The SECRET DOCTRINE a Conversation With Killah Priest

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~@ Conversation

TH E SECRET DOCTRINE

A conversationithKillahPriest

KelefaSanneh

There is perhaps no contemporary mu-

sic more concerned with stereotypes

than hip-hop. Against a pastiche of

rhythmic loops from I970os funk and

soul records, new synthesized sounds,

and snippets from radio and television,

the most marketable fantasies of black

and white alike come to life: proud

mothers and roughnecks, black scientists

and licentious women, all laughing and

shouting at one another, loving and

cursing, praying and studying. But no

character in this exaggerated landscape

is more central-or more surprising-

than the AfricanAmerican preacher, hat

figure of cultural and spiritual enlight-

enment whose truth derives less from

sincerity than from bravado.The black

preacher is the prototypical rapper, a

charismatic vernacular performance

artist. Rappers-priests and gangstas

alike-are obliged to talk so much that

they can't help but talk shit;they end up

professing what they do not necessarily

believe.

Those of us who love rapoften try to

downplay its roots in the black vernac-

ular tradition of bullshitting.True devo-

tees call rap music and culture "hip-

hop," echoing "bebop," and the rapper

himself is renamed the MC-the mas-

ter of ceremonies, the microphone con-

troller-as if to bestow on him a title

that reflectsthe seriousnessof his calling.

While it is true that rap lyrics do reveal

truths about partsof the country that are

consistently misrepresented in main-

stream media, it is precisely this insipid

insistence on "truth" and "reality"that

has come to dominate hip-hop criti-

cism. The sad deaths of Tupac Shakur

and Christopher Wallace have been an-

alyzed breathlessly and luridly as artistic

milestones, as if two unsolved murders

held the key to understanding some of

the most compelling pop music of the

decade. Frank Sinatra ran with equally

unsavory characters,but he lived to be

eighty-two-and no one has suggested

that we regard "Young at Heart" as a

162 TRANSITION ISSUE 74



Courtesy of

Geffen Records



harbingerof future cardiac arrest.Those

who search for "reality" n raplyrics in-

evitably blur the distinction between bi-

ographyand art,

celebratingtabloid

"facts" that soon pass into urban myth-

ology. And poetry is no match for an ur-

ban myth.

The "reality," f course, is that rappers

are paid to brag and to boast, to make

things up and to talk shit. To those with

no real interest in this tradition-with

no real interest, that is to say, in the

African American vernacular-the vio-

lent imagery on StraightOutta Compton,

NWA's epochal I988 album,seems more

like prescription than performance. In

the decade since NWA's debut, gunplay

hasbecome an essentialcomponent of

hip-hop's tall tales,and rap's east in-

sightfulcriticshave almostgiven up in

disgust.As ghettolife is increasingly lorified

(and ampooned)n thelyricsof some of

the country'smost popularrecords,it-

eral-minded ritics ind confirmation f

the worst stereotypesof socialpathol-

ogy.Their search or "reality" ndsin-

evitablyn success:hevividrhymes hat

reach hip-hop's predominantlywhite

audienceultimatelyeemmore real han

theghettos heyoften claim o represent.

If this confusion has had a deleterious

effect on politicaldiscourse,ts effect on

hip-hop has been no less destructive.


Elijah Mulhammad

and Malcolm X

at 369th Armory,

1960

Magnum



The conflation of rapand realityhas ob-

scured some of the most important and

interesting developments in hip-hop.In I993, as the world's attention was

focused on the slow beats and noncha-

lant boasts of Californian gangsta rap,a

new crew with bewildering new ideas

arrived on the scene in the East. From

the unlikely Borough of Staten Island,

New York, the Wu-Tang Clan parodied

hip-hop's carefully cultivated imagery

of violence by invoking far-flung aes-thetic and spiritual kin, although they

recited rhymes no less gruesome than

any other hardcore rap group. Named

for a fearsome martial arts movie dy-

nasty,theWu-Tang Clan equated stories

of neighborhood gunplay with obscure

sequencesfrom undergroundHong Kong

films, compared their lyrical sharpnessto

a ceremonial sword, and mythologizedtheir hometown: they claimed to come

"straight from the slums of Shaolin."

Over a dozen albums and countless sin-

gles later, the Wu-Tang family is among

the most profitable and respected in hip-

hop.

Almost unnoticed underneath the

sensational kung fu fury, avant-garde

production,and inventive wit was

the resurgence of hip-hop gnosticism.

If rappers from the Wu-Tang Clan see

ghetto gunplay in Asian martialarts, hen

they recall the Nation of Islam's Elijah

Muhammad, who saw a flying saucer in

the biblical parable of Ezekiel's wheel

and who derived a pure Egyptian her-

itage from his own mulatto skin. This

similarity is no coincidence. The Nation

of Islam has been amplified for the hip-

hop generation in the form of a small

but influential community of NOI dis-

sidents known as the Five Percent Na-

tion of Gods and Earths-so named be-

cause of their belief that the most "con-

scious" 5 percent of society forms a kind

of spiritual vanguard.The complex and

diverse teachings of the Five Percenters

were most famously disseminated by

an MC named Rakim-now widely re-

garded as the most skilled rapper of all

The sad deaths of Tupac Shakur and

Christopher Wallace have been analyzed

breathlessly and luridly as artistic

milestones, as if two unsolved murders

held the key to understanding some of the

most compelling pop music of the decade.

time. These teachings are rooted in a

certain literalization of urbanblackbrag-

gadocio, centered around the firmly heldconviction that the black man is God. In

the peculiar vocabulary of the Five Per-

centers, knowledges often used as a verb

and time is expressed as a strange

acronym: Truth I Master Equally. The

Five Percenters' creative use of words

makestheir teachingswell-suited for hip-

hop appropriation, and the sect's fiery

black nationalism resonatesthroughout

the community that calls itself the "hip-

hop nation."

This tradition of black hermeticism

provides much of the context for the

Wu-Tang Clan's kung fu mysticism.

There are scores of rappers affiliated

with the Clan, each with a differentlyri-

cal style and a different conception of

the black man'splace in the universe.But

even within this family of spiritual sci-

entists and verbal warriors, the MC

named Killah Priest stands out as the

most thoughtful and provocative expo-

THE SECRET DOCTRINE 165



nent of black gnosticism.After guest ap-

pearances onWu-related albums such as

the Genius's Liquid Swords and the

Gravediggaz'Six FeetDeep,Killah Priest

released his solo debut, Heavy Mental,

in the spring of I998; his group, Sunz

of Man, debuted a few months later.

Like the black preacher whose show-

manship anticipated rap,Killah Priest's

rapping is a little too sly to be earnest.

He reads the Bible with feverish glee,

conjuring the most fantastic images and

beliefs from well-known parables and

visions, realizing the universe of possi-

bilities suggested by his identity as a hip-

hop priest.

Amid a millennial diasporic din, Kil-

lah Priest's rhyme style is surprisingly

calm. His voice is often more incan-

tatory than declamatory, even when

threatening to "drink the blood of an

In the peculiar vocabulary of the Five

Percenters, knowledge is often used

as a verb and time is expressed as a

strange acronym: Truth I Master Equally.

unbeliever." The title track of Heavy

Mental is a rap song without beats, un-

expectedly combining spoken words

with the low buzz of a didgeridoo-an

indescribably toneless Australian wind

instrument. The result is a kind of fu-

turistic Howl for the hip-hop nation, a

militant and contemplative diatribe that

shiftsimperceptiblyfrom non sequitur to

biblical esoterica. "I've been on Mars,"

Killah Priest declares, warming to thetopic, "building the Holy Synagogue for

the royal seminars / Long before they

had the Renaissance,there existed a He-

brew lodge ..."

The "Hebrew lodge" is evidence of

Killah Priest'ssingulartake on the Bible,

but "Mars"may come as more of a sur-

prise. Outer space, it turns out, is one of

Killah Priest's chief lyrical concerns, sig-

nifying an excess of possibility that is

fundamental to the freewheeling black

nationalism that his rhymes embrace.

Suspended within this greater galaxy is a

cosmopolitan alternative to the twin

specters of tradition and "reality" that

haunt contemporary African America,

a notion of black identity far more

worldly than the black American land-

scape of stifling urban centers and deso-

late rural nowheres. The notion of

voyaging through space mirrors and ex-

aggerates the dislocation of the Middle

Passage,and it echoes the plaintive song

of slaves entreating one another to

"follow the drinking gourd"-the Big

Dipper-to escapebondage.HeavyMen-

tal is filled with cosmic invocations that

update this tradition,deploying a vocab-

ulary of astronauts and microchips that

suggests science fiction. But in deference

to contemporaryperceptionsof hip-hop,

Killah Priest's galactic rap might better

be described as science reality.

Science reality .. . or just rapping?In

the rhymes of Killah Priest, Rakim, and

countless other rappers, spiritual claims

exemplify the boasts that are the heart

and soul of urban poetry. It's often im-

possible to tell where biblical allegory

ends and pure verbaljousting begins-

one stanza seems to retell the story of

Moses as an MC battle:

Actualday

Mathematics rought aysto his attic

What'stheweightof aflame?

Stateyourname




:::::̂ ^ e'..' ... .................... . . ...........

"'::'":~' : '

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~..'. ..........: ...":.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..'....'.'..... . ,:,:,:

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s.. ..K

..........

Gilberto ilson




FromAncient Egypt,

byA. RosalieDavid

(Oxford: haidon)



But he was afraidof the height

Gazed at the light

Strayed, ouldn't tay or the light

Ran to his bookof rhymes

Tookup sometime or the brothero hook

up a line

as if he had afishing rod

But my mission s God

Science be dishingout hard

Killah Priest is just gettingstarted.Or is he

just about ostop?One cannever ell: "Whothefuck want more essons? t's over!"

KIF FFA SANNEH: Were you inter-

ested in spirituality before you started

rapping?

KILLAH PRIEST: Absolutely. I came

up studying the Scriptures. I used to

meet with a lot of brothers, and we

would always read the Scriptures-because that's where we all come from.

KS: When you say "Scriptures,"do you

mean the Christian Bible?

KP: Yes.

KS: And black people are mentioned in

the Bible?

KP: Yes.Yousee, the nations in the Bible

still exist today, they're simply known by

different names. When you look in theScriptures, you can find the original

names. The black people in America are

known in the Scriptures as Israel. That's

what I learned as a young boy.

KS: Did you go to church?

KP: Of course-I think every child

went to church when he was little! But

I didn't really understand everything.

Anyway, I was in the street most of thetime. I had two lives:going to church all

Sunday,and hanging out at night the rest

of the week.

KS: When you talk about hanging out

at night, that's spiritual, too, isn't it?

Didn't you first encounter brothers from

the Five Percent Nation at night, on the

streets?

KP: Oh yeah. When I first saw those

guys around, in the early eighties, they

always tried to talk to me-they said

they wanted to buildwith me. They an-

noyed me at first. I was like, "Man, what

are they talking about?" But then I got

a little older,and I started to understand.Later,I hooked up with some broth-

ers from Israel-Black Israel-and they

said they wanted to build with me, too.

It got deep:we startedgoing through the

Scriptures. There's a song on my album

called "One Step,"where I say:"Under-

stand the jewel / Brought to fifty states

/ Deuteronomy 28:68 / It all relates."

Deuteronomy 28:68 tells you that thepeople will be enslaved if they disobey

the laws of the most high.We broke the

laws of the most high, because we were

making false idols, and that's why we

came into captivity.

KS: What "false idols" are you talking

about? Do you mean to say that African

religioustraditionsare false?I'm surprised

to hearyou saythat,

because it seems like

African traditions have become part of a

common black culturalheritage.

KP: Look: I'm not talking about ancient

black traditions.You have to understand

that there have always been lots of dif-

ferent races in Africa. That'swhy they're

fighting over there right now, because

people that don't belong there were

driven there-the Jews, everybody's

over there.They're fighting for their land

and for their cultures today. That's the

way the world was in ancient times, too.




People saythat the Egyptians built the

pyramids. But when you look deeper

into it, you'll find that the pyramidswere

built by slaves. We did build the pyra-

mids, but that doesn't mean we were

Egyptian.The word Egyptmeans "bond-

age";black people were slaves. If Egypt

was all that great, believe me, Moses

wouldn't have had to lead us out of

there.

This is how Heavy Mentalstrikes,like

a modern-day Moses up in the projects.

America is like Egypt, and the projects

are a form of captivity-you've got all

The word Egypt means "bondage";

black people were slaves. If Egypt

was all that great, believe me, Moses

wouldn't have had to lead us out

of there.

these black brothers and sistersliving in

poverty. The president is the modern-

day pharaoh.When you check out an-

cient history, you see that a lot of Greek

philosophers took ideas from the ancient

Egyptian networks-they used Egyp-

tian knowledge to learn how to controlmasses of people.

KS: So what about someone like Sun

Ra, who made Egypt a metaphor for

spiritualawareness?Or Mustafael-Amin,

the author of Freemasonrynd the Islamic

Heritage,who claims that the pyramid on

the dollar bill should be a source of in-

spiration for African Americans?

KP: Well, the pyramids are part of thestory.We built them, and they are filled

with symbolism, because we're a mystic

people. We're a spiritualpeople. But the

pyramids were also a graveyardfor the

Pharaohs,built with slavelabor.We built

tombs for the rulers who were oppress-

ing our people! Every time you watch a

movie set in biblical times, the Egyptians

arewhite, the Israelitesarewhite, Christ

is white, everybody'swhite. But we were

there.We existed in those times.

KS: Who is this "we"? Are you claim-

ing that the people now called "African

American" existed as a group in biblical

times?

KP: Yes. I'm talking about the same

people. We're the same, it'sjust that the

names have been changed to protect the

innocent-and the guilty. Ecclesiastes

I:9: Ain't nothing new under the sun.

Water is still wet, fire is still hot, and

we're still black, so ain't nothing new.

Our forefathers were alive in ancient

times, but theyjust left us wreckage.And

in the years since, we've been taught the

Bible wrong. We've been taught to read

it as a religious text, when it's actually a

history book-it's our history book.

When you hear stories about King

David, you're actually hearing black his-

tory. Song of Solomon I:5 says,"I am

black."King Solomon was black, and so

was his father,and his whole nation.Andthey had a great kingdom and a great

civilization.

Whenever we study our history, we

alwaystalk about one thing: slavery.And

that's not history. That's more like a

holocaust. That's nothing to teach your

kids! If you want to hear about black

history, you can do two things: you can

study King David's life, or you can goout and buy Killah Priest's Heavy Men-

tal album.

KS: When you talk about the Bible,






Painted limestone

statues of Rahotep

and Nefert

from the tomb

chapel of Rahotep

at Meidum

JurgenLiepe.Courtesy

oftheEgyptianMuseum

in Cairo




KS: So where does this leave contem-

porary Africa?

KP: I'm going to say this:Africa is a big

part of the picture, but I'm not as con-

cerned with Africa as I am with Amer-

ica. Before we straighten out that prob-

lem over there,we have to straightenout

our problems here. People are going

back to Africa, but we haven't got our-

selves straight as a nation over in this

place.

Look at Nelson Mandela: as soon ashe got out of jail, he came to America,

he got his money, and he went back to

South Africa. He took care of business,

first.And that'swhat you have to do: first

you get the money, then you go back to

your people. At the United Nations,

everyone has a seat, even the African

countries. But Negroes in America don't

have a seat at the UN. We don't have arepresentative.That's because our repre-

sentative is God; he'srepresentedus from

the beginning. Ain't nobody else going

to speak out for us. But that'swhy Jesus

came to the planet:he was speaking out

for the less fortunate.

Now, the image of Jesus that you see

everywhere is false. The realJesus was

hanging out in the ghettos, in the gut-ters. He had feelings. He was walk-

ing around, going to the poor and the

broken-hearted and the meek. And then

you had your ancient cops-Roman

Centurions-trying to crucify him, be-

cause he was talking about peace and

justice and equality.

ButJesus was speaking of a new king-

dom for us, in a new world. NotEgypt,with its history of bondage; not Amer-

ica,with its Egyptian philosophy;not the

slave mentality or the Americanized at-

titude: he was talking about something

different. So I respect that. And all our

people should respect that. But back

then, people didn't pay any attention,

and they hung Jesus on the cross. That's

why Negroes were hanged throughout

the South. We were crucified the same

way he was.

KS: But what about this "new world"?

The story of black people in this coun-

try is the story of movement, the story

of a journey from Africa to America,

from South to North. Is this progress?KP: Yeah, we're talking about progress,

we're talking about movement, we're

talking about having our own indepen-

dent culture. But there are a lot of peo-

ple who don't really know what's going

on. A lot of people are lost, and that's

sad,but the Scriptures predict that: "For

many are called,but few are chosen." So

that's how it goes.KS: OK, so the Middle Passageis a kind

of progress, even if everyone doesn't

know what's going on. But so far,we've

only talked about movement on Earth;

why, then, do you rap so much about

outer space?

KP: Because that's where we're from!

Black people come from space. When

you look at the sky, it's black. Withoutthe sunlight-forget it, it's black. In the

beginning, there was darkness.

KS: When you talk about "the begin-

ning," do you mean seventy-six trillion

years ago?

KP: What do you mean, "seventy-six

trillion"?

KS: Elijah Muhammad wrote that time

startedseventy-six

trillionyears ago,

and

that the earth was created when the

moon was "deported" from this planet

sixty-six trillion years ago. Is that "the

beginning" you're talking about?




KP: Nah, I ain't talking about none of

that. I'm talking about pure facts. In the

beginning, "darknesswas upon the face

of the deep." Man was made on a cer-

tain day,and man went and got corrupt.

He's been corrupt ever since: he's been

destroying the world, he's been hiding

identities, he's been lying, stealing-all

of that. But space travel is real. When

The Africans who sold us were of a

different nationality from us, and

that's why we ended up on the slave

ships. I mean, you wouldn't sell your

own brother!

William H.Johnson,

Swing Low,Sweet

Chariot. Ca. 1944.

Courtesy of the

National Museum of

American Art

they speak of unidentified flying objects,

a lot of people don't understand what

that means. Ezekiel saw UFOs back

then-only they were IFOs, because he

identified them. He knew what they

were. They were chariots of fire.

KS: That's Ezekiel's wheel, right? The

original flying saucer!

KP: Yes, they call them spaceshipsnow.

That's where the old Negro song comes

from:"Swing low, sweet chariot, coming

for to carry me home." The slaves actu-

ally saw angels, because angels policed

the earth on the regular.Sometimes we

are blessed or cursed to see them; it de-

pends.

KS: Are these spaceships different from

the Mothership that the Nation of Is-

lam preaches about-the craft that ab-

ducted Louis Farrakhan in Mexico in

I985?

KP: No, it's the same. People call it

Mothership, chariot, UFO ... but it's all

the same thing.

KS: Fard Muhammad always taught that

despite the Mothership, the true home

of the Original People was Earth. Do

you believe that this spaceship is going

to take African American people some-

place else?

KP: That'swhat's been predicted.Chris-

tians talk about the rapture:Christ com-

ing back and the sky cracking up. The

American government says that if any-

thing comes out of space,we should all

help fight it. The whole world has gone

mad: one group of people are waiting

for a spaceship, while another group

is waiting to shoot it down. Isaiah

66: 5-"the Lord will come with fire,

and with his chariots like a whirlwind."

He's going to come and wreak ven-

geance, because there are a lot of lies out

there.

KS: Are you talking about movies like

Independence ay? The Nation of Islam's

newspaperFinalCall attacked that movie

as a racist perversion of the Day of

Judgment.

KP: Word. Like the movie Independence

Day. There arepeople who know what's

going to happen. They are part of the

elite io percent of society, the ones that

know truth and hide it.When you talk

about religion, there's always a righ-teous 5 percent and a devious io per-

cent-the other 85 percent of people

are ignorant.

What's scary about religion is that it

does nothing but divide. Our people

have had many differentreligions forced

upon us because we lost our identity.

And when people have no identity, they

look for a way out. But you can identifyyourself by reading the Scriptures-

even though on TV, they change the

faces to protect the guilty.







William H.Johnson,

Ezekiel Sawthe Wheel.

Ca. 1942-43.Courtesy

of the National Museum

ofAmerican Art

KS: You mean they change the color?

KP: They change everything! Every-

thing's changed, seasons and times; they

even created a leap year! But the Scrip-

tures will tell you the truth. We came

to this country with the Book, and the

Book was taken from us; t was translated

from Hebrew to Greek so that the mas-

ters could understand t and teach it back

to us.And we were taughtwrong. See, we

are supposed to govern them with our

knowledge, but right now is a difficult

time. Black people have been pushed into

the ghettos and reduced to rats, orced to

war againstourselves.We need to create

awareness:f you'reawareof what'sgoing




on, you can surmount these things.

KS: Do you see yourself within a tradi-

tion of brothers who have been, as you

say,aware?Marcus Garvey,Noble Drew

Ali.

KP: Oh yes. Prophets will always rise

from out of our nation,just like they did

in biblical times, just like Ezekiel-and

just like Malcolm X. But then, instead of

sticking to the big plan, instead of

putting us back in tune with God and

spirituality,they wander off and lead usinto the slaughterhouse of religion. And

that'swhat kills us off every time. But we

are a nation:we build. Rap is part of our

tradition:rap,dance,and hip-hop, bebop,

all of that. And we are greaterthan what

we've limited ourselves to.

KS: So you see prophets in hip-hop,

too? People like Poor Righteous Teach-

ers and KRS-One seem to have hadsimilar ambitions.

KP: Sure. Those brothers are great;they

came out and they let you know the

truth. I'm coming out to show every-

body the new form of lyrical rap, just

like the brothers who came before me,

just like KRS-One. I'm adding my piece

to the pie. We came here together, but

we're all individuals, and we all have toseek our own salvation.We tend to stay

on one mental plane,but there aremany

different levels of awareness.Justas there

are many different points to the body.

You've got a head, you've got two arms,

two legs-

KS: -Arm, Leg, Leg,Arm, Head: Allah.

KP: Exactly! So there are different

worlds that we can go into.

KS: Do these "differentworlds" extend

beyond hip-hop? Are there other places

in music or in popular culture where

you perceive this kind of tradition?

KP: Hip-hop has definitely become the

primary voice for the struggle. Hip-hop

is a voice to the black youth and the

white youth, because he's listening, too.

I had a young white cat come up to me

yesterday.He said,"Yo, man,what do you

think about the state of Israel today?"

People arelistening. People have to know

the truth; the truth is for everybody.

The government knows the truth. And

they're withholding the truth, because

they're planning on doing their thing.KS: The government-that's the Io

percent again, right?

KP: Yeah, and I have to watch myself,

too. When Christ spoke out like this,

they came against him.

KS: What about someone like Lyndon

LaRouche? He's another person who

claims to be exposing truths that the

government is trying to hide. LaRouchehas had a high profile in the African

American community ever since his

1992 presidentialbid, when he chose the

black activist Reverend James Bevel to

be his running mate.What do you think

of LaRouche?

The whole world has gone mad:one group

of people are waiting fora spaceship,while another group is waiting to shoot

it down.

KP: Most people like LaRouche aretry-

ing to save themselves from the future. I

mean, the information is deep, but peo-

ple like LaRouche are patriots. They're

just trying to stave off what's destined to

happen.

KS: What aboutWilliam Cooper, whose

conspiracy classic,Beholda PaleHorse,has

become so influential in the hip-hop




L\






community?

KP: Yeah,that book is deep.He was partof the plan and they gypped him-I

don't know what they did. But Cooper

is like LaRouche: the Armageddon that

he wants to prevent is destinedo happen.

I appreciatethe effortsof LaRouche and

Cooper; I appreciate the fact that they

released the information. Those guys

know a lot, and they're willing to say

what they know. I don't think they

should talk to the average man on the

We have no choice but to use

technology, because this is what we've

been reduced to. So now we are biochip

men. But the soul is the same.

The outside is just a little bit cyborg.

Chesley Bonestell,

Our Galaxy from

a Hypothetical Planet.

1970. Reprinted by

permission of Bonestell

SpaceArt

street, though, because they'd probably

bug him out. He'd end up in a nuthouse.

That kind of information is only for the

person who wants to be aware.

We can talk about the tradition of

speaking out, but we are a new breed-

we're going to establish a new govern-

ment, a new beginning for the children

that are being born into this world. We

are planting new seeds. That's what it's

all about: we can see something new.

KS: I wonder how this all links up to the

new sounds on Heavy Mental.From the

droning didgeridoo to the out-of-phase

loops, the minimalist beats, and the

other-worldly vocal samples:this album

hasa lot of sounds that the world of hip-

hop isn't used to hearing.

KP: Those sounds on the album come

from our forefathers,the ancients. We're

just bringing them back so we can make

music to move people. The music talks

to the soul; it chastises and baptizes the

soul. Sometimes we have to brainwashall that dust that's n people'sheads.They

say,"Don't brainwash me!" But some-

times it'sgood to brainwashyourself,just

like you wash your clothes. See, the di-

alect is used differently.But we have to

clear our mind first.

KS: And how does technology fit into

all of this? Do you see your philosophy,

your music, as futuristic?

KP: "A suburban 666 database / inves-

tigate / entire race heading for a cyber-

space / riots break inside an empire state

/ every move you make / is recorded on

tape."That's how it is.Everything is run

by digital computers. They control the

mind. Technology is producing new

identities.

KS: Don't you think that some of those

new identities are musical? Reggae and

hip-hop-some of the most socially

conscious music that this part of the

world hasproduced-were both created

with modern production technology.

KP: No, no-it wasn't technology!

This music was really created by drums,

you know what I'm saying?Drums, and

people letting their souls out.

KS: Of course the music is descended

from the drum. But turntables and mix-

ing decks areprecisely what make it hip-

hop.

KP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, we had to

break it down differently.But it's not all

about technology: Grandmaster Flash's

song was called "The Message."We have

no choice but to use technology, be-

cause this is what we've been reduced to.

So now we are biochip men. But the

soul is the same.The outside isjust a lit-

tle bit cyborg.

As an MC, I utilize all of this. The al-







bum may be fat-the beats and all-but

remember: you've still got a street outthere, and everybody meets each other

on the street. I speak out for the under-

ground MCs, with no record deal. They

still kick it, without beats or anything,

with no technology. So it still shines

forth. Some people just have it, "like a

phenomenon ..."

KS:" ... from out of the matrix"?

KP: Yes!Just

like Isay

onmy

album:

"Like a phenomenon from out of the

matrix / The world looks at me with

envy and hatred / Just because I appear

to them half naked / Rising out of a

spaceship / With an arm full of solid

gold bracelets."And some of us can re-

member or relate to things like that be-

cause some brothers walk on different

clouds.

KS: What does that mean?

KP: It means that some of us can still re-

late to those things, out there in the

galaxy. Some of us can take you there,

to the spiritualdimension, the fourth di-

mension.

KS: You're talking about leaving this di-

mension, and you're talking about new

forms. But a lot of other people say that

hip-hop is in a creative slump from

which it will never recover. Have we in-

deed reached the end of hip-hop?

KP: Yes. But it's a new beginning. It's

the same music, it just comes in differ-

ent forms. Everybody that'scoming out

with records now has a more lyrical style

of rapping.

KS: So it's actually an exciting time in

hip-hop?

KP: I think the music is more serious

now.You can dance all day,but eventu-

ally,things are going to get thick, things

are going to get hectic, and you'll need

something more. So it's important to

hear all this knowledge now, before theystartsmashing up all the records and the

tapes and the CDs.

You've got to watch out. There are a

lot of soothsayers out there, too. The

people who are running those psychic

hotlines are trying to tap into your third

eye-your consciousness-trying to

get you all computerized and digital.

To thisday,

there areJesuits practicing

witchcraft, waging a mental holy war.

KS: These "Jesuits practicing witch-

craft" sound like Freemasons. But there

is a long history of African American

freemasonry, dating back to the eigh-

teenth century.Where do Masons, Afri-

can American and otherwise, fit in? For

example,you talked earlier about "build-

ing" with the Five Percent Nation: isn't

"building" a masonic term?

KP: Yeah. That's deep, man. If you look

back, a lot of things are symbolic. It all

goes back to building the pyramids,

where they used bricks. But freemasonry

is based on secrets,and I don't deal in se-

crets. I have nothing to hide. A lot of

people out there have things to hide, but

those things won't be hidden much

longer. So I don't ally myself with the

Freemasons. These days, you also have a

lot of Black Muslims talking about the

end of the world, but I don't ally myself

with them, either.I study Christ,and the

knowledge that he was dropping. Christ

said, I'm going to lay down my life for

my people. And that'sdeep.

KS: So you are talking about religion,

after all?

KP: No, I ain't talking about no reli-

gion! I'm just talking about nationality.

Documents

The SECRET DOCTRINE a Conversation With Killah Priest