DIMD*:In Perspective--Chuck D promises to "ride the MP3 like a muthafuckin' cowboy"...
Chuck D may be sampling the mellow sounds of Stephen Stills, but politically the firebrand rapper is still louder than a bomb. Public Enemy's frontman pissed off his record label in late '98 by posting tracks from an unreleased album, in MP3, a compressed audio format that squeezes entire CD-quality songs into Net-friendly packets. Surprise: Def Jam parent PolyGram demanded the songs be yanked from public-enemy.com and sent in the suits. The Recording Industry Association of America then announced that it was finally embracing digital distribution - in the form of an ultrasecure pay-to-play format that will compete against MP3. Too late, says Chuck D, who has promised to 'ride the MP3 like a muthafuckin' cowboy.' In January he slammed the industry's greed on a new cut called "Swindler's Lust"-released in MP4..."
Wired:Why did you decide to post songs to the Web in MP3? You knew Polygram, which owned the tracks, would object.
Chuck D: Major record labels are like dinosaurs...Polygram slept on it [Bring the Noise 2000] So we released it in MP3 on our supersite. Why not? Our fans wanted the music. And we believe in the technology...They don't like MP3 because it can obliterate the middleman. But the industry won't be able to pimp MP3, so they're going to have to figure out how to co-opt it...
And the Recording Industry Association of America is already on the march. Does its anti-MP3 format, the Secure Digital Music Initiative, stand a chance?
No. The dam has burst, and the chunks are in the water...It's the chicken coming home to roost, the leveling of the playing field, the little man getting his chance...Soon you'll see a marketplace with 500,000 independent labels..."
source: © March 1999 W I R E D Front Cover Feature article:"MP3 Spree Chuck D Rips the Music Biz", page 139.
* rioport.com
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