Rap royalty Professor Griff and Chuck D of Public Enemy have commented unfavourably about the use of their 1989 track, Fight The Power, as compere Chris Rock’s walk-on music at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Sunday’s Oscars started and ended with the track, which was ironically written for independent movie ‘Do The Right Thing’, written and directed by Spike Lee, whose comments about and subsequent boycott of this year’s Awards proved to be a catalyst for the #OscarsSoWhite diversity campaign.
But some of the members of the hip-hop group weren’t too pleased with the Academy’s choice of music. In a statement to TMZ, Professor Griff said, “The show can’t claim the blackness of Public Enemy’s message.” Griff, 55, added the Academy used the controversial song to temporarily appease protestors.
Chuck D also made similar comments on Twitter after the broadcast. “The song FightThe Power is beyond me & the crew. The point of the song is a call to making change eventually not just applauding the thought,” he wrote, followed by: “Art speaking. Fight The Power. Make change. Demand respect. Do your own awards RIGHT & give indie artists & actors a chance to make a LIVING.”
He also spoke about #OscarsSoWhite and Hollywood’s issue with race. “I dont wanna hear about Oscars being white,” he tweeted. “Oscar been white. We have need black communities to support our ARTS as much as we do sports IMO.”
When asked about the choice to use “Fight the Power” as a walk-on and walk-off song, Oscars music supervisor Byron Phillips told Entertainment Weekly, “[We wanted to] really set the tone for what the night was going to be and do something that was representative of Chris, and who Chris was, and the vibe and tone Chris wanted to set for the evening. There was obviously nothing more perfect than ‘Fight the Power’ for that.”
Phillips suggested they wanted to make a splash: “You’ve never had a song like that open the Oscars,” he said. “I think anytime you do something that’s some dramatic break with what you’ve seen historically on the show, I think that people will always be interested in how it happened or certainly talk about it in social [media].”
Lee, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith led several celebrities who boycotted the annual Oscars bash at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. Reverend Al Sharpton held his own rally prior to the show. And in lieu of attending, Ryan Cooler and Ava DuVernay appeared at a benefit for Flint, Michigan residents affected by the town’s water crisis.
