Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (33 1/3) (10 page)

In the original mix of
Nation of Millions
, “Show ’Em” was the first song on the record, serving as an intro that would allow the names of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Rosa Parks to work like samples. It was a statement to prepare the listener for a radical package that couldn’t be reduced to the politics of just one individual. As Chuck vowed to ’80s-era interviewers, one of Public Enemy’s goals was to “build 5,000 political black leaders in the span of two years.”
Nation of Millions
was meant as a jumping-off point to forming your own opinions and making your own revolutions — the operative word in “Show ’Em Whatcha Got” was “you.” And just like it was impossible to lump together the politics of Malcolm and Martin and Farrakhan, Public Enemy themselves were, as Chuck said, a “diverse consortium of black men”
⁶⁹
— how else do you explain the severe, proselytizing Professor Griff coexisting in a band with the future Viking-helmeted star of
Flavor of Love
?

In a way, Wattstax was a perfect antecedent, the living embodiment of the Public Enemy line “All in, we’re gonna win.” The festival brought together a diverse group of people from South Central L.A. for a day of music and revolution. On the Wattstax DVD commentary, Chuck remembered 1972 as a crossroads,
with the idea of black power “falling out of favor” for “a time to focus on your individuality
and
your collectiveness.” Chuck commented on the panoply of ages, fashion styles, dance moves and attitudes, saying it all drove home the spirit of individuality for him. As for the collectiveness, that manifested in the estimated 112,000 people in attendance, one of the largest gatherings of African-Americans in history at that point — second only to King’s March on Washington.

Wattstax was a response to the six-day Watts rebellion in 1965, a breaking point of racial tension in the L.A. area that left 34 dead and the neighborhood in flames. Stax was building its brand in Watts that summer with the Stax Revue — a series of Los Angeles shows including Booker T and the MGs, Carla and Rufus Thomas, and Wilson Pickett — which was to culminate over a weekend at 700-capacity 4/5 Ballroom, promoted by KGFJ DJ Magnificent Montague. At the show, Montague was sure to use his excited catchphrase — “Burn, baby, burn!” — which would take new life in the oncoming days. A groundswell of racial tension in the area peaked after a struggle between a white motorcycle patrolman and an African-American accused of driving under the influence. The neighborhood subsequently erupted.

Out of the rebellion’s ashes, the Watts Summer Festival was held every year, raising awareness of political issues, fostering economic development in the community, commemorating the lives lost and
building toward the future. Stax’s California representative Forest Hamilton suggested that the label get involved with the festival in 1972, proposing what funky Stax poet John KaSandra once pitched as a “Black Woodstock.”
⁷⁰
Under the guidance of Stax president Al Bell, the festival grew into a massive charity exercise that drew an unparalleled number of attendees. Poet and Watts prophet Jacquette Dedeaux, who helped Hamilton and Bell with the original ideas, said the LAPD recommended that they use the Los Angeles Coliseum because “they didn’t want to see that many black people in Watts ‘uncorralled.’”
⁷¹
Despite the inflammatory, paranoid suggestion, the venue choice did accommodate a massive crowd, ultimately raising thousands of dollars for the Watts Summer Festival, Martin Luther King Hospital, the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH and the Watts Labor Action Committee. Stax and Schlitz Brewing ate the entire cost of production, and all the artists played for free. Tickets were priced at $1 — tax deductible, no less — so that everyone could come. The original press release for the film called it “The best deal in town. Any town.” And, of course, Stax would get something out of it too: promotion for its sizable roster, its first steps into the film business and two soundtracks that would follow.

One of the largest black-owned companies in America, Stax made sure the event was a pro-black event with no equal. It requested that the LAPD use
African-American officers and that the security forces at the Coliseum do the same. The private security force that Stax hired was African-American as well. No one was to carry a gun. “It was a hot day in Los Angeles in mid-August, and we did not have one incident amid 112,000 black people that went through the turnstiles in that 90,000-seat stadium,” said Bell. “That, to me, is terribly significant. Everyone was saying that all of these people from Watts were supposed to be violent.”
⁷²
In addition, Bell insisted that film producer David Wolper integrate his camera crew with local African-American cameramen. Forty-five out of the 48 cameramen were, as Stax press materials put it, “skilled Blacks who have been ‘discovered’ for Hollywood” — a coup in the still-very-segregated ’70s movie business.

Essentially, pretty much anyone who said a word, played a note or danced in the bleachers at Wattstax was a participant in history. Public Enemy pulled a series of spoken-word vignettes from the 1973 soundtrack for
Nation of Millions
. The speeches and announcements peppered throughout the soundtrack LP inspired the Bomb Squad to fill Public Enemy’s album with similar off-the-cuff live material from their December U.K. concert, giving their own album the same sense of weight and cohesion. They used Wattstax dialogue on at least five occasions, pulling not only the Bar-Kays’ “Freedom is a road” speech, but also their cry of “We’re gonna get on down now” for “Night of the Living Baseheads.” Public Enemy
used a harried Rufus Thomas going, “Now wait a . . . minute” for “Baseheads” and added his “Now here’s what I want you all to do for me” for “Don’t Believe the Hype.” They got Jesse Jackson saying he doesn’t know what this world is coming to for the opening of “Rebel.” Chuck told Michael Kelly, the archivist who restored the
Wattstax
film, in
Wax Poetics
magazine:

Rufus Thomas may have had more soul in his voice than anyone at Wattstax because, at 55 years old, he
was
the history of popular music. At the start of the 1970s, he was entering his fifth decade in show business and had dabbled in every form of music available. He was an irresistible force and consummate showman who made comeback after comeback. Thomas’ career dates back to the pre-soul era; he cut his teeth in 1936 as a tap dancer in Mississippi’s all-black revue, the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. He was briefly a blues crooner in the ’40s with the release of a 78 called “I’ll Be a Good Boy.” His 3 p.m. slot as a DJ at Memphis’ highly influential radio station WDIA, the first all-black-programmed station in the country, was full of unfiltered energy and his unique language. He opened every show with his trademark rap: “I’m loose as a goose and full of juice / I’ve got the goose, so what’s the use.” Probably listening was Elvis Presley, an avowed fan of the station. Definitely listening was Memphis’ young Isaac Hayes. Thomas gave rock ’n’ roll label Sun Records its first hit in 1953 with “Bear Cat.” With daughter Carla, he gave Memphis’ Satellite Records its first hit in 1960 with “’Cause I Love You,” a song that gave founder James Stewart his first taste of success — inspiring him to turn the fledgling imprint into an R&B label, which was renamed Stax.

Rufus Thomas performed at Wattstax with second billing under Isaac Hayes. He was in the middle of one of his many comebacks, thanks to his funk-era smash “Do the Funky Chicken.” Much like what Clyde Stubblefield said about his drums in “Funky
Drummer,” Thomas said the lyrics to the cluckin’ dance sensation simply generated inside of him without thought. “The words just started to come,” he said. “I don’t know how; they just came out of the blue.”
⁷⁴
The night before he performed “Chicken” at Wattstax, the L.A. Rams were busy blowing out the Oakland Raiders in a 34–9 pre-season game at the Coliseum. The staff had to assemble the stage in the wee hours, starting at 2:30 a.m. and toiling until the morning. There was a hefty insurance policy against Stax if something should happen to the grass. The fans would be relegated to the stands, and the grass was off-limits.

Once Thomas came out — stomping around the stage in shin-high white boots, pink hot pants and a cape while the sun set in the distance — people started scaling the fence and storming the football field. Once “Funky Chicken” played at a breakneck tempo, it was pandemonium. The Raiders’ playground turned into the Land of 1,000 Dances. Embodying Chuck D’s idea of “individuality and collectiveness,” everyone was freaking in their own style, from the Funky Chicken to ebullient bursts of whatever. With the insurance policy looming and the grass being stomped upon by thousands of feet, Bell started to panic. Thomas had to come to the rescue. “He was the last of that era of people that came out of that minstrel period. He knew how to work a crowd because he came from that era where you walked out without a microphone, and you had to get that crowd and work ’em up,” said Bell.
“The only way that we’re gonna get these people off the field is with Rufus Thomas.”
⁷⁵

Thomas’ voice was authoritative enough to burrow through the bedlam: “Now wait a minute. Wait
aaaaa
minute.” The line, of course, was employed to usher in the bridge of Public Enemy’s “Night of the Living Baseheads.” And like Thomas’ plea, it was used to break the tension, leading to the few moments in “Baseheads” in which the honking sax and uneasy shaker could take five. Professor Griff knocks down the door with sermonizing: “Succotash is a means for kids to make cash / Selling drugs to the brother man instead of the other man.” Meanwhile, back in 1972, Thomas had some political-style rhetoric of his own with an improv speech that mirrored the language of protest at the time: “More power to the folks, let’s go up to the stands / Don’t jump the fence / Because it don’t make sense.”

“Now here’s what I want you all to do for me,” added Thomas, which ended up as the intro to “Don’t Believe the Hype.” “Rufus Thomas has more soul in that statement to get you ready for a rap joint,” Chuck said. “’Cause you know Rufus Thomas must have introduced a whole lot of funky records back when he was a DJ.”
⁷⁶
Chuck, once a DJ himself, understood the power of voice. At 12 years old, he was too young to get into the theater and see
Wattstax
when it came out. But he frequently saw ads for the soundtrack in
Jet
magazine — at one point he even wondered if it were
even possible for the 100,000 people on the album cover to be all black. Since Chuck wouldn’t be able to see Thomas’ flashy Wattstax performance until he was adult, he could only hear the record and be influenced by Thomas’ voice, a force that was at once authoritative and avuncular.

One of the most important voices on the Wattstax record belonged to a young Jesse Jackson, who kicked off the festival with an invocation that ended with his legendary “I Am Somebody” speech. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis four years earlier, Jackson had been standing even closer to King than Isaac Hayes — he was in the courtyard at the Lorraine Motel, close enough to hear the rifle clap. Jackson’s ascension as a public figure soon followed, occurring in the same post-Malcolm, post-King void of leadership that also gave rise to the Black Panthers and James Brown’s political singles. Charismatic, ambitious and tireless, Jackson was the champion of television sound bites. As a bridge between MLK’s messages of economic empowerment and the Panthers’ calls for immediate revolution, Jackson was the perfect complement to the rise of Stax Records — one of the largest black-owned businesses in the country that worked with an integrated staff, a company who’s biggest recording artist oozed black power after charting a record made up of white pop hits.

Heading up the Chicago chapter of Operation Breadbasket, Jackson turned a campaign to improve
economic conditions into an aggressive agent of change. With tactics like picketing chain stores and threatening boycotts if they didn’t carry enough black products or hire enough black employees, Breadbasket’s efforts resulted in what a 1971
Life
magazine article claimed was 4,000 jobs for Chicago’s black residents, plus 10,000 more jobs that were created indirectly. By 1974, black entrepreneurs in Chicago had a more extensive financial stronghold than in any other city in the country. With these efforts, Jackson got the attention and adoration of Stax Records and Al Bell. Isaac Hayes started showing up to Jackson’s three-hour Breadbasket service meetings, get-togethers that treated protest and community organization as a spiritual, inspirational event. Bell signed Jackson as the first artist on Stax’s consciousness-heavy daughter label, Respect Records, and released his album
I Am Somebody
under the name the Country Preacher: The Rev. Jesse Jackson.

To this day, “I Am Somebody” is regarded as Jackson’s most famous speech. An intense work of call-and-response that follows Christian litanies and anticipates hip-hop, “Somebody” also makes use of sampling. The familiar refrain — “I am . . . somebody” was used by Jackson’s father figure, Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech delivered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. But the way Jackson flipped the line turned it into an unforgettable chorus, something that worked with the unique chemistry of a chart-topping
pop song. It was something uncomplicated enough to resonate when Jackson said it on a 1971 episode of
Sesame Street
but deep enough to inspire the masses at Wattstax. Bell had seen Jackson deliver the speech in Chicago, and he said being on the Wattstax stage for Jackson’s sweaty, passionate, fist-heavenward reading was “a highlight in my life on planet earth.”
⁷⁷