Chuck D has been fighting the power since day one.
As frontman and co-founder of Public Enemy, the legendary emcee blazed a trail in hip-hop, telling it the way he sees it, and kicking ambiguity to the curb.
Where artists so often led the charge against injustice, today’s creative community, he warns, is largely defanged.
“They’re all scared, man,” the hip-hop legend tells Rolling Stone AU over a Zoom from his studio.
“Musicians, artists, entertainers have now been governed by fear, fear of being canceled,” he continues. “In my case, I’m like, I don’t know who’s orchestrated this all. All I know is it’s madness.”
The “dirge and the noise” on social platforms “is so loud that your best human intellectual response is to step back away and see it all kind of play out. I can’t make any statement on the lunacy I’ve seen the past six months.”
The veteran rapper typically doesn’t have trouble finding the words, or letting them fly. Only, the platform changes.
The New York native’s latest project is a book of illustrations, a graphic novel that gives him a new type of expressive freedom. “I’ve always considered myself a culturalist and a futurist, but not in a religious type of way. I’ve always been able to see the tree leaning in the area that I work in.” Chuck reveals to RS some of the politically-charged drawings in his book, which is due out late 2025. But only “if it’s legal. If I’m allowed to release it,” he notes, a nod to the current political climate.
Chuck, 63, has a wide-angle lens on society, and the strange game of “Politoxics” — the “poli-toxidity that’s going on right now” in his homeland and elsewhere.
The rapper also muses on the importance of producing tangible, physical art in this virtual world. The AI genie, he warns, won’t go back in the bottle. “The speed of AI and the accuracy and in the core of deep fake humanity. I’m telling you, if you don’t steer it by the horns you’ll get gored by it. I tell people all the time in making art, making music, AI is not gonna go backwards, it’s gonna strive for perfection. The important human quality that we must do is to embrace our signature, which is our mistakes, but a robot is not gonna relish in mistakes.”
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Don’t hold your breath for mistakes when Chuck and Flavor Flav reunite for a Public Enemy run through Australia this October — their “On The Grid 35th Anniversary Tour,” with support from A.B. Original.
Produced by TEG MJR, the six-date national tour kicks off Oct. 2 at Perth’s Red Hill Auditorium, visits Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and wraps Oct. 12 at Brisbane’s Eaton’s Hill Outdoor.
Will Public Enemy roadtest new material? Don’t bet against it.
When asked if Public Enemy would work on a new album, the followup to 2020’s “What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?,” Chuck says, “Yes. Public Enemy is going through like its fourth phase. Myself and Flav will come to an understanding that any Public Enemy album will come with a natural process, Flav doing songs and I’m doing songs and we figure out how we make it work.”
Public Enemy’s ‘On The Grid 35th Anniversary‘ Australia 2024 Tour:
Oct. 2 — Perth, Red Hill Auditorium
Oct. 4 — Adelaide, AEC Theatre
Oct. 5 — Melbourne, John Cain Arena
Oct. 9 — Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
Oct. 11 — Newcastle, Newcastle Entertainment Centre
Oct. 12 — Brisbane, Eatons Hill Outdoor
Featuring A.B. Original as support
