Emory Douglas
Black Panther Minister of Culture 1967–1980
But getting back to that other question again, a lot of young people weren’t aware of this history. And they weren’t aware of any history. So what you see now is young people coming into hip hop, talking tough- not all of them. But there are those who were prominent who could have done more.
But when they signed contracts with the corporate run record companies, then the whole nature of what they were saying changed, they were no longer progressive or positive in nature for most part, the message didn’t have the fire that it had before. Corporate record producers allowing them to glorify the negatives were propping them up... talking about drugs, murder and disrespecting women. So now you have many young multi-millionaires from that. You see them now running corporations, which isn’t bad if their desires and actions are to give back in a quality way to those less fortunate.
And that sort of corporate decadence seems to be as much what the Black Panthers were fighting as much as any racially based inequalities in America at the time.
Oh yes, absolutely. And there’s nothing wrong with that, having a corporation. But it has to be constructive. I mean, it’s almost like the hustler or the pimp who plays off somebody, who gets into a respectable position, who then turns their backs on the community that got them there. But they still play that game of being a popular personality, but they’re not giving back into the neighbourhood.
But then you do have those who are doing a lot of positive things these days and influencing the thinking of young people all over the world.
