Chuck D of legendary hip-hop group Public Enemy still a soldier in “the war of art”

[Pelican Press 0]

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Chuck D of legendary hip-hop group Public ****** still a soldier in “the war of art”

Chuck D shakes his head. “Nah, I can’t tell you anything right now,” the Public ****** frontman with the thunderous voice, born Carlton Ridenhour, says. “I can’t make it up.”

This was July 16 — three days after the ************** attempt on Donald Trump and five days before Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 US Presidential election.

The hip-hop legend, whose Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group were due to kick off an *********** tour in Perth on October 3 but pulled the WA date along with shows in Adelaide and Newcastle in late August due to “unforeseen scheduling issues”, has never been short of an opinion.

Right now, in his study — white baseball cap on backwards, glasses perched on nose, and an extensive DVD collection in the background — Chuck D is talking effusively yet cautiously about US politics.

The 64-year-old tries to process current events by returning to his first form of expression, scrawling images of a shouting Trump in sketchbooks that he turns into what he calls “naphic grovels”.

One of his recent published graphic novels is Summer Of Hamn: Hollowpointlessness Aiding Mass Nihilism, a typically caustic examination of US **** culture.

“It’s a ******** and a sickness that’s ******* than the pandemic,” Chuck D says. “Sicker than the pandemic.”

Camera IconFlavor Flav and Chuck D formed Public ****** on Long Island, New York in 1985. Credit: Sanjay Suchak

Ever since Public ****** formed in Long Island nearly 40 years ago, the greatest hip-hop band of all time have harnessed militaristic imagery to get their message across.

Inspired by the revolutionary sample-based recordings of Eric B and Rakim, the ***** Squad — the group’s production team — weaponised funk and soul snippets into bombastic sonic terrain over which Chuck D detonated truth ****** while fellow founder and hype man Flavor Flav kept morale sky high with madcap asides (“Yeaaaaah booooy!”) and his trademark clock necklaces.

Public ****** took politicised hip-hop out of New York to the world. Their second and third albums, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, and ***** Of A ****** Planet, both sold well over a million copies in the US alone.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconPublic ****** scored a US platinum album with 1988 classic It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. Credit: Supplied/Supplied by Subject

They tapped into cultural moments on classics Don’t Believe The Hype, ****** The Power, 911 Is A Joke, and By The Time I Get To Arizona, and scored a big hit with their 1991 collaboration with thrash metalheads Anthrax on Bring The Noise.

No wonder metal bands loved Public ******. If rap peers Run DMC were tougher than leather, then P.E. were ******* than platinum.

Chuck D, who famously said “hip-hop is my military”, describes himself as a soldier in the service of the art form.

“I’m in the war of art, not the art of war,” he says in his study. “We have no ******, no bullets, no bloodshed — we’re not into that. Art, culture, music … it gels and bonds human beings together.”

Chuck D is a truth-telling rhyme-********. A musicologist with encyclopedic knowledge who has given literally more than 100,000 acts their first spin via his weekly Rapstation show And You Don’t Stop in the past 15 years.

He has championed Zambian-*********** artist Sampa the Great and Indigenous hip-hop duo A.B. Original. The latter act is due to support Public ****** at their remaining *********** shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

He’s a fan. A sage. A pioneer. A commando in the war of art.

If Chuck D is a soldier, what does that make Flavor Flav?

“He’s the air force,” the rapper chuckles. “He’s flying everywhere, man. I’m on the ground.”

“Keep it real” could be Chuck D’s motto. Flav’s would be “keep it surreal”.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconFlavor Flav at the Olympic Games in Paris barracking for the US women’s water polo team. Credit: Clive Rose/Getty Images

When he’s not starring in TV reality shows, such as The Surreal Life or Flavor Of Love, or opening a fried chicken restaurant, the 65-year-old is rocking one of his clocks at a Taylor Swift concert, or is poolside in Paris as sponsor of the US Olympic women’s water polo team.

“He’s amazing,” Chuck D laughs. “We have separate lives but we’re bonded like a marriage. We’re bonded by Public ******. We’re bonded by a long friendship.”

Flav has struggled with addiction but his former classmate at Adelphi University on Long Island says his sidekick is “doing great” and is “into the area of sobriety”.

The rap legend confirms the story that Def Jam Recordings producer Rick Rubin wanted to sign Chuck D as a solo artist, but he insisted on “assembling” Public ******, including Flav, around his vision.

He says early tours of the *** and Australia were “awakenings” — for audiences.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconChuck D and Flavor Flav on stage during Public ******’s performance at the Perth Festival in 2014. Credit: Toni Wilkinson/Supplied

Growing up in the melting **** of New York, he knew Public ****** would make a huge impact in other countries and cultures.

“We knew about the world,” Chuck D insists.

“As a ****** person growing up in the US, I knew you had to read the news, but also read through the news.”

On those tours, Public ****** would visit local communities.

“That was different from any other rap or hip-hop group,” he says.

“We wanted to go to these areas and find out about the people and the conditions, and how they were fighting their own battles.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconPublic ****** founders Chuck D and Flavor Flav. Credit: Sanjay Suchak

Those overseas jaunts also helped convince Chuck D Public ****** were built to last — the volatile group began with an understanding they would self-destruct after a few years.

“People want to hold us to what we said in 1987 but every year there’s been change,” he says.

“You write half of life and the other half writes itself.”

In the past half-century, Chuck D has seen hip-hop grow from block parties in the Bronx to a “worldwide religion” he feels has been “gutted” by the music industry and technology.

You write half of life and the other half writes itself.

“My job as a world ambassador is, on my watch, to not let industry feel like it owns hip-hop,” he says. “Just being able to say ‘Hey, adhere to what this thing is about, you know, because it’s connected to people. You can’t put your rules on it’.”

Quoting a fellow pioneering rapper, Chuck D says hip-hop “didn’t invent anything but it reinvented everything”.

He laughs, before adding: “Grandmaster Caz coined that and I’m running with it”.

Public ****** has cancelled its performance at Red Hill Auditorium on October 2. Promoter TEG Live will fully refund all purchased tickets.

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