Friday, February 06, 2004

Rhyme & Revolution: "The Coup"'s Boots Riley: "Like I said, every one had different stories about what happened; some of them matched up and some of the didn't, and that's what's gonna happen when you got a big crowd like that. But the one thing that did keep ringing true in each story was the fact that, when the police started shooting - and I don't know if you've ever been around when a gun is fired, but your first instinct is, 'lemme get the fuck up outta here because I could die right now' - so that's what everyone was thinking right then, and somebody started chanting 'Fight the power! Fight the power! Fight the power!' Now, that was the song at the time, in the summer of 1989. That Public Enemy song was out right then and that's what everyone was listening to, and that's what made everyone stop and think, 'Yeah, this one thing that we all know is right, that connects us all,' and we all went back, we stopped that from happening. That's when I knew that music could take a place in the movement."