Plot
A young filmmaker who has a unique relationship with pioneering MC Bun B, of U.G.K., embarks on a quest to expose the understated impact and influence U.G.K. has had on Hip-Hop culture, encountering numerous legendary figures and rising stars along the way.
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour (born August 1, 1960), better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.
Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York. After graduating from Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School, he went to Adelphi University on Long Island to study graphic design. He is the son of Lorenzo Ridenhour.
Upon hearing Ridenhour's demo track "Public Enemy Number One", fledgling producer/upcoming music-mogul Rick Rubin insisted on signing him to his Def Jam label.
Their major label albums were: Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black (1991), Greatest Misses (1992), and Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994). They also released a full length album soundtrack for the film He Got Game in 1998. Ridenhour also contributed (as Chuck D) to several episodes of the PBS documentary series The Blues. He has appeared as a featured artist on many other songs and albums, having collaborated with artists such as Janet Jackson, Kool Moe Dee, The Dope Poet Society, Run-DMC, Ice Cube, Rage Against The Machine, Anthrax, John Mellencamp and many others. In 1990, he appeared on "Kool Thing", a song by the alternative rock band Sonic Youth. In 1993, he executive produced Got 'Em Running Scared, an album by Ichiban Records group Chief Groovy Loo and the Chosen Tribe.
Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers, her family's band.
Mavis Staples began her career with her family group in 1950. Initially singing locally at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show, the Staples scored a hit in 1956 with "Uncloudy Day" for the Vee-Jay label. When Mavis graduated from what is now Paul Robeson High School in 1957, The Staple Singers took their music on the road. Led by family patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples on guitar and including the voices of Mavis and her siblings Cleotha, Yvonne, and Purvis, the Staples were called "God's Greatest Hitmakers."
With Mavis' voice and Pops' songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from enormously popular gospel singers (with recordings on United and Riverside as well as Vee-Jay) to become the most spectacular and influential spirituality-based group in America. By the mid-1960s The Staple Singers, inspired by Pops' close friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., became the spiritual and musical voices of the civil rights movement. They covered contemporary pop hits with positive messages, including Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and a version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth."
William Leonard Roberts II (born January 28, 1976), better known by his stage name Rick Ross (often stylized as RICK RO$$), is an American rapper. He derived his stage name from the drug trafficker "Freeway" Ricky Ross, to whom he has no connection. Ross founded the record label Maybach Music Group, on which he released his studio albums Deeper Than Rap and Teflon Don, Ross was also the first artist signed to Diddy's management company Ciroc Entertainment. In early 2012, MTV named Ross as the Hottest MC In The Game.
William Leonard Roberts II was born in Coahoma County, Mississippi. and raised in Carol City, Florida, near Miami. After graduating from Carol City Senior High School, he later attended the historically black college Albany State University on a football scholarship.
After being signed to Suave House Records, former label for rap duo 8Ball & MJG, he eventually signed a deal with Slip-n-Slide Records, which has been under the Def Jam umbrella since 2006. While signed to Slip-n-Slide, Ross toured with fellow rapper Trick Daddy and made guest performances on other Slip-n-Slide albums.
Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (born September 27, 1982), better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included rappers Juvenile, B.G., and Young Turk. Hot Boys debuted with Get It How U Live! that year. Lil Wayne gained most of his success with the group's major selling album Guerrilla Warfare, released in 1999. Also in 1999, Lil Wayne released his Platinum debut album Tha Block Is Hot, selling over one million copies in the U.S.
Although his next two albums Lights Out (2000) and 500 Degreez (2002) were not as successful (only reaching Gold status), Lil Wayne reached higher popularity in 2004 with Tha Carter, which included the single "Go D.J." Wayne also appeared on the Destiny's Child top ten single "Soldier" that year. In 2005, the sequel to Tha Carter, Tha Carter II, was released. In 2006 and 2007, Lil Wayne released several mixtapes and appeared on several popular rap and R&B singles. His most successful album, Tha Carter III, was released in 2008 and sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. its first week of release. It included the number-one single "Lollipop" featuring Static Major. It also includes the singles "A Milli" and "Got Money" featuring T-Pain and won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.
Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American business magnate. He and Rick Rubin founded the pioneering hip-hop label Def Jam. He also created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and American Classics.
Russell Simmons is the third richest figure in hip hop, having a net-worth estimate of $340 million as of April 2011.
Simmons was raised in Queens, New York. He is the son of Daniel Simmons, Sr., a public school administrator, and Evelyn Simmons, a New York City park administrator. His older brother is abstract expressionist painter Daniel Simmons, Jr., and his younger brother is Rev. Joseph Simmons ("Run" of Run-DMC).
Def Jam became just one piece in Simmons' corporation, Rush Communications, Inc., which included a management company, a clothing company called Phat Farm, a movie production house, television shows such as Def Comedy Jam, a magazine and an advertising agency. His nephew Jamal "Redrum" Simmons and his group Flatlinerz released the highly controversial album U.S.A. in 1994 on Def Jam but was dropped from the label soon after. Rick Rubin sold his share of the record company for $100 million to Universal Music Group in 1996. Simmons produced Def Poetry, begun as a television series on HBO, which also branched into a Broadway live stage production in 2002. In 2000, he co-founded the Internet start-up 360 Hip Hop which he later sold to BET.
Gather 'round us, join with the band
Together we're stronger, together we'll stand
Say what can you do, well we've got a plan
And we're gonna take you to the promised land
It's time to remember, it's time to move on
They've pushed it too far, they don't know what they've
done
If it's a fight that they want, then it's a fight that
they'll get
We never lose, honey, so place your bets
Long ago and far away
We had a voice, you know that we had a say
We won't live for yesterday
Ready or not, we're gonna have our way
We got the numbers, we got the might
We got the strength, and we got the right
We got the reason, we got the night
So wake up the sleeping giant
Not one more minute, not one more day
We've waited too long, can't let our chance slip away
We won't stop 'til we get it, we won't stop 'til we're
done
We'll bite and we'll claw until they've lost and we've
We took all we're gonna take
It's got to stop, you know there's too much at stake
Who the hell are they to say
What we can do and how we can play
We got the numbers, we got the might
We got the strength, and we got the right
We got the reason, we got the night
So wake up the sleeping giant
Whoa, wake up the sleeping giant
Whoa, wake up the sleeping giant
Let's push to the limit, so let's push 'til we're home
We've been good too long, they wouldn't leave us alone
It's our rights they're abusing, it's our right to
fight back
So rally the troops and let's start the attack
We got the numbers, we got the might
We got the strength, and we got the right
We got the reason, we got the night
So wake up the sleeping giant
Whoa, we got the numbers, you know we got the might
Whoa, wake up the sleeping giant
Whoa, we got the reason and we're ready to fight
[Verse 1]
No mistako
Not just some whacko from Waco
Crazy I'll plead insanity
Just to save humanity
Be good like no Johnny
Never liked no Guliani
Cause they never could stop me
Not their imaginary Rocky
Get me then acquit me attack me
What a shock to Pataki
Here here watch a brother duck the chair
I fear only the one
Upstairs who got no pears
I'm not part of the click
It's whatcha see is whatcha get
My realitites personal
Many times rhymes forget
Some ain't heavy like others
But they still be my brothers
And disgusted at the other folk laughin at us
Wit the ashes to the ashes the bluntz to the bluntz
A chip off the whole block
I shock and get the word in
Maybe that's why a brother like me shoulders the burden
I smells between the white sheets
A hell of a beast
In the back lurkin
Don't front step to the circle
[Chorus]
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Number one cause the Big Willie (yeah)
Cause for some' us it's a dream
But to the rest it's a nightmare
[Verse 2]
Spending more time in the air than
A flight attendant
The rhyme got winded on the way up
On what I thought was a lay up
These two cent criticizers can't size
We don't realize we all under a microscope
Of a nation of other folk
So all this nigga callin is we fallin
Attitude have we forgotten
Entertaining is todays way of picken cotton
So that the younger gees and bees
Think all we can bees is a big dreamer
In order to get a Benz or a beemer
Some stuck in that 96 Lexus per minute shit
It's that same ol' story that bores me
Ignores me
My metaphors be over
That head of even heads
To some I'm prophetic
To the rest I'm pathetic
I led a movement of mentals
Against the feds and point spread
On beats madd noize and funky instrumentals
There once was a time
We fought the power with a rhyme
Now the attitude goin round
No use tryin
[Chorus]
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Number one cause the Big Willie (yeah)
Cause for some' us it's a dream
But to the rest it's a nightmare
[Bridge]
..aha...c'mon...right
Ride on, ride on yeah
We don't need to be no Big Willie
Last verse check it out..
[Verse 3]
Got more hits than Pete Rose
Had for the Reds
Now they be on anything Deion intercepts
Except I'm in a zone now getin wreck
I get around
Can I get down like Craig Mack
How can I get down
Back like rock 'em sock 'em robots who forgot it was
Who parlayed
The styles of KRS & Rakim
And brought it to a different level
Against the so called devil
Who had the nerve to throw a bell curve
And test me, arrest me
Lemme go let I grow no
I've been thru the afro
It's been a long time so my childhoods
Retro
Unlike today
As we be watchin us pay
The price that bugs me know'n that God
Don't like ugly
Got a free pair of lugz
To run quicker from the slugz
But slipped from the madd dirt
That was swept under the rug
A lil' down, but not out
Not what you thought it was
It's just peace no beefs, I getz love
[Chorus]
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Number one cause the Big Willie (yeah)
Cause for some' us it's a dream
But to the rest it's a nightmare
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Mad at the man no doubt
Althogh you feelin all right
It's feelin' somebody been have left out
Number one cause the Big Willie (yeah)
Cause for some' us it's a dream
Yeah some of y'all flip like wills never got
What we gon do right here is go back
Waaay back
Back into rhyme
We gonna do a song that you never heard before
NO comeback stories NO corny
Choruses No glories NO hallelujahs
NO landcruisers NO drug users
NO grins NO trends
NO phony azz friends
Who begin wit ends and end wit NO ends
And NO estrogen
NO gassups NO soups NO lexcoups
NO crackers NO backers NO niggas
For the blackers NO triple teams
NO mainstream dreams
NO stress beams NO accusations
Cop chases or court cases
NO rape charges NO sarges NO DeBarges
NO lightweight bouts, up in the air
Shoot outs and NO sellouts
NO negros with egos NO mo shows
Callin women bitches and hoes
NO thoughtless flows NO woes
NO singin voices NO Rolls Royces
NO wack choices
NO volunteers getting peers of career
Years
NO solutions NO problems
NO more vinyl revolving
NO happy campers NO offense
NO funk samples
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
NO question
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
NO question
NO suckertash
NO girl I got the cash raps
NO sex traps
NO Rolexes NO unprotected sexes
NO false hopes
NO hand ropes boats NO car notes
NO killers NO vanilla
NO bigger willies NO Wilmas
NO jail time NO fuckin lil kid rhymes
NO studio terrors NO mirrors
Look ma NO spelling errors
NO absent pops, NO sweatshops
NO pork chops
NO justice NO peace NO please please please
NO legal freestyles NO willies, NO
McCovey
NO industry rapes, capes NO suits NO
Ties
NO stars NO over paid A&R;'s
NO body guards gold teeth
NO east coast, west coast beefs
NO dumb looks, NO one sided books
NO special cooks NO finesse NO mess NO struggle to
progress
NO hittin sprees NO HIV NO lies
From NO TV's
NO contracts NO tracks with NO mechanicals
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
NO question
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
NO question
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
NO question
The easiest and the hardest word to say is NO
Only got two letters
Only takes a second to say it
NO meanin No
NO contest NO stress
NO second guessin
NO body guards
VERSE I
No buddah bliss
Shee musta missed it
Still bangin wit the anger
Kissed a soul sanger
Class of 78 sunset strip
Been outta high
20 years
with 30 somethinish peers
what a trip
never drank beer
with the boyz
but the love we shared
was for the art of noise
make me cough
I'm not a chimney
So you can't call that shit soft
What turned me off
Swore their breath stunk
Plus/I never got out rhymed by a drunk
Now a style is your hair or something you
Wear who said it's getting zooted
Till your brains polluted, I ain't playin
This mainstain stayin rooted
Instead of be'in pimped & then prostituted
Won't be the last time
Cause it ain't the first
So do I dare disturb the universe?
VERSE II
No U turn
I pumped up, hittin switchez
But all this talk
Reflect niggas & bitchez(not sure about this line
chuck)
Where did that come from
Only the labels
Can explain
But they play dumb
While they take from
I hit em up the rhyme uppercut
Tell me what have they
Done for me lately
But hate me
Attack me might as well be damn Pataki
This hip hops in me
So they can't stop me
The rhyme animal
Has resurfaced wreckin all
Elements destroyin irrelevant
Because it all comes down to this
What good is talking bout the hood
When you got mutherfucken madness
Am I ringin those senses
Brothers drinkin worse shit
Then they're pourin in their benzes
I give a damn to a point
It'll make me curse
VERSE III
See I always been a rebel
Now I got my own kind blind
Brain trained on the devil level
You don't measure a man
By what he got
It's what he does
What he left & what he
Takin care of
A brother like me annoys em
But I'm kool G when I
Rap about em it's like poison
Everybody wanna Big Willie
Chasin down loot
Dole & Newt
Who do you shoot?
I'm fingerin targets
While ya figurin
Figgaro Figgaro
Soup opera for the niggaro
I ain't chasin
No movies like Jason
Or loolapalooza
Cause I ain't no looser
Ruff stuff to the babies
To the heads of heads
But I ain't crazy
Chorus to the chorus
Verse to verse
[Chubb Rock song plays in background]
(Yo..yo..Chuck D is the bomb, god
{What nigga...now get the fuck outta here...fuck what
you think
Chuck D ain't shit
YouknowhatI'msayin....cheep motherfucka....bitch ass
nigga
How the fuck this gon say Chuck D the hardest
rapper...)
Yeah...uhum.
Let's set it off
Mista (Yo P..yo Slick)
Line 'em to you
Yo Bob
They call me mista..
Aaight
To you
This about report to the comissioner
To you
This about that time
Set it off..
[VERSE 1:]
To all the critics that had me counted out
To all the cynics I fought & Thought they had me
figured out
Who opened doors on 32 tours
From last year's GIVE IT UP goin' back to YOU
'RE GONNA GET YOURS
38 countries in the name of hip hop
Never stopped, 7 Continents
Attackin governments
Political rhyme practice
I gave cause you lack this
Serious sense of time and world geographics
Bring ya brain outside philly
East to the West, North to the South
If you're black we can't all be Big Willie (never)
And to be judged by a hit
By some counterfeit click
That's some bell curve shit
Cause I'm cool like this
Now how I get my swerve on I keep hittin nerve bombs
Relax the saluting arms carry on and carry on
My record speaks for itself I never stopped the hip hop
And I never jumped backwards or kissed myself
[Chorus:]
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one (yeah..I'm tellin you)
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one (I'm tellin you)
If you don't know me you can call me
(c'mon)
[Verse 2:]
Can't win without beginning it
Heed the word of the brother and the voice that got
muscles in it
Now Im'ma show you a waste is a terrible thing to mind
Rhymes without education equals butter from the gutter
And all this talk about the street we stay in & playin
Is a fishtank by the hated you thank
And you say ho hum another story to bore me
Maria take a letter tell Mayor have a freeknik in
Marietta
Here comes the halfstepper hypocrites and advocates
Who care
But be crashin like US Air
The last Bohemian but you'll never see me intoxicated
By bones in drug zones I hate it
One on one black CNN
Keep it from bein in the cartoon network
The rhymes can hurt and do work
Got you lookin for the loot
Is down down to the one & shoot
50 fought to the cracker so for all y'all I getz
blacker
[Chorus:]
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck
Public Enemy number one
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck
Public Enemy number one
You don't know me you can call me Mistachuck
If you don't know me you can call me mister
[Verse 3:]
I don't care for Range Rovers
Cause the price is too high
And I feel em gettin over
Land Cruisers, Issuzus or new shoes
Man dem notes is heavy
That's why I got a couple Chevies
Low budget I am believe me when I speak it
Limousine ain't a damn thing unless they let me keep it
I duck the cakewalk and all dat BS talk
About what's fatter West coast, North, South or New
York
It don't matter
It don't matter
[Chorus:]
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one (yeah..)
If you don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one
You don't know me you can call me Mistachuck (D)
Public Enemy number one
If you don't know me you can call me mister chuck
(The hard rhymer)
(Yeah check it out
Mister
For you
[Chorus: x2]
If I can't change the people around me
I change the people around me
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wrekked
[Verse 1:]
See I'm hangin in like Sam Sever
To all you Johnny come latelys
Who didn't recognize how great and
Clever some of those rhymes be
Think quick
Been flowin over domes
Mad vocab to silly crabs
Before Metaphors be passin
Your ass like taxi cabs
Hit my toll free number
To hear bombs I dropped
1 800 7654321
You don't stop
I need my noize like Patrick & Barkley need rings
Like Griffey gets swings
1st time rhymes played me off like Sacramento Kings
3-6 for the 9-6 1 move my rhymers with the times
Wit no crimes or pantomime
No great pretender spenders
20 years got mad tears leavin tears in they beers
From the rear old school getting theirs
You getting scared
It is on & on and 3 steps ahead
Hot topics shock in the house
Fulla heads
Getting burned while you learn on a hospital bed
Madd kids never checkin for what I said
Jack be quick
Jack be nimble on the brain
I'm stay'n simple
But the sound remains insane
Same mad pain no gain getting getto on the table
No stories no fables relax I'm cinemax to the blacks
No cable
Round & round here I go
Putting this sound down
But some a y'all got fears and scared to get
Down
[Chorus: x2]
If I can't change the people around me
I change the people around me
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wrekked
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wreckked
[Verse 2:]
Now I'm the one who flew over the Cuckoo's nest &
tested
And wasn't ever bullet proof vested
Resurrection of the one man vocal section
Spirit in your dark ass direction
For your mind body and soul protection
Reality checks keep it real
Bring in real checks
On & off the road been through
1100 sondchecks
Those influenced under the influence
Getting mad hits from truants
Dazed & confused hangin wit crews
Who livin blues
A million doomed consumers
Who say they know they black
Threw they medallions back
In exchange for 40 dozen six packs
Born under a terrible sign in 1969 comin
Blind
Livin inside hard ass times
Getting kicks offa wack karate flicks
He kills but gots no fightin skillz
It's getting ill so many funerals
Stylin now its gold plated medallions
I didn't know under fros
We got so many black Italians
[Chorus: x2]
If I can't change the people around me
I change the people around me
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wrekked
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wreckked
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next
Generation Wreckked
Some don't know was'up
Shit iz jus fucked up
They don't know what's next