When Public Enemy‘s Chuck D wrote Burn Hollywood Burn as a scathing indictment of the movie business’s therapy of black actors and the LAPD’s notorious racial profiling for his band’s third album, Concern Of A Black Planet, he couldn’t probably have imagined that, 25 years on, his track could be co-opted by on-line edgelords taking pleasure from seeing the destruction brought on by devastating Californian wildfires.
However right here we’re.
Yesterday, January 9, the hip-hop legend known as out these misappropriating the band’s track on this insensitive method, calling on these doing so to “be taught the historical past.”
“Burn Hollywood Burn is a protest track,” the rapper defined on Instagram, on a publish captioned ‘PRAY 4 LA’. “Extracted from the Watts rebel monikered by the Magnificent Montague in 1965 in opposition to inequality when he mentioned ‘Burn child burn’ throughout the air. We made thoughts revolution songs aimed toward a one sided exploitation by a[n] business. Has nothing to do with households, dropping all the things they’ve in a pure catastrophe.”
“Study the historical past,” he added. “Godspeed to these in loss.”
“Please don’t use our track in your reels and photos of this horrifying pure catastrophe.”
The fires in Los Angeles have already claimed 10 lives, destroyed hundreds of properties, and led to the evacuation of 180,000 individuals.
Actor Mel Gibson, who lose his Malibu house within the fires, has instructed controversial podcaster Joe Rogan that the fires could also be a sign of an impending collapse of civilisation.
“All these earmarks, the precursors of a collapse, they’re current in our time,” Gibson says, including “It doesn’t take lengthy” for a civilisation to break down.