Public Enemy

Thu 30th Dec, 2010 in Features

“I think we came about 20 or 25 years ago because we were students of records. We were DJs who paid great respect and paid homage to recording artists, the recording process and the records themselves.”

For a man who spent a large chuck of the of 80s and 90s creating and innovating, Chuck D has been doing an unusual amount of reflection to the uninitiated. In Australia for his second album-themed tour with Public Enemy, the group he founded in 1982, the often-outspoken rapper is keen to remind the world that his influence – even outside of rap circles – was, at best, derivative.

“We were smart enough to pretty much know that it didn’t start all with us.” Chuck tells me from his home in the USA (he kindly assures me the blizzards are “only weather”). “And right now, when it comes to people saying, “We want to pattern ourselves or take something in the Public Enemy approach, ” we’re very honest to tell people that it didn’t start with us. The first rap-rock fusion was Afrika Bambaata and Johnny Lydon. Then it was Run-DMC. We were very much fans of making these worlds happen. We came up out of that. We were just a little faster and just a little harder. We had different vocal extremes.”

Such an extreme was 1990’s Fear of a Black Planet, which presented not only a criticism of American life but a call to arms to the nation’s social minorities. Chuck D, though, was unsure of how to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary coming off a similar anniversary tour for the preceding LP It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. “We were the first rap group to really take on these shows based on album themes. We came up with the idea in 2005. We decided to do them in 2008, cause we thought, ‘Hey, it sounds like a good idea’.”

“But we already had a dynamic show. So we thought of slanting it and giving it to other rap artists, because of the possibility of touring disappointing shows. So we said, ‘Okay, look, we’re not going to do Fear of a Black Planet the same way we did It Takes a Nation of Millions: front-to-back. We’re going to celebrate Fear of a Black Planet’s twentieth year by making it Fear of a Black Planet -themed’

“One thing about Public Enemy,” he says, his tone suddenly becomes more assertive and assured, “is that it never repeats itself twice. We did it. We conquered. We saw that we showed people the way. Now we’re abandoning that and we’re doing something different.”