Chuck D continues to stand as one of the most important voices in hip-hop. During the 2013 “Made In America” festival, Public Enemy’s front man sat down with rolling out and shared his thoughts on Miley Cyrus twerking and the stealing of black culture.
An excerpt from the interview is below:
“Miley Cyrus decided to twerk after 500,000 twerking black women and now, all of a sudden, twerking has become big news. This was predicted long ago. It’s black music. When you turn it from being black music into something called ‘urban,’ it becomes vague on where it actually comes from. Eventually, it chases out the people that created it completely. On the other hand, it’s the beautiful thing about black music. It’s a culture that should be seen by everybody. However, when it becomes a thing of business, anything black that’s positive in a culture of music isn’t considered marketable to their [corporate] standards.
“[When it comes to stealing black culture] that’s been going on for 100 years. You’re doing the jazz thing up in the Savoy in Harlem and three years later they’re calling it swing. It has caused cultures to be shared. But I don’t like when it gets to a point where we don’t have any say so in the culture.”
