FIRING OFF

Rapper Blasts Misuse of ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ in L.A. Wildfire Posts

“Learn the history. Godspeed to those in loss,” Chuck D said in an Instagram post Thursday.

Rapper Chuck D asked people to stop using his Public Enemy song “Burn Hollywood Burn” in posts about the Los Angeles wildfires. “It has nothing to do with families losing everything they have in a natural disaster. Learn the history. Godspeed to those in loss,” he wrote in an Instagram post Thursday. “Burn Hollywood Burn is a protest song extracted from the Watts rebellion, coined by the Magnificent Montague in 1965 against inequality when he said ‘burn baby burn’ across the air,” he added. “We made mind-revolution songs aimed at a one-sided exploitation by an industry.” The rebellion was a series of riots in the Watts neighborhood in L.A. that manifested over anger at the L.A. Police Department’s mistreatment of Black residents. Five wildfires have ravaged the L.A. area, with at least 10 people dead and thousands of acres of land burned. “Burn Hollywood Burn” is from the Chuck D and Flavor Flav’s 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet and features Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane.