Chuck D Advises Sac State Audience to Challenge Authority and Rampant Consumerism

Rapper-activist Chuck D: Challenge authority, consumer culture

By Carla Meyer
Published: Friday, Feb. 5, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 3B

In the two decades Public Enemy frontman Chuck D has rapped and lectured about fighting the power, rap music has been swallowed by the mainstream, record companies have lost ground to the Internet, and the United States has elected an African American president.

Yet Chuck D, 49, the rapper, author and activist in town Thursday night to speak to California State University, Sacramento, students, still delivers what is in essence the same message: challenge authority and the consumer culture and make the most of educational opportunities.

In other words, as he told the crowd of 1,200 at the University Union during a free-form, humor-filled talk, "Have full capacity of yourself and do not be a robot."

That means always questioning what one is being fed, whether it is by MTV or people using the catchphrase "post-racial."

[...]