The Final Call

'Chicago Morning Takeover' Interview - The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

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Left to right: Kyle Santillan, Kendra G, Min. Farrakhan and Leon Rogers. Photo: Haroon Rajaee

Kyle Santillian (Kyle): Good morning to you, Chicago. We are the Chicago Morning Takeover with me, Kendra G.  and Leon Rogers. We’re honored this morning. We are joined and have the pleasure of having a very special guest in the studio, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, is here. Good morning, sir. How are you?

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (HMLF): I’m fine. Thank you. Thank you so much for the honor of being at WGCI and to be a guest on your show with these three wonderful personalities that will be talking together. … And I want to say to all of the listening audience, Peace Be Unto You on my birth anniversary.

Kendra G.: And you are 85 years old today? … You look amazing. Like what is your secret? Because your skin looks better than mine, I need to know, what are you doing?

HMLF: It’s a little book by Elijah Muhammad called “How to Eat to Live.” I practice it but eating is one part of it; thinking is another.  So if you think good thoughts and do good deeds and eat good food, then you look ever young.

Leon Rogers (Leon): Well, I’m glad you said that because a lot of brothers out here is eating pizza puffs and gaining all that weight. I’m glad you’re educating us.

Kyle: Now, Minister, you’re here today. You’re making a major announcement to the world, and we thank you for making that announcement here on WGCI; but you have put together a project, a music project with some of our most favorite Hip Hop artists in the game. And the name of this project is called “Let’s Change the World.” Can you speak to us just about the motivation behind the project? What caused you to put this together and everything you have going on with it?

HMLF:  Maybe it’s not known that the Minister, before he became a minister, was a musician. I grew up playing the violin, singing ballads, calypso and dancing and was exceedingly popular in the city of Boston where I grew up. When I met Brother Malcolm and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I gave up my music to pursue a word that would not only make people joyous but enlighten our people. 

So maybe in my 58th year on the planet, I went back by Elijah Muhammad’s suggestion to my music. And I picked up my violin and after not playing or practicing. I played every now and then but never publically for 42 years. And then I got a teacher and performed with the Chicago Symphony, Michael Morgan, who was the associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony and with members of the Chicago Sinfonetta, and then the music began. And my teacher, a beautiful Black brother at the time called Charles Veal, who was a very, very great artist, he said, “Farrakhan, let’s do an album.” That started in 2004. So I’ve been working on this for 14 years.

Kyle: I understand you brought a song, a particular song, called “Change the World” with you today?

HMLF: I talked to Snoop Dogg. I said, Snoop, I want you to make a song because young people all over the world are angry and dissatisfied. And instead of them picking up guns and fighting and killing each other or killing for the leaders of their governments, let’s try to make the youth agents of change. So he went away and came back with a song called “Let’s Change the World.” And it was so great, it’s now the theme of the whole album, “Let’s Change the World.”

Let’s Change The World musical box set.

MLF: No. I think the gospel album is something that he had in his heart to do.

Kyle: If you want to get the song, the project, lctwmusic.com. Make sure you go to the website.

Leon: Beautiful box set, man. It’s 7 CDs, one DVD and a book. Go check that out. That’s stuff you put in the time capsule.

Kendra G.: I know we’re going to get some more music but who else is on this project besides Snoop?

HMLF: Thank you for asking. But some of the greatest musicians and artists in the world are on this with me. Starting of course, we have five Grammy Award artists, starting with Stevie Wonder, 22 Grammys; Denise Williams with about five or six. We have Grammy Award winning engineers and we have Kirk Whalum, Chaka Khan and there’s Teena Marie before she passed. Stephanie Mills. People would be blown away to know that on this album is Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, White. There are Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Agnostics, all on this one album. So it’s the whole world coming together because it’s going to take all of us to change the world.

Min. Farrakhan performing.

Kyle:  I like that. We’re talking about all the different people on this album, but on this one song, “I’ll Fight Ya,” you have three artists on this one song Rick Ross, Snoop and Chicago’s own Common.

HMLF: You know it started with Luqman Haqq formerly known as music producer and writer Kenny Gamble. He said, we’ve done all these genres. You have to do some rap. Every time you speak, you tell the people watch the weather. Well, let’s do something about that. So he wrote a song but this is the remix on that song at another time we’ll play the one that kicked it all off that was written by Kenny Gamble. But this is “Let’s Change the World,” our way of fighting is not the way God fights. God uses the forces of nature. We have to use unity, intelligence to rid ourselves of ignorance because ignorance is the worst enemy of our people. So that’s where Snoop and Common come in and rap. And the background is by a young artist here in Chicago called C-Sick.

Leon: Can I say something to you, honestly brother? You know how I really got into you and listening to your message? Big Daddy Kane had a song called, “Young, Gifted and Black.” I’ll never forget. It was ’87-’88.  And at the beginning I hear a powerful voice that says, “Out of the mercy of Allah, and his law written in our nature, we bring forth an individual. …” And when I heard that I’m like, damn, who is that? And then I started reading and getting Saviours’ Day tapes and that’s how I got turned on to Minister Farrakhan. So you’re no stranger to Hip Hop, rap. So it was shocking to me that you played the violin but when it comes to Hip Hop. ... You’ve never been a stranger to Hip Hop. That’s how I got introduced to you, brother.

HMLF: While we were in the studio, Chick Corea, Greg Phillinganes, who was the musical director of Michael Jackson. This part of the album is called Chaka and Farra-Khan do Gershwin. She’s doing “Summertime” and I’m playing on the violin. But while we were in the studio, Teena Marie came in. And she said, “Farrakhan, you got to have this song on the album.” I said, “But Teena, we are almost finished.” She said, “I got to be on the album.” She gave me the song. The song is called “Message to a Blackman.” You know I had to put that song on there.

Kendra G.: I think that song title is perfect for the question I have for you because it was called “Message to the Blackman.” Kanye West, are you familiar with some of the things he said lately? I found it hurtful. But I would love to hear your translation because you might have a different perspective. But he said that, you know, slavery was a choice. Being a slave for 400 years, I don’t want to misquote him but that was as a “choice.” “We should have rebelled.” I was hurt by those comments. But I would like to hear your perspective.

Kanye West

HMLF:  First of all, Kanye’s my brother and I love him dearly. He’s a very, very brilliant man who’s struggling to find his way. When he was on the radio, on Charlamagne Tha God’s interview, that was a great interview. Because every time Charlamagne said you had a breakdown, Kanye would say, I would rather call it a breakthrough. And he’s wrestling with 400 years, and he misspoke, because we didn’t choose slavery. Nobody that loves freedom would choose slavery but it was a choice, but it wasn’t our choice. It was God’s choice and when you understand scripture, the people of God, the people of Abraham, were prophesied to go into bondage in a strange land, among a strange people for 400 years. We have served that sentence but that sentence was God’s way of, first of all, purifying us for the next phase of the world’s existence. Because he said, “I’m going to choose a people that were no people at all. I’m going to take the bottom rail, bring it to the top. You will no longer be the tail but you shall be the head.” So we didn’t choose this but God chose it for us.

But here’s what I think Kanye was saying: We are slaves again. How are you a slave now? You have a chain around your brain and you’re allowing your education, or your miseducation, to make you think you’re better than your little brother who doesn’t have it. With education comes an arrogance that makes you think you know what you don’t know. Because with all the education we’ve received, we have never used it to put our people’s feet on a strong, economic foundation.

So he’s trying to break chains: Chains of sex. I’m hoping soon to talk to some of my brothers who have let the pleasure of sex and the pain of  Black life, drive them to insanity … . So he’s breaking through those kinds of chains. He wants to break those chains that bind him to this or that. He wants to be a free thinker. He hasn’t gotten there yet but he misspoke. My man T.I. and Kanye have been at it beautifully, talking, critiquing. Kanye’s a beautiful man. I’m hoping that you didn’t get so bent out of shape when you know your brother, in the psychiatric terms, had a breakdown. And if you have a breakdown, you don’t come back to where you were instantaneously. It’s a process. And in that process he came on with Charlamagne Tha God. Then he went on TMZ and he talked about “this is a choice.” Yes. Choosing drugs over sanity, that’s a choice of slavery. Choosing ignorance over wisdom, that’s a choice we’re making. So we’re chained in another kind of way that now that truth would set you free. If you reject that which will set you free, you’ve made a choice to be a slave.

Kendra G.: Where is the offering at? I feel like I need to give you something. That was a word this morning.

Kyle: That was a word. Can I piggyback off that one second and ask you a follow-up question? In the current climate, especially with the current administration, you feel like the racism has been more outright so to speak. I was going back and forth arguing with somebody on Twitter just the other day who feels like right now this current administration has done more for Black people than we realize, has done more for Black people than the previous administration. And some people would argue that it’s better now that the racism is more in our face rather than hidden.  What’s your perspective on that?

President Donald Trump

HMLF: Well, that wasn’t the intent of this administration to do a lot of good for us but the nature of this administration is good for us because now, you know, sometimes you think you’re where you’re not. Trump is letting you know where you really stand. And because of Trump’s way, he is an anomaly. There’s never been a president quite like Mr. Trump. But there’s something that he’s doing. I’m going to come out in a few weeks and talk about it. But Trump is destroying every enemy that was an enemy of our rise. 

Who is the enemy of our rise? Is it the Department of Justice where we get none?  Is it Congress where you make a law that favors us and then you turn around and destroy it? Is it the media that has destroyed every Black leader that stood up for us calling us out of our name? Martin Luther King suffered it. Malcolm X suffered it. W.E.B. DuBois suffered it. Marcus Garvey suffered it. So he’s attacking the media, calling it “fake news.” I don’t think everything is fake. I know very well that we have been the victims of some fake news.

Now, the FBI, go at it, baby. They’ve been beating the hell out of us ever since J. Edgar Hoover and the Counterintelligence Program of the U.S. government. So go ahead, Mr. Trump. But here’s the problem. Mr. Trump, you have to be careful because I did say on a sister station that if we voted for Trump, he’s going to take America to hell on a rocket ship. And America, he thinks, is gaining by the bullying, by the threats. No, Mr. Trump, America is losing. And if America triggers the Third World War, which the Bible calls Armageddon, the America that we know, we shall never, ever know it again. We really need to stop and check because you’re getting the country into deep trouble.

Leon: Where do we come in as Black men and women? I know we say it’s systemic, and a lot of stuff that we go through is systemic and it’s embedded in our culture and roots that we don’t know our culture actually to an extent. Where do we come in and make change? What culpability do we wear as African Americans and how do we ignite change?

HMLF: There’s a scripture in the Bible that says, “If my people which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I change their condition ... and heal the land.” God is putting a condition on us. We are holding up our own progress. We love prayer but what we praying for? We love turning our face to God but what kind of face are we showing God? Loving him with our lips but in our lives we are rejecting him. So, if we turn and humble ourselves and pray and seek the face of God and then He answers. When God answers and we submit to his will, then the power comes into us to change the world.

You know people marvel at Farrakhan because I’m bold and courageous in speaking truth to power.  It’s not because I’m somebody that you are not. That I have a gift that you don’t have but what I do have, the scripture says, “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.” The world can’t trouble Farrakhan.  That’s why I look young on my 85th birthday. I try to trouble the world but the world can’t trouble me. You have more power than you realize if we wake up and hold each other’s hand and walk together in unity. Stop the beefing, stop the enmity, the envy, the jealousy and the foolishness that we’re involved in and come together as a family and we can change the country and change the world.

Kendra G.: I went to Saviours’ Day this past year and it was amazing. You were talking about let’s change the world. You were saying there’s all types of people. You even mentioned there were Jews out there and I think those people think that you don’t like Jews. I think there’s a misconception out there about you with that. Can you explain that before you go?

HMLF: Truth is the best weapon that we could possess and the courage to speak it. The reason the world is in the condition that the world is in is because there’s a Satanic force that has deceived, as the scripture says, the whole world. Billy Graham, before he passed, I mentioned Billy in the Oval Office with President Nixon. And Billy said, “they’re two kinds of Jews.” And, of course, that they don’t want to talk about. There are righteous Jews. There’s a Jew that has helped to advance civilization. Civilization would not be as it was today if it were not for the Jewish community.

But when you’ve got revelation that came to you from God through all these prophets, then that’s your test because if you use God’s truth that makes you wiser than others, and use it to promote evil when you should be promoting good, then you’re no longer a Jew. That’s why the scripture says, “I will make those who say they are Jews,” (Revelation 2:9) “they are not, I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan.” 

You have wonderful Jews and you have those that have the power to corrupt the world with their knowledge, their power, their influence and that’s the wicked one that Farrakhan is exposing.

Kendra G.: Thank you for clearing that up.  I think that needed to be cleared up.

HMLF: Thank you for asking so it could be cleared up. …

HMLF (Answering a caller): Jesus said it best, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”  Jesus spoke these words 2,000 years ago. What did he know of the truth that he couldn’t say then? Because he said, “There are many things that I could tell you, but you can’t bear it now. But when he is come, the spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth.” This is the reason, my dear sister, that they want a cloud put over me to veil me with hate and bigotry and anti-Semitism and homophobia and all these kinds of words so that you won’t listen and reason with the truth that’s coming out of my mouth from God’s man, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that will free you.

You need to find your way to the truth. Listen and look for the truth that will set you free from the veil of White Supremacy, from the veil of Black Inferiority, from the veil that covers you and makes you think you were in Africa running around with bones in your nose, running up and down trees chasing monkeys when you are the mother and father of all civilization.

White people are great. This is their world, but where did they get the knowledge.  Who gave it to them? Who were the teachers of White people? The Greek civilization, where did they get it from? They got it from us but if you don’t know that you will always think of yourself in an inferior light because they wrote the textbooks.  I was in school and I had to read about Little Black Sambo when I was a little Black boy in kindergarten. You don’t need that kind of education. George Washington never told a lie. The biggest lie they ever told.

We need truth today. Truth against self and for self because once somebody corrects us, it’s our duty to fall in line with the truth that corrects our behavior. So my dear and beloved sister, you’re going on a good path but I’m going to tell you something, the more they talk against me, find me on YouTube.com. Find the truth of the message that I’m giving to the entire world and if you see that and hear that, and believe that, you’re already set free. 

Kendra G.:  I know we’re about to go but I cannot let you leave without me saying how much I love how you speak about the Black woman, and how you are focusing and telling men that if they don’t protect the Black woman, or the woman in general, that they are not a man and I love that. I love that.

HMLF:  Women have to realize and they are realizing their extreme value. Whenever you devalue a woman, you’re destroying civilization. So the #Metoo movement and the movement of women all over our planet is saying that the women have had enough of the misrule of men, because women are not the women of man. Woman is the woman of God. And God has given man a woman so that man can reproduce himself all the way down in the wheel of time.

So no man should disrespect a woman. No man should mistreat a woman. No man should take from a woman what a woman does not want to give. Every man should hold themselves responsible. Those of us that are fathers, we love our daughters. Love the daughters of your brother and do not go in his house to ruin his daughter. We just have to grow up, mature.

These are the kind of words that will help us to see every woman as a product of God and not to call her out of her name by using the B-word, which is a female dog. She’s not a female dog. She’s the second self of God. Try that on.

Kyle: Minister, we know that your time is precious. Once again we thank you for being here. Everybody that’s interested in picking up the music lctwmusic.com is the website. We thank you so much for being here today and being a part of Chicago Morning Takeover and your first time ever on WGCI.

Leon: Go out there and cop that “Let’s Change the World,” box set. It’s gonna be bananas. We got all types of music on that and the Minister is playing the violin.  So go cop that.

Kendra G.:  From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for being on our show.