Chuck D: By the Time I Got to Arizona art piece

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Twenty years later and Chuck D has delivered another missive to the Arizona government. In a play off the 1991 protest anthem, By the Time I Get to Arizona – which decried the state’s refusal at the time to recognize a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday – the Public Enemy frontman has collaborated with Los Angeles’ SceneFour on a visual art piece, By the Time I Got to Arizona.

The limited-edition 60-by-33-inch piece – only 300 canvasses were produced, each numbered and signed by Chuck D – takes on Arizona’s strict SB 1070 immigration law, which has fueled outrage over racial profiling. The piece costs $500 (with four installment plans available).

Our friend Jeff Weiss talked to Chuck D. about the piece and politics for the Pop & Hiss blog at L.A. Times.

Says Chuck D: “Of course, it doesn’t mean that all the people in Arizona are like that, it’s just that people in governmental situations may have this manifest destiny with what they consider their territory. They’re the types who say that they’ve had family here for 500 years and want to spend billions of dollars on a wall. But it’s not just pointed at them, it’s pointed at those in Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona who are against Brown people, Mexicans and Latinos.”

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