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Dubcnn Exclusive – Chuck D
Intellectual Vietnam (Part One)
By: Jonathan Hay
www.myspace.com/jonathanhay ..........................................................................................

Dubcnn: We got Chuck D here. Wow, what an honor and a privilege it is to be talking to you, Chuck.

It is me that is honored, thank you.   


Dubcnn: With so many things to talk about, we will start with a vague question: what do you think of hip-hop today? 

I think all artists are trying to carve their niche, but I think the infrastructure has been sloppy. A lot of urban radio has failed to expose the art form. I think the DJs who have gotten their jobs with the radio stations -- whether they are making their mixtapes off to the side, or doing their radio show in the middle of the day, or on the weekend -- the DJs have to seriously work harder on making it fantastic!

The NBA is fantastic because all the parts add up and you are a fan of it forever. The broadcasters and sportscasters are very important because they give you the play by play and the analysis…and that is what you guys are doing too. We need more of that, and more of that brought to the forefront. You guys [Dubcnn] are letting people know what this is anyway. 


Dubcnn: I want to ask you about a song from Fear of A Black Planet. 

You can ask questions all damn night, as right now I’m driving from Boston to New York (laughs). I’ve already talked to my wife, so we can talk until you’ve had enough, or we lose a signal. (laughs) 


Dubcnn: This question is specifically in reference to a song on Fear of A Black Planet called “Burn Hollywood Burn” with you, Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane. When you go back to that song and the whole concept behind it and compare it to where Ice Cube is now, a Hollywood actor starring in movies of all genres, even family movies, how does that make you feel?

Well, number one, without struggle there is no progress. Cube had all these ideas beyond just making records. When I actually first sat down with Cube, it wasn’t about going to the studio. The first place myself and Cube went to was a CVS or Ralphs [Grocery Store] out on the West Coast and the first thing he wanted to get was a notebook -- not for rhymes, but so he could get all [our] conceptual ideas down and he wanted to talk about the philosophy of the record before we went it to actually do the record. With that in mind, Cube actually took the seed of that and turned it into a forest. Of course, you could tell Cube’s ideas went well beyond the page. It was so visual. It went well beyond a video, so really movies were the next best thing. Moreover, in a prophetic move, Ice Cube saying “Burn Hollywood Burn”…he burned it down and he burned down the whole idea of what Hollywood used to be.  


Dubcnn: Let’s go back before "Fear of A Black Planet", "It Takes A Nation [of Millions to Hold Us Back]" and "Yo! Bum Rush The Show" the Show and really get to the genesis of Public Enemy. Let’s talk about the logo, which is such a monument in hip-hop. How did the PE logo come about?

I graduated from college 25 years ago and I was immersed in the art department at Adelphi University, before people started doing graphics on computers, when we had to do it by hand. I was kind of like Dean’s List and the best of my graduating class; really, I was one of the best that ever came through as far as a black design student. When I got involved with Hank Shocklee, Spectrum, WBAU and all of that, I wanted to be able to present graphics that were equivalent to what the rock guys were doing in Long Island and also what the Rock groups were doing at the professional level like Iron Maiden and The Rolling Stones with their tongue [design].

I noticed every band had a logo, so we had groups that had incredible names and I was the one who was doing logos for them. But they didn’t have people yet, so our next thing was to recruit within the framework of the group. The PE logo actually belonged to another fictional group called Funky Frank and The Street Force and what I did was take an old Right On Magazine that had E Love who was hanging out with LL Cool J and I [used] an X-Acto knife [and cut] them out of the magazine, blacked it in with a marker, made it silhouette, took it to a copier, put a scope over it and put “Look out for the Homeboys on Target – Funky Frank and The Street Force”.

We never found people to fill up Funky Frank, so we came up with Public Enemy from the theme that Hank came up with from the demo Public Enemy #1. At that point, it was a no-brainer and just went hand to hand. The logo was to my left, the stenciled letters to Public Enemy was to my right, so I put it together, and there it was. So when I had the logo and letters in stencil, it was like a match made in heaven. 


Dubcnn: So do you remember which one you had blacked in for the PE logo, was it E Love or LL Cool J?

It was E Love…that’s the PE logo.


Dubcnn: Wow! That’s amazing. First of all, we find it so fascinating to even get to talk to you. Can you talk about the process of how you got all the guys together and basically changed the global concept of music? In addition, did you have any idea that you would cause such an effect on the world? 

Well everything starts from an idea. All these ideas were around on paper and in notebooks. It was a matter of “can we fulfill it?” We were facilitators and we were an infrastructure. I came from a comic book background. [We] wanted to create something that had a bunch of characters and we had the ability to identify the characters working around us to develop their particular role and develop their character by bringing their characteristic out front. It was a slow process, but later on, I’d say six or seven years later, Wu Tang was the epitome of taking emcees and branching them out for them to be damn near the superheroes of the hood [laughs].

So to answer your question, did we have an idea -- yeah, because we had the idea. But for people to take your ideas and make your dreams a reality, that is the thing that you really can’t predict. However, you can predict the idea and you can kind of predict the outcome, you just can’t predict the journey. 


Dubcnn: So you got the guys together and you developed the concept for each role and each man started to take his role; the Flavor Flav, Professor Griff, S1W’s, Terminator X and Chuck D. Now, I’m assuming you were the driving force for that creative concept, so how do you make everyone buy into the concept, and then maintain and cultivate their own role within that concept, without egos becoming too much a part of it? 

Now I’m giving you the 21 year story of Public Enemy, which in hindsight, if you look in retrospect...we've already been there and done that, however, I'm not saying we are a parody of ourselves. What I'm saying is, the wheel has already been set a long time ago. But our initial first five-year stage, Hank and I always looked at it from a big sports fanatic perspective.

Back then, you didn’t find a lot of people in music who were big fans of sports. I looked at Public Enemy like a team with both offense and defense. The offense team was actually the record making group, The Bomb Squad in the studio, different line up with Hank Shocklee the quarterback, Keith Shocklee, Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, Bill Stephney and I. Flavor, Terminator – that was one part. The next squad was going out on the road, which was an entirely different squad. Myself, Flav, Terminator X, Professor Griff, The S1Ws – those were jobs that were distinctly different. The Bomb Squad who would make those sonic records, and then the other squad, the performing crew would go out and perform them.

I was a player on both squads. I had to play the offense and defense (laughs). So when these roles came out, we had to go beyond the records and make sure the performing team was better than the recording. A lot of people talk about [Public Enemy’s live show], but many have never seen one. If they had ever seen a Public Enemy [show] and I would dare to say that in [the groups] prime, or even just a little while back at Coachella, everybody knows their [individual] function and we are not really in each other’s way…everybody is doing their particular thing. It’s almost like when you go to a Football formation and everybody is in motion and doing their thing.

It’s always been easy to me. Even when people had their own department all blown up and swollen up with ego, it didn’t matter because it didn’t interfere with you. So ego is pretty good as long as it’s kept in its department right? (laughs)


Dubcnn: Right…well put, Chuck. 

In essence, Public Enemy, with all those other parts that didn’t have a definition, was actually designed around from when we took stage. So I was doing the majority of the lyrics, but there was no definition for a Flavor Flav. Before there was the term “hype man”, they didn’t know what to say it was. 


Dubcnn: That’s the thing about Public Enemy, the live show was such an incredible experience. You don’t really get something like that anymore with hip-hop. As a rap fan, when you go to a show, most of the time, it’s so disappointing. It’s almost like watching a Karaoke show or something…

It’s doesn’t have to be…the reason it is that way is because the 90’s corporate situation scrapped away the fundamentals and removed the DNA that does work. This is all performance art. You got to bust your record in the ass! You can’t just go up on stage and say, “oh this is my record,” you got to get on stage and embarrass that record. You better embarrass your video. If you have an incredible record or an incredible video that means you got to work three times as hard, that you are the act above the recording. Once the recording is above the act, you just canceled out all the reasons for people to see you and support you. 


Dubcnn: Switching gears, Chuck, both of us [Jonathan Hay and DJ Atlas Jenkins] are in our mid-thirties from Louisville, Kentucky and we remember going to the recording studio back in the day and nobody had home recording studios. There was one studio downtown that we and everyone else went to. With that said, do you think that people having such easy access to studio equipment -- with just one click of a mouse, and they can set up a whole studio in their bedroom -- has hurt the state of recorded music?

Oh yeah, man, I remember Louisville. We are coming back to Louisville Gardens (laughs). Back then, it seemed there wasn’t much of a market in Louisville radio to expose a Public Enemy, but I remember very clearly some great times in Louisville. It’s a great city and it’s like Cincinnati, right in the middle of the North, South, East and West. Anyway, back to the question, back in the day, when you went into a recording studio that was big news. Now people have a studio on the left side of their bed. Recording now is no big deal. Back then, recording was an unbelievable and granted privilege.  


Dubcnn: For us, MTV Raps! was such a huge and influential medium for us because I don’t know how we would have been exposed to hip-hop in any other way. I think we only had one urban station in Louisville at the time, and it was on AM, so when we heard you guys -- or Run-DMC -- it was almost like hearing music from another planet or something. Here you were from New York, the Mecca of hip-hop, and you were starting to filter out to other parts of the country like Kentucky, who were listening to every lyric, savoring every beat and word… how it’s grown is just beautiful. 

You had to have a different set of Public Relations back then to understand Run DMC, The Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, who I think is just phenomenal. LL Cool J is in his 25th year, people! You cannot have 25 years of doing the rap thing and just be looked down upon, as if it does not mean anything.

[Referring to Jonathan Hay and DJ Atlas Jenkins] Anyway, I talked to Dr Dre from Yo MTV Raps who would love to do an interview with you guys. There are very few people like yourselves who can actually break down music and give great interviews like you all do and that’s what people need. You guys are very important to hip-hop.


Dubcnn: Speaking of Louisville, Kentucky, I remember being at a Public Show back in the day, way back in the day. I was just a young teenager and I don’t know how I convinced my parents to let me go to a rap show (laughs), but Digital Underground was one of your many opening acts and I think 2Pac was one of the dancers during this show if I’m not mistaken?

Yeah, 1990. It was around Christmas time I think. He was a back-up dancer on tour; there were many dancers back then. You know, before we even had The Roots, Tommy Boy actually had conceptually thought of the hip-hop band. One band from the East was called Stetosonic, the other band from the West was called Digital Underground. I felt very strongly about them, so we put Digital Underground on their first national tour. 2Pac was a roadie and also a backup dancer, then he ended up getting on the mic. Shock [G] was very, very influential about getting 2Pac into the hip-hop world. 2Pac was a rookie; he was carrying their bags and everything. Also, Queen Latifah was on that tour. We were also introduced to another rookie, too. I remember hearing, “Chuck, I want you to meet one of our young guys we are trying to bring out, his name is Treacherous.”


Dubcnn: Treacherous?

Treacherous, better known as Treach from Naughty By Nature. So Treach was a roadie for Queen Latifah and 2Pac was a roadie for Digital Underground for that tour. That infrastructure was very important. It was like you had to basically earn your right for passage. Pac came in as a rookie and had to earn his chops. Treach came in and did the same thing, he earned his chops. And by the next year in ‘91, it was all about Naughty by Nature. In ‘92 and ‘93 after Pac’s first record, he became a forcible artist of his own. 


Dubcnn: How did you feel about the amazing reception from those tours that transcended the States, and went global? Were you ever surprised by the success of Public Enemy?  

The Beastie Boys had already set that precedent, so therefore, I had expectations that we should be able to accomplish a lot of those fanatical goals. I wouldn’t say I was surprised by the results, as our whole thing was setting a plan, then going, and executing it. If anything, I was surprised that it happened so fast because we didn’t have goals to be the number one rap group. Our whole thing was to play the middle, build the middle, and support the infrastructure of rap and hip-hop.

The thing about Public Enemy, and a lot of people will tell you today, is that Public Enemy held the cohesiveness of all those tours together, and we’ve been on 65 tours in 21 years together. In the beginning, we had a massive meeting; everybody introduced themselves and laid down some rules that were basic -- that we were all in this together and we were here to protect each other. I think that was the leadership that we provided. If you have that power and you are put in that position, then you have to lead, and to lead, you have to show by example. The problem in hip-hop now is there is lack of leadership, which is neglectful to the art form. I wouldn’t blame the rapper, because they don’t know better if they haven’t seen the leadership… 


Dubcnn: Right after that time, there was a definite drop and decline in conscious hip-hop. I wouldn’t say it stopped, but it felt like there was a confiscation for consciousness in hip-hop --  

I’m sorry to cut you off, but I think a lot of people are too lazy. I remember when Disco first came out and Gamble and Huff with the O’Jays, who were such a phenomenal thing and Gamble and Huff were such phenomenal writers and the most incredible arrangers. They made the first disco record. The disco records were so detailed, and it wasn’t disco, but soulful at a different timing -- soulful at a different beat-per-minute, with a different drum pattern. People called it disco because it made them dance. Okay, well now people can put a term on it and call it disco. By the end of the seventies, everybody took this same synonymous beat and everybody started getting on the same beat. The Rolling Stones did “Miss You” and really everybody just toyed with the music so much, that anybody and everybody could make disco and it became corny.

Anybody can make a recording that is similar [to what is current]. Who can’t get it down now? You have so many different ways to practice and create it, that you can get the recording to be almost perfect. Who the hell wants perfect records? The bottom line is, can you make that record come to life, by coming to my town, performing it live and make me say, “this is the greatest thing ever?” Once you take the performance out of the art and it doesn’t become performance art, then you really got a problem because then, you don’t separate the person sitting in the stands with the person on stage.    


(To be Continued…) 

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