By the Time I Get to Arizona

Chuck D wrote the song to protest Arizona, where Governor Evan Mecham had canceled Martin Luther King Jr. Day and voters rejected a proposition to bring it back. He liked to devise titles before songs, and this one came from his appreciation of Isaac Hayes's cover of By the Time I Get to Phoenix. Gary G-Wiz produced it, with the main riff from Mandrill's Two Sisters of Mystery and a 45-second bridge from the Jackson 5's Walk On. The rap was first recorded over the beat later used for Shut 'Em Down. In the lyric, Chuck D says neither party is his, neither the jackass nor the elephant.

It came out in January 1992 as the B-side of Shut 'Em Down, but had its own video. Eric Meza, who had worked with N.W.A, directed it: black paramilitaries assassinate Arizona politicians, and Sister Souljah appears. Coretta Scott King condemned it, and MTV took it out of regular rotation. Chuck D said on the day of its MTV premiere that it was a fantasy meant to show white viewers why a holiday honoring a black leader mattered. In 2011 he said he was for peace but could make a visual statement about how he felt.

Live

At live shows the group would hang a Klansman effigy. They played only this song when they opened for U2 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, in 1992, and left early with the support of Bono. It appears in 90 of the 311 logged setlists. The Phoenix New Times put it among the 27 best songs about Metro Phoenix in 2020.