If there’s one lesson we‘ve learned from the dubious legacies of New Coke and The Doors of the 21st Century, it’s that fucking with a classic rarely results in anything worthwhile.
But Pharoahe Monch — the Queens-bred rapper who’s incorporated critical political content into his rhymes since his days as one half of Organized Konfusion — may prove to be the exception to the rule. On his most recent album, last year’s Desire, Monch attempted the feat of updating one of the most iconic tracks by one of the most celebrated hip-hop acts of… well, ever. The brave MC came up with a jazzy, uptempo take on Public Enemy’s “Welcome To The Terrordome,” complete with a topical new verse — and a Torontonian connection.
Sounds a bit wack, no? Amazingly, Monch’s version is totally decent. As he explains, even Chuck D approved.
“When I started to record the lyrics, I realized that we have a lot of the same issues we did in 1990. The difference is that not very many people in mainstream music are discussing what’s going on in the world. When we finished the track, the first thing we did was send it to Chuck and he loved it,” Monch says.
His label, Universal — who released Desire — weren’t as stoked about the prospect. They were reluctant to promote his “Terrordome” as a single, and Monch claims that he’d planned to part ways with the label, since he “wanted to start [his] own movement and they are not part of the vision.” Though he’d already created his own company — W.A.R., or We Are Renegades — to promote this track and all of his future releases, he says the majors “wouldn’t support this kind of strong message anyway, because radio and mainstream media [aren’t] looking for this kind of thing.”
So Monch went the indie route — which is how the T-dot part of the equation comes in. While trying to put together a clip that’d be true to the spirit of the song on a tight budget, he received a pitch from two eager young film-school grads, both native Torontonians working under the name BFiilms.
Co-directors Daniel Rosenberg and Briin Bernstein (who, full disclosure, attended high school in North York with my brother) graduated from Concordia and NYU film schools, respectively, had done several projects for musicians in T.O. and the UK and were looking to work with a more high-profile artist when they connected with the rapper.
“Pharoahe was our first choice,” proclaims Bernstein, who says he’s been a hip-hop head since his older brother introduced him to Black Sheep at age five. “I’d read up on the album before we contacted him, and he’d alluded to the fact that Universal didn’t want [“Terrordome”] as the single, which seemed interesting. Dan and I are both political junkies, and we knew we wanted to do something that incorporated political footage.”
The result is a seamlessly edited montage that combines footage of Monch spitting rhymes with intense images culled from activist and public-domain archives. The video mashes together shots of everything from clashes in Kenya to famine victims to police brutality to critical takes on George W. Bush.
Welcome To The Terrordome from W.A.R. Media on Vimeo.
Because both the label and mainstream television outlets balked at airing the controversial clip (some outlets have refused to consider adding it to their rosters unless specific images are edited out), Monch and the directors opted for a more guerrilla route. They chose to premiere the video on the Okayplayer website on Oct. 31 — which is both Halloween and Monch’s birthday. At press time, the clip had received close to 2000 hits.
“We’re in talks with certain channels about getting it on TV,” Bernstein says, “and are fairly confident that we still will.”