Public Enemy rapper and hip hop legend Chuck D took to twitter to air his views after one of his group’s tracks were used during the Oscar’s 20126 awards ceremony it has emerged.
The rapper – whose group Public Enemy rose to prominence in the late ’80s and early ’90s with albums such as ‘Fear of A Black Planet’ and ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back’ – took to Twitter after their trademark hit, ‘Fight The Power’ was used as host Chris Rock‘s walk on music at the beginning of the ceremony, and during the televised show’s closing credits.
According to Pitchfork, the rapper ‘weighed in’, claiming that the “point of the song is a call to making change eventually, not just applauding the thought.”
GettyRead more: Oscars 2016: Full list of winners at 88th Academy Awards
“Oscars are like a TRADE show. If you aint in that business why should you care? Its like winter baseball meetings, how many care about that?” You can watch the aforementioned closing television credits below and Chuck D’s response in a series of Tweets, below (scroll down for footage of Rock’s monologue segment).
Anyone else digging the #FightThePower jam playing during the #Oscars credits? pic.twitter.com/rpUFTt72UV
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) February 29, 2016
We protested the grammies in 1989 because they HAD zero catagory for the genre. A 10 yr music at the time. It was for the entire artform-duh
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
Its the artform i WORKED in.It was my duty to fight for that respect.We unionized.Jeff&Will won it &we collectively applauded em #madeSense
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
I dont wanna hear about Oscars being white. Oscar been white. We have need black communities to support our ARTS as much as we do sports IMO
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
WHEN you CANNOT TEACH the ARTS in your community schools as HISTORY.You leave it up to the Govt & Corps to DEFINE you.Thus we wait for AWARD
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
ESPN TNT NBA & ABC is the reason StephCurry is a popular ICON.If you aint goin to the game you wont know. YET the equivalent in ARTS is ZERO
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
Schools been wack.There is a REASON folks dont know sht about music film history etc. But sportsworld will LEAVE you if you dumb on the game
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
Avg fan of music in 2016 fails any test when asked facts about it. Avg fan of sport passes the basics. In Black community its so EVIDENT
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
I toss a 100 sports names & many will know. Ill ask the last 100yrs of recording artists, actors, authors etc & watch fumbles all over my TL
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
Knowledge of the ARTS & a Passport is a good place to start if you wanna keep w these next 4 yrs. You aint gotta travel but your mind better
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
After the long series of posts (which you can view in full here), Chuck signed off with
Knowledge of the ARTS & a Passport is a good place to start if you wanna keep w these next 4 yrs. You aint gotta travel but your mind better
— Chuck D (@MrChuckD) February 29, 2016
During Rock’s Monologue, the comedian and actor said: “Well, I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People Choice Awards. If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job,” the 51-year-old comedian started off the monologue. “This is the wildest, craziest Oscars to ever host. You have all this controversy… I though about quitting, but I realized they’re gonna have the Oscars anyway… The last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.”
“Why this Oscars? It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole ‘no black nominee things’ has happened at least 71 other times,” Chris continued. “You have to figure it happened in the 50s, in the 60s… And black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about best cinematography. When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, you’re too busy to care about winning best documentary short.” You can also watch Rock’s walk on and speech here.
Meanwhile, last night’s Oscars ceremony saw Leonardo DiCaprio win an Academy Award on his sixth attempt, taking home the gong for Best Actor. Following the news, rapper Kanye West offered his congratulations via social media.
DiCaprio finally triumphed at the Oscars 2016 after years of memes and gags at his expense. He beat Michael Fassbender, Eddie Redmayne, Matt Damon and Bryan Cranston to the Best Actor award for his role as Hugh Glass in The Revenant.
West posted a message to Twitter after the win, describing DiCaprio as “our guy” and adding: “We’re so so happy for Leo!” DiCaprio had previously been romantically linked to West’s friend and collaborator Rihanna.
See Kanye West’s tweet below.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/704173836372217857
Leonardo DiCaprio used his Oscar acceptance speech to talk about climate change. “Climate change is real. It is happening right now,” he said. “It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.”
Earlier in the weekend, Kanye West praised actor Will Ferrell after watching Zoolander 2, saying that the star has “reached walking living breathing god status”.