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.''
This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 02/12/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
