of life,’ he said. ‘It should be showing things from black people on the corner to people kissing their moms. But since it’s all one big movie and TV show, the media is going to show what’s more attractive.’

The notorious n-word was a big topic for Chuck D, who dislikes the music industry’s sudden popularization of the word.

‘A hip-hop cultural marketing campaign turned nigger into an OK word,’ he said. ‘It took six or seven years for them to turn the word around. People are now hearing from hip-hop that nigger doesn’t mean anything.’

Chuck D cited rapper Nick Cannon and the black music network BET as examples of how hip-hop music is losing its heart. BET was originally owned by a private individual until it was purchased by Viacom, the same conglomerate that owns Nickelodeon. Nick Cannon, a supposed hip-hop artist, has recently been featured on the children’s network.

‘They’re trying to turn Nickelodeon into Niggerodeon,’ he said. ‘It might seem the same, it might sound the same, but you’re just not feelin’ him. The body might be there, as well as the sound, but the soul is disappearing as well as the mind.’

Many student attendees felt that Chuck D was on target, but vague at times.

‘It was pretty ambiguous as to what he was talking about,’ said Steven Cleiman, a sophomore international relations major. ‘He tried to make a big stink about dropping the n-bomb, but it was hard to clarify as to what he was saying.’

‘He tried to tackle a lot of ideas at once, but didn’t really take them on,’ said Adam Gorode, a junior music industry major. ‘His whole speech seemed to be more directed at a black audience, which I expected when I came in. But I didn’t feel excluded or uncomfortable.’

Chuck D’s primary message to the audience was a warning not to allow their lives to become overly homogenous.

‘We should be living in a war zone of philosophies and ideas,’ he said. ‘Culture should progress with people because it comes from people.’

Published on January 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm