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The prophet Chuck D, on MP3
By Patti Hartigan, Globe Staff, 02/12/99
In the words of Cornel West, he's ''a freedom fighter of his
generation.'' In the words of Spike Lee, he's ''one of the most politically
and socially conscious artists of any generation.'' But forget the
superlatives. Chuck D, founder of the rap group Public Enemy, has roared about
the Three E's: education, economics, and enforcement (as in law). Now he's
aiming at another alphabetical trio, an Information Age version of the three
Rs -- record companies, radio stations, and retail stores.
''I'm the person who waves a flag for the artists to have a fair shot,''
Chuck D says during a phone interview from Atlanta. ''The record companies
hide behind bushes when I talk because I'm the mouth that roars. They're full
of 'No comments.' ''
His latest rap condemns the music industry. ''If you don't own the
master/then the master owns you,'' the song proclaims, comparing the
artist-industry relationship to slavery. ''Dollar a rhyme/but we barely get a
dime.'' Needless to say, you won't find record company executives touting the
tune, you won't hear it on the radio, and you won't find it in retail stores.
It's available only on the Internet at www.public-enemy.com.
The provocative song is the latest salvo fired in Chuck D's dispute with
his former label Def Jam Recordings and its parent company Polygram (now part
of Universal Music Group). Now, you could write this off as a typical
artist-management skirmish if it didn't involve a technological advance that
is rapidly changing the way music is produced, marketed, and distributed. The
record industry is facing its most monumental shakeup, more daunting than what
happened when vinyl gave way to the CD. It's all thanks to a simple but
groundbreaking computer format that rhymes with MTV.
They call it MP3.
The controversial format enables anyone with a modem and a mouse to
download digital copies of recorded music that sound almost exactly like the
originals. It's the hottest thing in cyberspace these days, and companies like
Lycos and JamTV are racing to come up with products and services as fast as
you can say, ''I want my MP3!'' Depending on whom you talk to, though, MP3 is
either the beginning of a brave new world of artistic freedom or a return to
the days when the pirates ruled the seas.
Certain artists (including Public Enemy, Billy Idol, the Beastie Boys, and
the surviving members of the Grateful Dead) are way ahead of the industry
executives, who are scrambling to catch up with the chaotic, constantly
changing world of cyberspace. Public Enemy, for instance, used the MP3 format
to post recordings from its unreleased remix album on its Web site late last
year. Def Jam demanded that the band remove the songs from the site, and
Public Enemy eventually severed its ties with the label, which has produced
every Public Enemy album since its debut in 1987. ''That was the straw that
broke the camel's back,'' says Chuck D.
When asked about the split, a Def Jam spokeswoman said, ''No comment.''
But the Recording Industry Association of America is hardly hiding behind
the bushes. ''With the touch of a button, any 13-year-old can make music
available to millions of people around the world,'' says Cary Sherman, the
industry group's senior executive vice president and general counsel. ''We're
talking about a whole new dimension of piracy.''
Chuck D, however, downplays these fears. ''They're trying to come up with a
two-minute offense,'' he says. ''That's what we say in football when you're
behind and you come up with some rush plays.''
Here's the play by play: The recording industry association has been
scouring the Internet to shut down illegal MP3 sites, and in December, it
launched the Secure Digital Music Initiative, or SDMI, a plan to develop
standards to protect copyrighted music in cyberspace. When the Internet portal
Lycos launched an MP3 search engine last week, the industry association forced
the company to vow it would not link to illegal sites offering bootleg music.
MP3 files, after all, aren't scratchy cassette tapes with gaps between
tracks. They're high-quality recordings. Many Web sites, including www.mp3.com
and www.goodnoise.com, offer legal MP3 recordings to download for about $1 a
song; the files are compressed, so it takes only a minute or so to download a
track using a high-speed modem. Browsers can then play the tunes right on
their computer using one of the free players, such as Real Player, that are
readily available on the Internet.
MP3 is all the rage among today's technologically savvy college students,
who can easily use ''ripper'' software to copy their CDs into the MP3 format
and distribute it for free -- or for profit -- over the Internet. David
Weekly, a 20-year-old Arlington native and a computer science student at
Stanford University, put his entire music collection up on his Web site two
years ago, and his site was so popular it almost crashed the university's
server. He took the collection down after a representative from Geffen Records
contacted the school.
But you don't have to be a computer science student to use the technology,
and you don't have to be glued to your computer, either. In December, the
first portable device designed to play MP3 files hit the market. Called the
Rio PMP300, it's smaller than a Walkman and retails for $200. You hook it up
to your computer and download your music files into its memory chip. Chuck D's
grandmother could listen to MP3 recordings on a Rio while she's baking cookies
in the kitchen. It's that simple. The device worried the recording industry
association, which unsuccessfully tried to block its introduction in stores
last year.
But Chuck D, whose longtime mantra has been ''Don't believe the hype,''
thinks the paranoia about the technology is inflated. ''The big five labels
are going to catch up,'' he says. ''They're going to develop their own
supersites, and there will be updated futuristic record clubs.'' However, he
and other artists contend that the technology can level the playing field,
enabling musicians to control their own work.
''The day of the demo is dead,'' Chuck D says. ''We're going to have
500,000 labels and a million artists.'' Musicians might also be able to
leverage a better profit margin, more than the usual dime-per-dollar
percentage most artists receive from the major labels. ''Every artist contract
should be 50-50,'' Chuck D says.
The prophet of this new cybernation is putting his modem where his mouth
is. He plans to launch his own interactive label -- one of the projected
500,000 -- on the Internet. It's called slamjamz.com, and is due to be up
later this month. It will offer albums by such bands as Hyenas in the Desert
and Virus.com.
Slamming the music industry is nothing new to this prophet of rage, who
has blasted record companies for making ''mad loot'' off young rappers. As it
turns out, he's not new to cyberspace, either. Back in 1994, when most folks
thought the Internet was some weird thing that had to do with MIT and the
military, Chuck D and Public Enemy were aware that a cultural sea change was
imminent. Its 1994 CD, ''Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age,'' includes a track called
''Harry Ellis' Interactive Superhighway Phone Call to Chuck D,'' a manifesto
urging musicians to stay in tune with the changing technology. ''We're talking
about a shift in the way this music is distributed,'' the track warns. ''The
music companies are trying to make sure that . . . they are ahead of the
curve.''
The track seemed like a bizarre rambling back in 1994: ''People were,
like, who, what, huh, duh,'' Chuck D recalls. But the prophesy turned out to
be right and wrong at the same time. The technology has evolved, but it's the
musicians who are ahead of the curve -- so far. It's two-minute defense time
for the industry, and possibly by the end of the year, all the major record
labels will be offering encrypted MP3 songs for sale on the Internet. That's
OK with Chuck D, because the implications of the technology are daunting. ''It
means the beginning of the end of domination,'' he says, announcing that he's
roared enough for now. ''Just boost our site,'' he adds before ending the
interactive superhighway phone call. That would be public-enemy.com.
Chuck D is all over the technology, but that doesn't mean he wants to give
all of his music away free. MP3 provides a great way to market albums by
offering free samples, though, and a handful of artists have been using it
with varying responses from the labels that own their distribution rights.
Billy Idol, for instance, sold two singles on the popular www.mp3.com site,
but his label, Capitol Records, insisted that he remove them. Ditto for the
Beastie Boys, who received pressure from Capitol after posting promotional
tracks on their Web site, www.beastieboys.com. Frank Black, formerly of the
Pixies, is selling his latest album in MP3 format at another popular site,
www.goodnoise.com. A few independent labels have jumped into the fray, too:
Salem-based Rykodisc has made 200 tracks available for purchase on
goodnoise.com, and Spin Art is selling its entire catalog on line.
If any band seems a natural for the technology, it's the Grateful Dead,
which has always encouraged its fans to tape its concerts and share the goods
with fellow Deadheads.
The band, re-formed as the Other Ones in the post-Jerry Garcia era,
recently posted samples and a free single from its upcoming album (''The
Strange Remain'') at www.otherones.evolve.com. But spokesman Dennis McNally
warns that the band isn't eager to see its music trade hands illegally in MP3
files.
''This is different from free audience taping because it's digitally
identical to what we recorded,'' McNally says. ''It's a great marketing tool,
but that doesn't mean the Grateful Dead has decided to give up the rights to
sell its music.''
Great marketing tool, indeed. Some 10,000 fans have already downloaded the
free copy of ''Mississippi Half Step.''
The Dead has always been on the cutting edge of technology, but when it
comes to MP3, McNally is ambivalent, bordering on cautious. ''The ramification
of digital copying is a headache that's going to have to be dealt with,'' he
says. ''We're watching it with interest to see how it all works out.''
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