From The Onion interview with KRS-One in The Tenacity of the Cockroach:

Q. What did your A&R work for Warner Bros. teach you?

A. The single most important lesson I learned is that black people are the cause of black people's demise. I learned that at Time-Warner. Though I was treated with the highest respect from the owners of the company, which is obviously white people . . . Not obviously, but . .. . (laughs.) This is not a black-owned company. All the white executives there treated me as if they were my sons and I was their father, not the other way around.

But then, when I met with my black brothers, I say to you today very reluctantly, it was a disappointment. The attitude that I was confronted with on that level was ridiculous. They didn't want to speak to me. There were heads of A&R who didn't even want to speak to me for the two years I was there, they never called a meeting with me to discuss things. I called many meetings that were ignored. Our head of publicity couldn't get it together with the artists I was signing. I had about a $5 million budget. They couldn't understand why I would sign Kool Herc, who was the father of hip-hop culture. They couldn't understand why I was talking to Chuck D and Public Enemy about signing to Warner Bros. They couldn't understand why I signed Kool Moe Dee, why I signed Mad Lion on the reggae side.

They wanted artists who basically thugged it out and pimped it out, and it was a disappointment to me on that side. I never again will I join in on the rhetoric that the white man is the reason people can't get ahead in corporate America. That's b*llsh*t now, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it was like that. Maybe in some corporations, it still is. But I know that at Time-Warner it ain't, and I was there from the highest level to the lowest level. And the problem is, black people are just constantly immature in their thinking, and we suffer as a people.

You know, this is not about race in the sense that black people got to get something better than whites or Latinos or Asians. This is just basically that we keep complaining about what we don't have and what we can't do, and then, when we get in position to do stuff, we fight amongst ourselves like savages. That was the single most important lesson I learned. It also opened my eyes to the reason black music looks the way it does on television and radio. It's always baffled me why BET looks the way it does. This is Black Entertainment Television. Why are we up there, then, looking like idiots? Ir's because black people are marketing black people like that. I commend the deal with Viacom purchasing BET. I hope Viacom cleans up and does some work. Viacom is a Time-Warner company, by the way.

Damn. Sometimes the truth hurts. We're pimpin' ourselves now but no one wants to acknowledge it.
[This message was edited Fri Aug 29 5:11:05 PDT 2003 by NovaAngel]

While trying to "climb the ladder of success" this prima donna wanted to be a part of the ongoing attempts to raise and maintain black pride and cultural/historical awareness in the black inner-city youths. Now that he himself has become a "house nigger" he doesn't understand the confrontational attitudes he is receiving from other "house (and "field") niggers"...

Typical, typical typical...

"The Souls of Black Folks" (DuBois) is 100 years old this year, and "The Mis-Education of the Negro" (Woodson) is 70 years old this year. We STILL don't "get it"!

WonHungLo said:

Very true. KRS-One's analysis is quite naive but not surprising, since he made a 180 degree turn into conservativism, going as far as embracing President Bush's war against Iraq.

KoolAid said:

WTF! are you serious?

milty said:

I cannot find the references, but I recall reading some articles that stated such. I guess I should say he "reportedly made a 180 degree turn..." but he was "saved" and has a strong Christian identity now that seems to overshadow his previous marxist/nationalist leanings.

KoolAid said:

What! Not KRS!!! Damn Kool-Aid, I'm gon' need me a glass of whatever you got.
[This message was edited Mon Sep 1 18:28:53 PDT 2003 by NovaAngel]

Sounds like "Bamboozled"...