[Lyric] Sure Shot Singles: Jeru The Damaja – Can’t Stop The Prophet (The Source (Magazine))

“Can’t Stop The Prophet”
PayDay
Production: Premier, Pete Rock

For all of the unfair criticism Jeru caught over “Bitchez,” the fact that he’s a hip-hop philosopher with long term visions on how to master and improve the game was never lost on anyone who got past Premier’s beats on The Sun Rises in the East. If the original version of “Prophet” earned Jeru mad respect from hip-hop intellectuals, then the Pete Rock remix should silence detractors and bring glee to the primitive.

     Peep the production credits. Look at them again. Yes, both Premier and Pete Rock—arguably the flyest beat ministers in the hip-hop cathedral—worked on “Can’t Stop The Prophet.” After Doug E. Fresh’s “The Show” provides an intro, Pete chops up the bassline, and allows hollow vibes to echo up and down the track.

     Premier’s original version— horns, twinkling piano and seductive beats—is included; and it still evokes images of sinister hoodies marching down agitated city streets. The arresting track is a perfect backdrop for Jeru’s clever comic-book-styled metaphor. In Downtown Brooklyn, he tells us, a battle wages—between Ignorance and the Prophet. Using his razorsharp lyrical knives to get through Ignorance henchmen Animosity and Envy, the Prophet is forced to kill Ignorance’s girl, Jealousy. Jeru’s use of an extended metophor to prove a point— that intellectual strength could triumph over the root causes of plagues cuffing our community’s growth— represents the future of hip-hop.