Monday, November 3rd, 2008

What Time It Is :: Wendell Pierce With The Last Word

For months, we have been telling you about how important tomorrow is. Now this is it. The last word.

We’re going to Wendell Pierce, better known as Bunk Moreland from “The Wire”. Maybe he’s a dude you look up to. Maybe he’s a dude you respect. He’s not a hater, but he has a message.

Did you think hip-hop has helped or hurt Obama in his quest to become the first black president?

Well, I’m pretty much an old head so I don’t listen to a lot of hip-hop. I mean you know, it’s cool. Uh. You know, it’s cool.

I mean, the fact is the youth of America, every election cycle has this sense of responsibility and sense of importance. But then it’s inflated because they never vote. So while every election cycle we’re like, ‘Young people gon’ get out and vote! P-Diddy said vote or die, what we’re gon’ do, you know man? I gon put this rap and talk about the real deal!’ And you ask the majority of all those hip-hop heads, did you go out and vote?

See I don’t see the lines of all those same young people that are sitting there trying to get into the Fox (Theater) in Atlanta…

But you should have seen Nas at Rock The Bells. He had 25,000 middle fingers in the air…

Right! I know. That’s big. But you’re not gonna see the same crowd outside the polling place. Cause I’ve never seen that. So if hip hop wants to impress me, bring that same amount of people and that same amount of energy at one time at one polling place.

I put a challenge out to Vibe. Show me in your December issue the pictures of the hundreds of thousands of hip-hop heads outside the polling places with their fingers up like that and their ‘I voted’ sticker on their lapel.

Hip hop has never ever had an impact besides selling records, popular culture. They’ve never made an impact on the political world because they’ve never been a part of it.

Can you imagine if we ever saw that many young people at 9am at one polling place in this country on November 4th?

I see Jay-Z sell out Madison Square Garden five nights in a row. If you would like to impress me, I would like to see those same numbers of people outside five polling places in New York City. When I see that, then hip-hop is gonna impress me.

That’s a serious challenge.

Tell ’em that Wendell Pierce from ‘The Wire’ put out the challenge. And as Bunk would say, “Ya happy now, bitch?”

posted by Jeff Chang @ 8:23 am | 1 Comment

One Response to “What Time It Is :: Wendell Pierce With The Last Word”

diane says:

November 5, 2008 at 11:18 am

i went as the bunk for halloween. sadly, no one knew who i was.

keep up the great work, jeff! (and go bears!!!)

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