Q. . . . . . . .
A. Let’s face it, Black is gonna make more money off the Personality Kliq than anyone else.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. Well, he owns the name. He produces most of the songs. I got to pay him to even use the logo; that’s why you don’t see the Kliq’s logo on any Problem With Authority shit. I can’t afford it. Slavery’s done, or so I heard. I got a wife and kids to feed. Why should I be hoeing that nigga’s field? L’Ouverture is done hoeing [laughs]. Let me not get too deep into that. I got into too much trouble last time some fool interviewed me…
Q. . . . . . . .
A. He misquoted me, made up shit and took my words out of context — everything a real journalist is not supposed to do. That fool made me look crazy. Fuck D’Arby Reid and Riverbeat Currents magazine. It’s another Cointelpro, they’re trying to discredit me and shut down something progressive, and the people ain’t gonna let them do it. Tell your man D’Arby that when I see him, I’m gonna punch him in his fucking face. I’m not Brad Pitt or someone like that. I’m from the Southside of Cross River. We don’t sue niggas. We punch them in their fucking faces.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. That interview messed up a lot of shit. Got the Kliq mad at me. My record company mad at me. Problem With Authority mad at me. They not playing my songs on the radio. They not playing my videos. Stores refusing to stock the CD. People want to buy it, but they can’t find it, so sales ain’t where they should be. I just wanted to be out on my own. I wanted to do what Black did. Wanted to show the nigga that I’m a man too. That I ain’t need him. I didn’t expect this shit to be so hard. I’m gonna be all right, but it’s a trying time. A real trying time.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. Well, what people don’t understand is that leading people is hard work. I feel like Huey P. Newton out this bitch. I got people’s careers in my hands. I have more respect for Black now. He still owe me money, but I got more respect for him. [Ed. Note: THE ECLECTIC contacted Black Terror for a response. He said: It hurts me when my brothers try to slander my name, but I still love that dude and all my bills are paid.] When you a leader, you got to think about all kinds of shit outside yourself. Like for instance, my drummer’s kid got diabetes. If I fuck around, he don’t get insulin. I’m like Atlas, man. Call me the Black Atlas. When that cop got killed, it really slowed down a lot of shit for me.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. No, I never think that. The music needed — fuck that — needs to be made. So I can’t wonder what if, what if. My songs never ruined no one’s life. The dude that killed that cop ruined someone’s life. I’m a musician, not a hypnotist. I couldn’t make someone kill a cop if I wanted to. And let’s not forget to ask what the cop was doing. No one asks that. Look, man, that nigga Bigger Thomas decapitated a woman. I blame Richard Wright for every decapitation since Native Son been published. Don’t blame them A-rab niggas in Afghanistan, blame Richard Wright.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. How am I being flip? Look, ask me something else, let’s switch gears.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. I’m glad you asked that, ’cause don’t nobody ever ask me about that no more. The album’s called The Haitian Revolution, not Problem with Authority as the media’s been reporting. Problem With Authority is the band’s name. Fuck Meratti Entertainment Group, by the way. They stopped supporting my shit as soon as the police complained. But anyway, it’s a concept album about an immigrant, my character, Young L’Ouvertureman, who comes to America and gets picked on by his own folks, by the system, by everyone until he starts bucking back. It’s some real deep shit. Designed to make my people stand up, fight back. Real soulful, real stirring. My middle name’s Unabomber, tell ya mama, like I say on the record. The key thing about it is that it’s a story, a very universal and human story. Plus it got some funky music — I got to give it up to the band — and some of the most tripiotic lyrics since Phoenix Starr left the earth.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. Bad reviews don’t bother me. Like I said, it’s another Cointelpro. They scared of a nigga like me rising up and becoming the black messiah. From now on, call me the Black Messiah [laughs]. But all this bullshit goes with the territory. It’s cool. I know I got a great album. If you don’t like it, then you brainwashed. I’m light years ahead, man. You might not be able to figure it out for ten, twenty years.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. Look, I make music for my people, point blank. People with feet on their backs. The children of Reaganomics still choked by evil economics, to quote a great man — myself. But truly, I don’t give a fuck who else listens to it as long as their money is green. If crackers want to pay me to talk black liberation to them, man, it’s all good.
Q. . . . . . . .
A. I want freedom, justice, and equality for my people — the same shit everyone else wants.
It was a Wednesday evening when I walked into Hair It Is and froze in the doorway as the eyes of the women in the shop fell upon me. They waited for me to speak and I tried, but nothing came out. A woman walked over and grabbed me by the hand.
You must be Buckwheat, she said. Your wife told us you were coming. We’re not going to bite. Come on.
What the heck happened to your hairline? a hairdresser with short trimmed hair like a boy’s called out, and a chorus of giggles followed her mockery.
Don’t worry about her, the woman holding my hand said as she walked me over to a seat. You should have seen what her head looked like the first time she did it herself.
I tried to respond, telling her I didn’t do it myself, but still I couldn’t speak. She introduced herself as Shane. She had short elf-lock curls. They shone a lustrous white, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. She led me to a spinning chair, almost like the ones in Sonny’s II, but different, and immediately she set about washing my hair. Shane massaged my head, and her fingers were soft and smooth. A shiver passed over my scalp.
You want your nails done too? Of course you do, your wife said the works. She already paid for it, you know. You got a nice wife, Buckwheat. Just sit back and relax.
I felt a warm hand holding my left index finger and a file dragging across the nail. Someone removed my shoes and socks and began scrubbing away the dry, dead skin at my right heel, and before long the nails of my feet too were filed and treated with clear polish. I nodded in and out of sleep in their embrace. Finally I awoke to Shane gently shoving me. She held a mirror before my face. I was newly dreadlocked. Not a stray hair out of place, my locks swept back into neat rows. They had shaved my face so that it was as soft and smooth as a lady’s thigh. The nails of my hands and feet shone. I was as pretty as a woman.
The beauticians applauded me on my way out, and this only angered me, though I didn’t show it. Truthfully, I was enraged. Sitting in my car across the street from the salon, I slammed my fist into the steering wheel, dreaming all the while that it was L’Ouverture’s face.