W.E.B.

Du Bois Institute
TIe Secvel Boclvine
AulIov|s) KeIeJa SanneI and KiIIaI Fviesl
Souvce Tvansilion, No. 74 |1997), pp. 162-182
FuIIisIed I Indiana University Press on IeIaIJ oJ lIe W.E.B. Du Bois Institute
SlaIIe UBL http://www.jstor.org/stable/2935378 .
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Conversation
THE SECRET DOCTRINE
A conversation with Killah Priest
Kelefa Sanneh
There is
perhaps
no
contemporary
mu-
sic more concerned with
stereotypes
than
hip-hop. Against
a
pastiche
of
rhythmic loops
from
I970os
funk and
soul records, new
synthesized sounds,
and
snippets
from radio and
television,
the most marketable fantasies of black
and white alike come to life:
proud
mothers and
roughnecks,
black scientists
and licentious
women,
all
laughing
and
shouting
at one
another, loving
and
cursing, praying
and
studying.
But no
character in this
exaggerated landscape
is more central-or more
surprising-
than the African American
preacher,
that
figure
of cultural and
spiritual enlight-
enment whose truth derives less from
sincerity
than from bravado. The black
preacher
is the
prototypical rapper,
a
charismatic vernacular
performance
artist.
Rappers-priests
and
gangstas
alike-are
obliged
to talk so much that
they
can't
help
but talk
shit; they
end
up
professing
what
they
do not
necessarily
believe.
Those of us who love
rap
often
try
to
downplay
its roots in the black vernac-
ular tradition of
bullshitting.
True devo-
tees call
rap
music and culture
"hip-
hop," echoing "bebop,"
and the
rapper
himself is renamed the MC-the mas-
ter of ceremonies, the
microphone
con-
troller-as if to bestow on him a title
that reflects the seriousness of his
calling.
While it is true that
rap lyrics
do reveal
truths about
parts
of the
country
that are
consistently misrepresented
in main-
stream media, it is
precisely
this
insipid
insistence on "truth" and
"reality"
that
has come to dominate
hip-hop
criti-
cism. The sad deaths of
Tupac
Shakur
and
Christopher
Wallace have been an-
alyzed breathlessly
and
luridly
as artistic
milestones,
as if two unsolved murders
held the
key
to
understanding
some of
the most
compelling pop
music of the
decade. Frank Sinatra ran with
equally
unsavory characters,
but he lived to be
eighty-two-and
no one has
suggested
that we
regard "Young
at Heart" as a
162 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
Courtesy of
Geffen Records
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 163
harbinger
of future cardiac arrest. Those
who search for
"reality"
in
rap lyrics
in-
evitably
blur the distinction between bi-
ography
and art, celebrating
tabloid
"facts" that soon
pass
into urban
myth-
ology.
And
poetry
is no match for an ur-
ban
myth.
The
"reality,"
of course, is that
rappers
are
paid
to
brag
and to boast, to make
things up
and to talk shit. To those with
no real interest in this tradition-with
no real interest, that is to
say,
in the
African American vernacular-the vio-
lent
imagery
on
Straight
Outta
Compton,
NWA's
epochal I988 album, seems more
like
prescription
than
performance.
In
the decade since NWA's debut, gunplay
has become an essential
component
of
hip-hop's
tall tales, and
rap's
least in-
sightful
critics have almost
given up
in
disgust.
As
ghetto
life is
increasingly glorified
(and lampooned)
in the
lyrics
of some of
the
country's
most
popular records, lit-
eral-minded critics find confirmation of
the worst
stereotypes
of social
pathol-
ogy.
Their search for
"reality"
ends in-
evitably
in success: the vivid
rhymes
that
reach
hip-hop's predominantly
white
audience
ultimately
seem more real than
the
ghettos they
often claim to
represent.
If this confusion has had a deleterious
effect on
political discourse, its effect on
hip-hop
has been no less destructive.
164 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
Elijah Mulhammad
and Malcolm X
at 369th Armory,
1960
Magnum
The conflation of
rap
and
reality
has ob-
scured some of the most
important
and
interesting developments
in
hip-hop.
In
I993,
as the world's attention was
focused on the slow beats and noncha-
lant boasts of Californian
gangsta rap,
a
new crew with
bewildering
new ideas
arrived on the scene in the East. From
the
unlikely Borough
of Staten Island,
New York, the
Wu-Tang
Clan
parodied
hip-hop's carefully
cultivated
imagery
of violence
by invoking far-flung
aes-
thetic and
spiritual kin, although they
recited
rhymes
no less
gruesome
than
any
other hardcore
rap group.
Named
for a fearsome martial arts movie
dy-
nasty, theWu-Tang
Clan
equated
stories
of
neighborhood gunplay
with obscure
sequences
from
underground Hong Kong
films, compared
their
lyrical sharpness
to
a ceremonial sword, and
mythologized
their hometown:
they
claimed to come
"straight
from the slums of Shaolin."
Over a dozen albums and countless sin-
gles later, the
Wu-Tang family
is
among
the most
profitable
and
respected
in
hip-
hop.
Almost unnoticed underneath the
sensational
kung
fu
fury, avant-garde
production,
and inventive wit was
the
resurgence
of
hip-hop gnosticism.
If
rappers
from the
Wu-Tang
Clan see
ghetto gunplay
in Asian martial arts,
then
they
recall the Nation of Islam's
Elijah
Muhammad, who saw a
flying
saucer in
the biblical
parable
of Ezekiel's wheel
and who derived a
pure Egyptian
her-
itage
from his own mulatto skin. This
similarity
is no coincidence. The Nation
of Islam has been
amplified
for the
hip-
hop generation
in the form of a small
but influential
community
of NOI dis-
sidents known as the Five Percent Na-
tion of Gods and Earths-so named be-
cause of their belief that the most "con-
scious"
5 percent
of
society
forms a kind
of
spiritual vanguard.
The
complex
and
diverse
teachings
of the Five Percenters
were most
famously
disseminated
by
an MC named Rakim-now
widely
re-
garded
as the most skilled
rapper
of all
The sad deaths of
Tupac
Shakur and
Christopher
Wallace have been
analyzed
breathlessly
and
luridly
as artistic
milestones,
as if two unsolved murders
held the
key
to
understanding
some of the
most
compelling pop
music of the decade.
time. These
teachings
are rooted in a
certain literalization of urban black
brag-
gadocio,
centered around the
firmly
held
conviction that the black man is God. In
the
peculiar vocabulary
of the Five Per-
centers, knowledge
is often used as a verb
and time is
expressed
as a
strange
acronym:
Truth I Master
Equally.
The
Five Percenters' creative use of words
makes their
teachings
well-suited for
hip-
hop appropriation,
and the sect's
fiery
black nationalism resonates
throughout
the
community
that calls itself the
"hip-
hop
nation."
This tradition of black hermeticism
provides
much of the context for the
Wu-Tang
Clan's
kung
fu
mysticism.
There are scores of
rappers
affiliated
with the Clan, each with a different
lyri-
cal
style
and a different
conception
of
the black man's
place
in the universe. But
even within this
family
of
spiritual
sci-
entists and verbal warriors,
the MC
named Killah Priest stands out as the
most
thoughtful
and
provocative expo-
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 165
nent of black
gnosticism.
After
guest ap-
pearances
onWu-related albums such as
the Genius's
Liquid
Swords and the
Gravediggaz'
Six Feet
Deep,
Killah Priest
released his solo debut, Heavy Mental,
in the
spring
of I998; his
group,
Sunz
of Man, debuted a few months later.
Like the black
preacher
whose show-
manship anticipated rap,
Killah Priest's
rapping
is a little too
sly
to be earnest.
He reads the Bible with feverish
glee,
conjuring
the most fantastic
images
and
beliefs from well-known
parables
and
visions, realizing
the universe of
possi-
bilities
suggested by
his
identity
as a
hip-
hop priest.
Amid a millennial
diasporic din, Kil-
lah Priest's
rhyme style
is
surprisingly
calm. His voice is often more incan-
tatory
than
declamatory,
even when
threatening
to "drink the blood of an
In the
peculiar vocabulary
of the Five
Percenters, knowledge
is often used
as a verb and time is
expressed
as a
strange acronym:
Truth I Master
Equally.
unbeliever." The title track of
Heavy
Mental is a
rap song
without beats, un-
expectedly combining spoken
words
with the low buzz of a
didgeridoo-an
indescribably
toneless Australian wind
instrument. The result is a kind of fu-
turistic Howl for the
hip-hop nation, a
militant and
contemplative
diatribe that
shifts
imperceptibly
from non
sequitur
to
biblical esoterica. "I've been on
Mars,"
Killah Priest declares, warming
to the
topic, "building
the
Holy Synagogue
for
the
royal
seminars /
Long
before
they
had the Renaissance,
there existed a He-
brew
lodge
..."
The "Hebrew
lodge"
is evidence of
Killah Priest's
singular
take on the Bible,
but "Mars"
may
come as more of a sur-
prise.
Outer
space,
it turns out, is one of
Killah Priest's chief
lyrical concerns, sig-
nifying
an excess of
possibility
that is
fundamental to the
freewheeling
black
nationalism that his
rhymes
embrace.
Suspended
within this
greater galaxy
is a
cosmopolitan
alternative to the twin
specters
of tradition and
"reality"
that
haunt
contemporary
African America,
a notion of black
identity
far more
worldly
than the black American land-
scape
of
stifling
urban centers and deso-
late rural nowheres. The notion of
voyaging through space
mirrors and ex-
aggerates
the dislocation of the Middle
Passage,
and it echoes the
plaintive song
of slaves
entreating
one another to
"follow the
drinking gourd"-the Big
Dipper-to escape bondage. Heavy
Men-
tal is filled with cosmic invocations that
update
this
tradition, deploying
a vocab-
ulary
of astronauts and
microchips
that
suggests
science fiction. But in deference
to
contemporary perceptions
of
hip-hop,
Killah Priest's
galactic rap might
better
be described as science
reality.
Science
reality
.. . or
just
rapping?
In
the
rhymes
of Killah
Priest, Rakim,
and
countless other
rappers, spiritual
claims
exemplify
the boasts that are the heart
and soul of urban
poetry.
It's often im-
possible
to tell where biblical
allegory
ends and
pure
verbal
jousting
begins-
one stanza seems to retell the
story
of
Moses as an MC battle:
Actual
day
Mathematics
brought rays
to his attic
What's the
weight of aflame?
State
your
name
166 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
:::: ::
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..' ... ................ .....
. .
...........
"'::'":~' : ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~ ".. '. ...........: ...":.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..'....'.'.. .... . .,:,:,
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s.. ..K
..........
Gilberto Wilson
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 167
From Ancient
Egypt,
by
A. Rosalie David
(Oxford: Phaidon)
168 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
But he was
afraid of
the
height
Gazed at the
light
Strayed,
couldn't
stay for
the
flight
Ran to his book
of rhymes
Took up some time
for
the brother to hook
up
a line
as
if
he had a
fishing
rod
But
my
mission is God
Science I be
dishing
out hard
Killah Priest is just
getting
started. Or is he
just
about to
stop?
One can never tell: "Who
the
fuck
want more lessons? It's over!"
KIF FFA SANNEH: Were
you
inter-
ested in
spirituality
before
you
started
rapping?
KILLAH PRIEST:
Absolutely.
I came
up studying
the
Scriptures.
I used to
meet with a lot of brothers, and we
would
always
read the
Scriptures-
because that's where we all come from.
KS: When
you say "Scriptures,"
do
you
mean the Christian Bible?
KP: Yes.
KS: And black
people
are mentioned in
the Bible?
KP: Yes.You see, the nations in the Bible
still exist
today, they're simply
known
by
different names. When
you
look in the
Scriptures, you
can find the
original
names. The black
people
in America are
known in the
Scriptures
as Israel. That's
what I learned as a
young boy.
KS: Did
you go
to church?
KP: Of course-I think
every
child
went to church when he was little! But
I didn't
really
understand
everything.
Anyway,
I was in the street most of the
time. I had two lives:
going
to church all
Sunday,
and
hanging
out at
night
the rest
of the week.
KS: When
you
talk about
hanging
out
at
night,
that's
spiritual, too, isn't it?
Didn't
you
first encounter brothers from
the Five Percent Nation at
night,
on the
streets?
KP: Oh
yeah.
When I first saw those
guys around, in the
early eighties, they
always
tried to talk to
me-they
said
they
wanted to build with me.
They
an-
noyed
me at first. I was like, "Man, what
are
they talking
about?" But then I
got
a little older, and I started to understand.
Later,
I hooked
up
with some broth-
ers from Israel-Black Israel-and
they
said
they
wanted to build with
me, too.
It
got deep:
we started
going through
the
Scriptures.
There's a
song
on
my
album
called "One
Step,"
where I
say:
"Under-
stand the
jewel
/
Brought
to
fifty
states
/
Deuteronomy
28:68 / It all relates."
Deuteronomy 28:68 tells
you
that the
people
will be enslaved if
they disobey
the laws of the most
high.We
broke the
laws of the most
high,
because we were
making
false
idols,
and that's
why
we
came into
captivity.
KS: What "false idols" are
you talking
about? Do
you
mean to
say
that African
religious
traditions are false? I'm
surprised
to hear
you say that, because it seems like
African traditions have become
part
of a
common black cultural
heritage.
KP: Look: I'm not
talking
about ancient
black traditions.You have to understand
that there have
always
been lots of dif-
ferent races in Africa. That's
why they're
fighting
over there
right now,
because
people
that don't
belong
there were
driven there-the
Jews, everybody's
over there.
They're fighting
for their land
and for their cultures
today.
That's the
way
the world was in ancient times, too.
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 169
People say
that the
Egyptians
built the
pyramids.
But when
you
look
deeper
into it, you'll
find that the
pyramids
were
built
by
slaves. We did build the
pyra-
mids, but that doesn't mean we were
Egyptian.
The word
Egypt
means "bond-
age";
black
people
were slaves. If
Egypt
was all that
great,
believe me, Moses
wouldn't have had to lead us out of
there.
This is how
Heavy
Mental strikes, like
a
modern-day
Moses
up
in the
projects.
America is like
Egypt,
and the
projects
are a form of
captivity-you've got
all
The word
Egypt
means
"bondage";
black
people
were slaves. If
Egypt
was all that
great,
believe
me,
Moses
wouldn't have had to lead us out
of there.
these black brothers and sisters
living
in
poverty.
The
president
is the modern-
day pharaoh.
When
you
check out an-
cient
history, you
see that a lot of Greek
philosophers
took ideas from the ancient
Egyptian networks-they
used
Egyp-
tian
knowledge
to learn how to control
masses of
people.
KS: So what about someone like Sun
Ra,
who made
Egypt
a
metaphor
for
spiritual
awareness? Or Mustafa el-Amin,
the author of
Freemasonry
and the Islamic
Heritage,
who claims that the
pyramid
on
the dollar bill should be a source of in-
spiration
for African Americans?
KP: Well, the
pyramids
are
part
of the
story.
We built
them,
and
they
are filled
with
symbolism,
because we're a
mystic
people.
We're a
spiritual people.
But the
pyramids
were also a
graveyard
for the
Pharaohs, built with slave labor.We built
tombs for the rulers who were
oppress-
ing
our
people! Every
time
you
watch a
movie set in biblical times, the
Egyptians
are white, the Israelites are
white, Christ
is white, everybody's
white. But we were
there.We existed in those times.
KS: Who is this "we"? Are
you
claim-
ing
that the
people
now called "African
American" existed as a
group
in biblical
times?
KP: Yes. I'm
talking
about the same
people.
We're the same, it's
just
that the
names have been
changed
to
protect
the
innocent-and the
guilty.
Ecclesiastes
I:9:
Ain't
nothing
new under the sun.
Water is still wet, fire is still
hot,
and
we're still black, so ain't
nothing
new.
Our forefathers were alive in ancient
times, but
they
just
left us
wreckage.
And
in the
years since, we've been
taught
the
Bible
wrong.
We've been
taught
to read
it as a
religious text, when it's
actually
a
history
book-it's our
history
book.
When
you
hear stories about
King
David, you're actually hearing
black his-
tory. Song
of Solomon
I:5 says,
"I am
black."
King
Solomon was black, and so
was his
father, and his whole nation. And
they
had a
great kingdom
and a
great
civilization.
Whenever we
study
our
history,
we
always
talk about one
thing: slavery.
And
that's not
history.
That's more like a
holocaust. That's
nothing
to teach
your
kids! If
you
want to hear about black
history, you
can do two
things: you
can
study King
David's
life,
or
you
can
go
out and
buy
Killah Priest's
Heavy
Men-
tal album.
KS: When
you
talk about the
Bible,
170 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
...L . .
....
....... ..... .... ...
zN ,
you're talking
about ancient Africa. And
when
you
talk about a
hip-hop
album,
you're talking
about
contemporary
African America. Where does this leave
Africa
today?
If African
history
and cul-
ture is so central to black
Americans,
then what do
you
think about the idea
of
going
back to Africa?
KP:
Well,
the historical Back-to-Africa
movement was a movement of awareness.
People
want
knowledge
of
self,
so
they try
to
go
back to the land. But a lot of
peo-
ple
don't understand: we
may
have had
our own freedom in
Africa,
but we were
also
oppressed-or
else we wouldn't
have been sold into
slavery.
It was a slave
trade: Africans were
selling
so-called
black Americans to the
Europeans.
The
Africans who sold us were of a different
nationality
from
us,
and that's
why
we
ended
up
on the slave
ships.
I
mean, you
wouldn't sell
your
own brother!
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 171
From Eine Reise
durch
Agypten,
by
Elke Freier and
Stefan
Grunert
(Berlin:
C.H. Beck)
Painted limestone
statues of Rahotep
and Nefert
from the tomb
chapel of Rahotep
at Meidum
Jurgen Liepe. Courtesy
of the Egyptian Museum
in Cairo
172 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
KS: So where does this leave contem-
porary
Africa?
KP: I'm
going
to
say
this: Africa is a
big
part
of the
picture,
but I'm not as con-
cerned with Africa as I am with Amer-
ica. Before we
straighten
out that
prob-
lem over
there,
we have to
straighten
out
our
problems
here.
People
are
going
back to
Africa, but we haven't
got
our-
selves
straight
as a nation over in this
place.
Look at Nelson Mandela: as soon as
he
got
out of
jail,
he came to America,
he
got
his
money,
and he went back to
South Africa. He took care of business,
first. And that's what
you
have to do: first
you get
the
money,
then
you go
back to
your people.
At the United
Nations,
everyone
has a seat, even the African
countries. But
Negroes
in America don't
have a seat at the UN. We don't have a
representative.
That's because our
repre-
sentative is God; he's
represented
us from
the
beginning.
Ain't
nobody
else
going
to
speak
out for us. But that's
why Jesus
came to the
planet:
he was
speaking
out
for the less fortunate.
Now,
the
image
of
Jesus
that
you
see
everywhere
is false. The real
Jesus
was
hanging
out in the
ghettos,
in the
gut-
ters. He had
feelings.
He was walk-
ing around, going
to the
poor
and the
broken-hearted and the meek. And then
you
had
your
ancient
cops-Roman
Centurions-trying
to
crucify him, be-
cause he was
talking
about
peace
and
justice
and
equality.
ButJesus was
speaking
of a new
king-
dom for
us,
in a new world. Not
Egypt,
with its
history
of
bondage;
not Amer-
ica, with its
Egyptian philosophy;
not the
slave
mentality
or the Americanized at-
titude: he was
talking
about
something
different. So I
respect
that. And all our
people
should
respect
that. But back
then, people
didn't
pay any attention,
and
they hung
Jesus on the cross. That's
why Negroes
were
hanged throughout
the South. We were crucified the same
way
he was.
KS: But what about this "new world"?
The
story
of black
people
in this coun-
try
is the
story
of movement, the
story
of a
journey
from Africa to America,
from South to North. Is this
progress?
KP: Yeah, we're
talking
about
progress,
we're
talking
about
movement,
we're
talking
about
having
our own
indepen-
dent culture. But there are a lot of
peo-
ple
who don't
really
know what's
going
on. A lot of
people
are lost, and that's
sad, but the
Scriptures predict
that: "For
many
are called, but few are chosen." So
that's how it
goes.
KS: OK, so the Middle
Passage
is a kind
of
progress,
even if
everyone
doesn't
know what's
going
on. But so far, we've
only
talked about movement on Earth;
why, then, do
you rap
so much about
outer
space?
KP: Because that's where we're from!
Black
people
come from
space.
When
you
look at the
sky,
it's black. Without
the
sunlight-forget it, it's black. In the
beginning,
there was darkness.
KS: When
you
talk about "the
begin-
ning," do
you
mean
seventy-six
trillion
years ago?
KP: What do
you mean, "seventy-six
trillion"?
KS:
Elijah
Muhammad wrote that time
started
seventy-six
trillion
years ago,
and
that the earth was created when the
moon was
"deported"
from this
planet
sixty-six
trillion
years ago.
Is that "the
beginning" you're talking
about?
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 173
KP: Nah, I ain't
talking
about none of
that. I'm
talking
about
pure
facts. In the
beginning,
"darkness was
upon
the face
of the
deep."
Man was made on a cer-
tain
day,
and man went and
got corrupt.
He's been
corrupt
ever since: he's been
destroying
the world, he's been
hiding
identities, he's been
lying, stealing-all
of that. But
space
travel is real. When
The Africans who sold us were of a
different
nationality
from
us,
and
that's
why
we ended
up
on the slave
ships.
I
mean, you
wouldn't sell
your
own brother!
William
H.Johnson,
Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot. Ca. 1944.
Courtesy of
the
National Museum
of
American Art
they speak
of unidentified
flying objects,
a lot of
people
don't understand what
that means. Ezekiel saw UFOs back
then-only they
were IFOs, because he
identified
them. He knew what
they
were.
They
were chariots of fire.
KS: That's Ezekiel's wheel, right?
The
original flying
saucer!
KP: Yes, they
call them
spaceships
now.
That's where the old
Negro song
comes
from:
"Swing low, sweet chariot, coming
for to
carry
me home." The slaves actu-
ally
saw
angels,
because
angels policed
the earth on the
regular.
Sometimes we
are blessed or cursed to see
them;
it de-
pends.
KS: Are these
spaceships
different from
the
Mothership
that the Nation of Is-
lam
preaches
about-the craft that ab-
ducted Louis Farrakhan in Mexico in
I985?
KP:
No, it's the same.
People
call it
Mothership, chariot,
UFO ... but it's all
the same
thing.
KS: Fard Muhammad
always taught
that
despite
the
Mothership,
the true home
of the
Original People
was Earth. Do
you
believe that this
spaceship
is
going
to take African American
people
some-
place
else?
KP: That's what's been
predicted.
Chris-
tians talk about the
rapture:
Christ com-
ing
back and the
sky cracking up.
The
American
government says
that if
any-
thing
comes out of
space,
we should all
help fight
it. The whole world has
gone
mad: one
group
of
people
are
waiting
for a
spaceship,
while another
group
is
waiting
to shoot it down. Isaiah
66:
5-"the
Lord will come with fire,
and with his chariots like a whirlwind."
He's
going
to come and wreak ven-
geance,
because there are a lot of lies out
there.
KS: Are
you talking
about movies like
Independence
Day?
The Nation of Islam's
newspaper
Final Call attacked that movie
as a racist
perversion
of the
Day
of
Judgment.
KP: Word. Like the movie
Independence
Day.
There are
people
who know what's
going
to
happen. They
are
part
of the
elite io
percent
of
society,
the ones that
know truth and hide it. When
you
talk
about
religion,
there's
always
a
righ-
teous
5 percent
and a devious io
per-
cent-the other
85 percent
of
people
are
ignorant.
What's
scary
about
religion
is that it
does
nothing
but divide. Our
people
have had
many
different
religions
forced
upon
us because we lost our
identity.
And when
people
have no
identity, they
look for a
way
out. But
you
can
identify
yourself by reading
the
Scriptures-
even
though
on
TV, they change
the
faces to
protect
the
guilty.
174 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 175
William
H.Johnson,
Ezekiel Saw the Wheel.
Ca. 1942-43.
Courtesy
of
the National Museum
ofAmerican
Art
KS: You mean
they change
the color?
KP:
They change everything! Every-
thing's changed,
seasons and
times; they
even created a
leap year!
But the
Scrip-
tures will tell
you
the truth. We came
to this
country
with the
Book, and the
Book was taken from
us; it was translated
from Hebrew to Greek so that the mas-
ters could understand it and teach it back
to us. And we were
taught wrong. See, we
are
supposed
to
govern
them with our
knowledge,
but
right
now is a difficult
time. Black
people
have been
pushed
into
the
ghettos
and reduced to
rats, forced to
war
against
ourselves. We need to create
awareness: if
you're
aware of what's
going
176 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
on, you
can surmount these
things.
KS: Do
you
see
yourself
within a tradi-
tion of brothers who have been, as
you
say,
aware? Marcus
Garvey,
Noble Drew
Ali.
KP: Oh
yes. Prophets
will
always
rise
from out of our
nation,just
like
they
did
in biblical times, just like Ezekiel-and
just like Malcolm X. But
then, instead of
sticking
to the
big plan,
instead of
putting
us back in tune with God and
spirituality, they
wander off and lead us
into the
slaughterhouse
of
religion.
And
that's what kills us off
every
time. But we
are a nation: we build.
Rap
is
part
of our
tradition:
rap, dance, and
hip-hop, bebop,
all of that. And we are
greater
than what
we've limited ourselves to.
KS: So
you
see
prophets
in
hip-hop,
too?
People
like Poor
Righteous
Teach-
ers and KRS-One seem to have had
similar ambitions.
KP: Sure. Those brothers are
great; they
came out and
they
let
you
know the
truth. I'm
coming
out to show
every-
body
the new form of
lyrical rap, just
like the brothers who came before me,
just like KRS-One. I'm
adding my
piece
to the
pie.
We came here
together,
but
we're all
individuals, and we all have to
seek our own salvation. We tend to
stay
on one mental
plane,
but there are
many
different levels of
awareness.Just
as there
are
many
different
points
to the
body.
You've
got
a head, you've got
two arms,
two
legs-
KS:
-Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head: Allah.
KP:
Exactly!
So there are different
worlds that we can
go
into.
KS: Do these "different worlds" extend
beyond hip-hop?
Are there other
places
in music or in
popular
culture where
you perceive
this kind of tradition?
KP:
Hip-hop
has
definitely
become the
primary
voice for the
struggle. Hip-hop
is a voice to the black
youth
and the
white
youth,
because he's
listening,
too.
I had a
young
white cat come
up
to me
yesterday.
He said, "Yo, man, what do
you
think about the state of Israel
today?"
People
are
listening. People
have to know
the truth; the truth is for
everybody.
The
government
knows the truth. And
they're withholding
the truth, because
they're planning
on
doing
their
thing.
KS: The
government-that's
the I o
percent again, right?
KP: Yeah, and I have to watch
myself,
too. When Christ
spoke
out like this,
they
came
against
him.
KS: What about someone like
Lyndon
LaRouche? He's another
person
who
claims to be
exposing
truths that the
government
is
trying
to hide. LaRouche
has had a
high profile
in the African
American
community
ever since his
1992 presidential bid, when he chose the
black activist Reverend
James
Bevel to
be his
running
mate.What do
you
think
of LaRouche?
The whole world has
gone
mad: one
group
of
people
are
waiting
for a
spaceship,
while another
group
is
waiting
to shoot
it down.
KP: Most
people
like LaRouche are
try-
ing
to save themselves from the future. I
mean, the information is
deep,
but
peo-
ple
like LaRouche are
patriots. They're
just trying
to stave off what's destined to
happen.
KS: What aboutWilliam
Cooper,
whose
conspiracy classic,
Behold a Pale Horse,
has
become so influential in the
hip-hop
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 177
L\
178 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
Chesley Bonestell,
Untitled. 1961.
Reprinted by permission
of
Bonestell Space Art
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 179
community?
KP: Yeah, that book is
deep.
He was
part
of the
plan
and
they gypped
him-I
don't know what
they
did. But
Cooper
is like LaRouche: the
Armageddon
that
he wants to
prevent
is destined to
happen.
I
appreciate
the efforts of LaRouche and
Cooper;
I
appreciate
the fact that
they
released the information. Those
guys
know a lot, and
they're willing
to
say
what
they
know. I don't think
they
should talk to the
average
man on the
We have no choice but to use
technology,
because this is what we've
been reduced to. So now we are
biochip
men. But the soul is the same.
The outside is
just
a little bit
cyborg.
Chesley Bonestell,
Our
Galaxy
from
a
Hypothetical
Planet.
1970.
Reprinted by
permission of
Bonestell
Space
Art
street, though,
because
they'd probably
bug
him out. He'd end
up
in a nuthouse.
That kind of information is
only
for the
person
who wants to be aware.
We can talk about the tradition of
speaking out, but we are a new breed-
we're
going
to establish a new
govern-
ment,
a new
beginning
for the children
that are
being
born into this world. We
are
planting
new seeds. That's what it's
all about: we can see
something
new.
KS: I wonder how this all links
up
to the
new sounds on
Heavy
Mental. From the
droning didgeridoo
to the
out-of-phase
loops,
the minimalist beats, and the
other-worldly
vocal
samples:
this album
has a lot of sounds that the world of
hip-
hop
isn't used to
hearing.
KP: Those sounds on the album come
from our
forefathers, the ancients. We're
just bringing
them back so we can make
music to move
people.
The music talks
to the soul; it chastises and
baptizes
the
soul. Sometimes we have to brainwash
all that dust that's in
people's
heads.
They
say,
"Don't brainwash me!" But some-
times it's
good
to brainwash
yourself,
just
like
you
wash
your
clothes. See, the di-
alect is used
differently.
But we have to
clear our mind first.
KS: And how does
technology
fit into
all of this? Do
you
see
your philosophy,
your music, as futuristic?
KP: "A suburban 666 database / inves-
tigate
/ entire race
heading
for a
cyber-
space
/ riots break inside an
empire
state
/
every
move
you
make / is recorded on
tape."
That's how it is.
Everything
is run
by digital computers. They
control the
mind.
Technology
is
producing
new
identities.
KS: Don't
you
think that some of those
new identities are musical?
Reggae
and
hip-hop-some
of the most
socially
conscious music that this
part
of the
world has
produced-were
both created
with modern
production technology.
KP: No, no-it wasn't
technology!
This music was
really
created
by drums,
you
know what I'm
saying? Drums, and
people letting
their souls out.
KS: Of course the music is descended
from the drum. But turntables and mix-
ing
decks are
precisely
what make it
hip-
hop.
KP:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, we had to
break it down
differently.
But it's not all
about
technology:
Grandmaster Flash's
song
was called "The
Message."We
have
no choice but to use
technology,
be-
cause this is what we've been reduced to.
So now we are
biochip
men. But the
soul is the same. The outside is
just
a lit-
tle bit
cyborg.
As an MC, I utilize all of this. The al-
180 TRANSITION ISSUE 74
THE SECRET DOCTRINE 181
bum
may
be fat-the beats and all-but
remember:
you've
still
got
a street out
there, and
everybody
meets each other
on the street. I
speak
out for the under-
ground MCs, with no record deal.
They
still kick it, without beats or
anything,
with no
technology.
So it still shines
forth. Some
people just
have it, "like a
phenomenon
..."
KS:" ... from out of the matrix"?
KP: Yes!
Just
like I
say
on
my
album:
"Like a
phenomenon
from out of the
matrix / The world looks at me with
envy
and hatred /
Just
because I
appear
to them half naked /
Rising
out of a
spaceship
/ With an arm full of solid
gold
bracelets." And some of us can re-
member or relate to
things
like that be-
cause some brothers walk on different
clouds.
KS: What does that mean?
KP: It means that some of us can still re-
late to those
things,
out there in the
galaxy.
Some of us can take
you
there,
to the
spiritual dimension, the fourth di-
mension.
KS: You're
talking
about
leaving
this di-
mension, and
you're talking
about new
forms. But a lot of other
people say
that
hip-hop
is in a creative
slump
from
which it will never recover. Have we in-
deed reached the end of
hip-hop?
KP: Yes. But it's a new
beginning.
It's
the same
music,
it
just
comes in differ-
ent forms.
Everybody
that's
coming
out
with records now has a more
lyrical style
of
rapping.
KS: So it's
actually
an
exciting
time in
hip-hop?
KP: I think the music is more serious
now.You can dance all
day,
but eventu-
ally, things
are
going
to
get thick, things
are
going
to
get hectic,
and
you'll
need
something
more. So it's
important
to
hear all this
knowledge now, before
they
start
smashing up
all the records and the
tapes
and the CDs.
You've
got
to watch out. There are a
lot of
soothsayers
out there, too. The
people
who are
running
those
psychic
hotlines are
trying
to
tap
into
your
third
eye-your consciousness-trying
to
get you
all
computerized
and
digital.
To this
day,
there are
Jesuits practicing
witchcraft, waging
a mental
holy
war.
KS: These
"Jesuits practicing
witch-
craft" sound like Freemasons. But there
is a
long history
of African American
freemasonry, dating
back to the
eigh-
teenth
century.
Where do Masons, Afri-
can American and otherwise, fit in? For
example, you
talked earlier about "build-
ing"
with the Five Percent Nation: isn't
"building"
a masonic term?
KP: Yeah. That's
deep,
man. If
you
look
back, a lot of
things
are
symbolic.
It all
goes
back to
building
the
pyramids,
where
they
used bricks. But
freemasonry
is based on secrets, and I don't deal in se-
crets. I have
nothing
to hide. A lot of
people
out there have
things
to
hide, but
those
things
won't be hidden much
longer.
So I don't
ally myself
with the
Freemasons. These
days, you
also have a
lot of Black Muslims
talking
about the
end of the
world, but I don't
ally myself
with them, either. I
study Christ, and the
knowledge
that he was
dropping.
Christ
said,
I'm
going
to
lay
down
my
life for
my people.
And that's
deep.
KS: So
you
are
talking
about
religion,
after all?
KP:
No,
I ain't
talking
about no reli-
gion!
I'm
just talking
about
nationality.
182 TRANSITION ISSUE 74