Don't Rhyme For The Sake of Riddlin'

Russell Myrie

• Editorial: Canongate Books
• Año: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781847676115
• Categoría: Media & Performing Arts
• Categoría: Music Biographies

Public Enemy are one of the greatest hip-hop acts of all time. Exploding out of Long Island, New York in the early 1980s, their firebrand lyrical assault, the Bomb Squad's innovative production techniques, and their unmistakeable live performances gave them a formidable reputation. They terrified the establishment, and have continued to blaze a trail over a twenty year period up until the present day. Today, they are more autonomous and as determined as ever, still touring and finding more ingenious ways of distributing their music. Russell Myrie has had unprecedented access to the group, conducting extensive interviews with Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, Professor Griff, the Shocklee brothers, and many others who form part of their legacy. He tells the stories behind the making of seminal albums such as their debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show, the breakthrough It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back, and multi-million selling Fear of a Black Planet. He tackles Professor Griff's alleged anti-semitic remarks which caused massive controversy in the late eighties, the complexities of the group's relationship with the Nation of Islam, their huge crossover appeal with the alternative audience in the early nineties, and the strange circumstances of Flavor Flav's re-emergence as a Reality TV Star since the turn of the millennium.

1

Origins of Public Enemy

Unless you were tuned in at the time, it’s difficult to appreciate the extent to which Public Enemy shook up the world, inspiring love and hate in equal measures. Today, when no taboo has been left unbroken, it’s almost impossible to shock the masses any more. But when PE exploded on to the hip-hop scene they were an extremely frightening prospect. They made the powers that be nervous in ways that even the likes of NWA and Tupac could never have imagined. PE were largely responsible for creating the conditions that led to hip-hop being feared by the establishment in the first place. But they might not have been such a tight unit if it hadn’t been for the hundred square miles that form Long Island.

Like any section of the eternally influential New York City, Long Island has produced its fair share of famous sons and daughters. Among them are the Murphy brothers, Eddie and Charlie; the basketball player Dr J and Mariah Carey. Long Island’s other musical offspring include classic hip-hop pioneers like De La Soul and Rakim. Newer artists include Chrisette Michelle and Nyckz. But would it be too outlandish to claim that PE are the sixth borough’s most important band?

Long Island certainly owes a debt to hip-hop’s version of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, if only for the simple fact that, were it not for them, it would never have become known as ‘Strong Island’ (soon after PE made their presence felt, ‘Strong Island’ by JVC Force hit big on its way to becoming a hip-hop classic) and, as a result, wouldn’t have been able to attain the local pride that previously only existed elsewhere across the rotten apple. New York, like any other city, has its own localised regional rivalries. Such a nickname – similar to Brooklyn’s Crooklyn, Money Earnin’ Mount Vernon or, perhaps most famously, the Boogie Down Bronx – was needed because Long Island was, and (to a degree) still is, perceived as ‘soft and country’ by other New Yorkers. It has a reputation as a quiet suburban place. It’s the place you go to escape the everyday grind and grit of the city. Long Island’s reputation as a ‘nice place’ meant that those parents who had high hopes for their children flocked there. Such a move has always held particular appeal for ambitious young black couples who wanted to escape the trials and tribulations in places like Brooklyn and Queens. Years before Carlton Ridenhour became Chuck D, the incendiary lead rapper of PE, his parents were one such couple.

Long before they considered making Long Island home Mr and Mrs Ridenhour resided in the black cultural and business mecca of Harlem. ‘They lived on 151st, they’re both from the same block and their birthdays are a day apart,’ Chuck says. The harsh realities of supporting a family meant that they had to leave uptown and up sticks to Queens where Mrs Ridenhour’s parents lived. The support from the extended family helped seal the deal. Consequently, Carlton Ridenhour was born in Flushing, Queens, on August 1, 1960. The future sports fan was born right next to Shea Stadium. Coincidentally, Richard Griffin, aka Professor Griff, who would grow to become PE’s Minister of Information as well as one of their most controversial figures and best producers, was born on exactly the same day. But unlike Chuck, his family already lived in Long Island.

‘Queens was affordable for a young black couple. I mean, my parents were young so they moved around… in affordable housing,’ Chuck hastens to add. ‘We moved to about eight or nine places in Queens before we settled in one spot.’ Chuck’s grandparents’ house and the infamous Queensbridge Projects, the biggest housing projects in the entire United States, were just two of these eight or nine spots. But Chuck’s family eventually left Queens altogether. It’s tempting to wonder for a split second what kind of hip-hop Chuck might have made had he grown up in Queensbridge. But he was just nine when his family moved out to Long Island. It was a move that wasn’t popular with the young Chuck. Leaving Queens for the country was a stark and refreshing contrast, even though it was only a short drive across an imaginary line.

‘I remember clearly thinking, “Ohh, we about to move to the country,” and then all of a sudden after a fifteen-minute drive we were in Roosevelt. The only major difference is a border.’ The short journey wasn’t the only thing that surprised nine-year-old Chuck. ‘I was in fourth or fifth grade, so I just thought it was incredible that we were coming to a town with a house that we could call our own. It was an influx of white folks moving out and black folks moving in.’ During the second half of the twentieth century, America watched many formerly predominantly white towns and cities slowly become black. ‘All of the black folks came from all of the other parts of New York City. That migration just happened ’68, ’69, ’70, ’71, ’72. My people moved out ’69.’

In the years immediately following Martin Luther King’s assassination in April 1968 Roosevelt changed from being a mixed town into a virtually all-black town. ‘It was a little tense,’ Keith Shocklee, an integral member of the legendary Bomb Squad production team, remembers. His family had also moved to Long Island after residing in Harlem. ‘It was a small town on the brink of just wildness. I had a lot of white friends growing up. And all of ’em moved out.’

Whether or not this ‘white flight’ affected Hofstra University’s Afro-American studies programme (some refer to it as the Afro-American experience) in any way is debatable. The Afro-American studies programme gave young black kids from all over Long Island (participants were aged roughly between nine and eleven) a chance to learn about black history and knowledge of self. The stuff they would never be taught at school. Their teachers were former Black Panthers, members of the Nation of Islam and, as Chuck puts it, ‘highly conscious community folk’. Those summer programmes meant Long Island would prove to be a great place to develop the consciousness of the children who would grow up to become PE. It also gave them a chance to become familiar with each other at a young age, although this wasn’t necessary for everyone. Griff ’s house was situated right behind Hank and Keith Boxley’s (they were yet to adopt ‘Shocklee’). So they obviously knew each other. Keith also played little league football with William Drayton, aka Flavor Flav, PE’s court jester. ‘I don’t know how he did it,’ Keith says laughing. ‘His body frame was so small.’ The potent combination of his musical and vocal skills mixed with his hectic personal life has made Flav PE’s most famous member, particularly in more recent years.

A combination of grants and donations meant the programme had access to buses, lunches and other necessities. ‘That was a big thing in the mid seventies,’ Keith says. ‘That opened us up.’ As the seventies progressed, the programme moved from Hofstra to nearby Adelphi University. ‘That’s where I happened to meet Eddie Murphy for the first time,’ Chuck recalls. ‘This was when he first moved to Long Island.’ The Murphy family came from Brooklyn.

Long Island is made up of more than a few small towns, and it’s worth noting that many of the main players that would go on to form PE came together in Freeport or Roosevelt. It goes without saying that none of them lived in the Hamptons. Roosevelt and Freeport, according to Freeport’s Harry Allen, a journalist, photographer and broadcaster who has been a member of PE’s sprawling extended crew since their college days are ‘kind of like sister small towns, especially the part that I lived in, the black part, the north part’.

A few members hail from further afield. Johnny Juice comes from The Bronx, the borough that mothered this rap shit, but left the projects to move to a house in Uniondale, Long Island, when he was thirteen. Similarly to Chuck, he was initially sceptical about Strong Isle. ‘When you live in The Bronx, you live in the projects and there’s a lot of people around,’ he says. ‘Then you move to the suburbs and nobody’s on the street. I was looking around like, “Where’s everybody at?”’

James Bomb, an integral member of the S1Ws, was raised in rural Pahokee, Florida, a small town of around 6500 people. As well as being one of the most important reminders that PE are very different to your average rap group, the S1Ws (S1W being short for Security of the First World) form a human rebuttal to the insulting term ‘Third World’ and are one more element of the legendary PE live show. James Bomb moved to Long Island aged twenty. Tellingly, he had benefitted from the Panthers’ lunch and breakfast programmes while growing up in Florida. The impact this had had on his young mind constitutes one more reason why PE would become a lot more than the first rap crew to instill some local pride in their home town. They didn’t fashion themselves after the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense for nothing.

2

Spectrum City Come to Life

The mid to late seventies would see New York slowly but surely become hooked by the last great cultural movement of the twentieth century. While it was still very much a ghetto secret for much of the seventies, by the end of the decade hip-hop fever was spreading everywhere. Like rock’n’roll in the late forties or soul music in the early fifties, hip-hop was still very much in its infancy, but the vibe was unmistakeable. Hip-hop probably fascinated its first era of fans more than any subsequent generation. It would never be this fresh and new again. It was into this that the Spectrum City crew came to life.

The first incarnation of Spectrum City consisted of Hank and Keith Shocklee and Richard Griffin. But they took their original name from the childhood partnership Keith and Griff had formed. ‘We used to call ourselves the KGs, Keith and Griff.’ Keith recalls. ‘Eddie Murphy used to come DJ with me too. He used to come to my parties and get on the mic and say his thing in high school.’

The budding mobile DJ crew didn’t name themselves ‘Spectrum’ until 1976 when the trio were in their teens. The ‘City’ was added for marketing reasons on WBAU radio around 1984. Operations were based at their local youth centre. They managed to convince a lot of the local youths that a radio station was housed inside, although that wasn’t strictly accurate. But music was being played in the place, courtesy of some old turntables, a mixer and some speakers. It also meant that their mothers didn’t have to worry about them running the streets and falling prey to the many temptations therein.

When Griff left Long Island to join the services, the Shocklee brothers continued doing parties, and watched their local business grow as time progressed. ‘Around our way we was just picking up from what the guys were doing up in The Bronx and Brooklyn,’ says Keith. ‘Brooklyn had a lot of mobile DJs when we was growing up.’ Other popular DJs in Long Island included DJ Hig, whose little brother Brian Higgins would eventually become Leaders of the New School’s Charlie Brown.

Keith was also making mixtapes and earning a couple of dollars doing beats for local groups as early as 1976. ‘A lot of mobile DJs were making mixtapes but I had to make special ones.’ Cos I used to make them for different people, cats would come to me like, “I don’t want the same records that you put on his.” Or it would be, “I don’t want the same records played the same way. I want mine, my own unique mixtape.”’ Consequently, he would spend literally hours in his basement making sure his stuff was on point.

Mobile DJs became popular because in 1970s New York racism was still very prominent and certain things were understood if not spoken. ‘Most of the clubs was white clubs and, you know, they had the white DJs playing there,’ Keith says. After a while, a lot of ghetto celebs began to pass through their events. Everybody from Grandmaster Flash to Grandmaster Caz came by. Chuck first saw Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel aged eighteen at Roosevelt Roller Rink.

He was overwhelmed. ‘I had no words, believe me. They came out to Long Island and tore that shit down. I couldn’t even believe it, man. It was one of those things where I said, “Shit, I don’t know about rapping,’ cos nobody in the world could be better than this.” So that kept me away from rapping. Fo’ real, I’d just never heard a dude so good. And Flash was a DJ that was just never, never, ever off beat. And these two guys together? There was nothing like that DJ and that emcee, man. They were a million miles ahead of anyone else in my mind.’

Nearly ten years after the Ridenhours moved to Long Island, when he was eighteen, Chuck connected meaningfully with Hank Shocklee, and their friendship was born. This was the first crucial meeting that would eventually lead to the formation of Public Enemy. But before Chuck linked up with Hank’s Spectrum City DJ-for-hire collective as their emcee, he had to pay his dues and watch from afar. Like a large number of Long Island youths, Chuck was already a fan of Hank Shocklee and Spectrum.

Chuck first hooked up with Hank during the early months of 1979. At this time he had returned to Adelphi University, one of the spots that used to host Afro-American studies, to study graphic design. Besides sports, graphic design and the burgeoning hip-hop culture were his main obsessions. Strangely, Chuck has his mother to thank for creating the circumstances. ‘Really, my moms hired Spectrum,’ he admits with a laugh. Chuck’s mother was involved with the Roosevelt Community Theater, and they were looking for people to play music. Hank and Spectrum fitted the bill perfectly.

In late seventies Long Island, if you needed some DJs for a function of whatever kind, you could do a lot worse than the Spectrum crew. Keith emphatically insists, ‘From the beginning we were DJs and we knew how to rock a crowd.’ Although they wouldn’t start playing even a few rap records until the eighties began to loom on the horizon, they did have ‘tons of r’n’b records, that had a great vibe and a great funkiness to it’.

So while the likes of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five were the first to blow Chuck’s mind, Hank and Spectrum were largely responsible for making Chuck decide to form a lasting relationship with this new music. Like many, Chuck was amazed at the way hip-hop DJs used their turntables to extend certain sections of records to make them last longer than their creators had intended. At the time, ‘Galaxy’ by the LA-based funk and Latin group War was one of his favourite records. One night, while in a basketball gym watching Hank DJ at a local night called Higher Ground, Chuck became more and more stupefied by how long his favourite song was lasting. Of course Hank was just back-to-backing, or mixing and blending the break section of the record, extending the appropriate section for as long as he saw fit. Not so much of a big deal today. But at the time, that was some shit. ‘It was the same record I liked but no words came in. I was bugging out like, “How big is this record?” Ain’t no words came in. It just played on and on till the break of dawn,’ Chuck says with a ‘those were the days’ look. ‘When I found out that two turntables, two records did this? And it was a mixer in between? That’s when I got bitten by the hip-hop bug.’

By this time emcees were just beginning to make their mark and the subsequent rise of their popularity would eventually see them become the main attraction at the DJs’ expense. Technology played a part in this too. The echo chambers used by Keith never failed to get the crowd hype. ‘That was like, “You’re listening to the sound, sound, sound, of the K, K, K, G, G, G”. That style was new to people. Words repeating on and on and on and music is changing in the background. That was sorta new.’

‘Watching Hank Shocklee and Spectrum was riveting, like seeing a band,’ Chuck says. ‘But they didn’t have an emcee.’ This is the gap Chuck would eventually fill. The heads in his neighbourhood were perhaps the first to notice that Chuck was blessed with a voice tailor-made for oratory and performance, and encouraged him to explore these talents further. But another skill would enable him to break the ice with Hank. Chuck was, after all, serious about graphic design. So after one of Spectrum’s parties, Chuck decided to approach the local hero he’d been watching from a distance. Even if the thought of becoming Spectrum’s emcee existed in the back of his mind, he kept it there, and approached Hank on a design tip. Chuck was specific about the kind of art he wanted to produce. He wasn’t about graffiti. Kids did that, and he was already in college. But a combination of graffiti and commercial art was cool.

‘I was also into flyers,’ he says, ‘so after one function, I used to go to all the functions, I approached Hank and also EJ the DJ.’ Everett James was Hank’s business partner. In years to come he would share PE’s headquarters on 510 South Franklin Avenue. But for now, Chuck’s main goal was to persuade Hank and EJ that the reason they were sitting outside of a failed gig was because they didn’t have a flyer that was good enough to advertise their talents. ‘I said, “You guys are too good to not have a flyer nor an artist represent what you guys are doing.”’ This first attempt didn’t really bear much fruit. Chuck recalls, ‘They were on some “yeah okay… go away” type shit.’ Keith concurs: ‘My brother Hank was handing out some flyers and Chuck saw one of the flyers and said, “Yo man, your flyers man, they’re sorta wack. I can do some better ones.” At the time Hank had just met Chuck and he was like, “Man, what are you talking about my flyers is wack? What you mean?”’

Despite this initial rejection, Chuck did do some Spectrum flyers. Meanwhile, his mic skills were developing at a prodigious rate. If only because he could not endure lesser-skilled emcees. He used to get on the microphone every once in a while just to shut other guys up. ‘Back then you had a lot of wack-ass cats getting on the mic, and everybody swore they had rhymes for the music.’ ...