To promote their highly anticipated ”Tougher Than Leather” album in 1988, rappers Run/D.M.C. embarked on a concert jaunt with comedic hip-hoppers DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince and a motley rap posse known as Public Enemy.
The shows are remembered bittersweetly by some, as they ultimately documented Run/D.M.C.`s fall from public favor and Public Enemy`s fiery arrival. Both Run/D.M.C. and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince enjoyed unprecedented popularity for rap acts at the time, but Public Enemy`s rage-filled performances made both groups seem irrelevant.
Now headlining its own tour, Public Enemy finds itself following such party-oriented rap acts as Kid N` Play and Digital Underground. Only now, the headliners are not getting upstaged.
Despite the great disparity between Public Enemy`s black activism and the other two groups` more lightweight approach, Public Enemy rapper and leader Chuck D said the bill reflects unity.
”Rappers get along with each other perhaps better than any other group in the music industry,” he explains. ”We`re a small, but growing, circle, and everybody hangs together. It`s just like when 2 Live Crew was getting hit, it put everybody on alert. 2 Live Crew is in the kitchen, but we were in the bedroom.”
As Chuck D`s comments suggest, Public Enemy remains rap`s most provocative group, even in the wake of controversies prompted by the group`s outspokenness.
According to Chuck D, it is rap`s ability to expose problems in the black community that has rankled conservatives. When 2 Live Crew`s ”As Nasty as They Wanna Be” album was ruled obscene by a Florida judge, Public Enemy and many of its colleagues saw the decision as hysteria-induced harassment.
2 Live Crew was ”gaining a bit of power in the industry, but they hadn`t sided up with someone with concrete foundations in the industry,” Chuck D says. ”The group had been out for five years. So why are these people getting upset with 2 Live Crew now? It`s because white kids were starting to listen to them, and somebody behind a desk said, `We`ve got to do something about this.` ”
Public Enemy has been touring in support of its Def Jam/Columbia Records album ”Fear of a Black Planet.” The first rap recording to pass the million mark in sales within a week of its release, the album`s success was fueled by the success of the single ”Fight the Power,” which was featured in Spike Lee`s critically acclaimed film ”Do the Right Thing.”
The urgent 1989 single whetted the public`s appetite and curiosity, and when ”Fear of a Black Planet” was finally released last spring, it rocketed up the pop charts and is still on Billboard magazine`s pop-albums chart.
But unlike most of the indifferent pop currently on the airwaves, ”Fear of a Black Planet” addresses a host of issues seldom set to music. ”911 Is a Joke” concerns the slow response time from police in black neighborhoods.
”Pollywannacracka” addresses interracial romance, while ”Burn Hollywood Burn” rails against racial stereotypes in films and television shows.
Like 2 Live Crew, Chuck D and his comrades-rapper Flavor Flav and disc jockey Terminator X-are no strangers to controversy. Just a year ago, Public Enemy was involved in a flap over anti-Semitic statements made by the group`s ”minister of information,” Professor Griff (Richard Griffin). But Chuck D said the 2 Live Crew controversy is at ”a different level.”
”When the government moves in, you`re in deep (trouble),” the rapper says. ”The only thing that can turn something like that around are the people.”
Accusations of anti-Semitism were leveled against Public Enemy after Professor Griff told the Washington Times that Jews were to blame for ”the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe.”
The group supported Griff until it became clear his comments were indefensible. Chuck D recalled how difficult it was for him to dismiss his friend from the group.
”You could support your father or mother, but would you support them 100 percent of the time?” the rapper says. ”Some things you can`t support. You could be friends, you could be partners, and it could be that 10 percent you don`t agree on that makes the whole relationship not work. Griff`s comments didn`t make the whole organization flow right.”
Months later, the group raised more hackles, this time over the song
”Welcome to the Terror Dome.” The roiling rocker featured the couplets,
”Told the rab, get off the rag/Crucifixion ain`t no fiction/So-called chosen, frozen/Apology made to whoever pleases/still they got me like Jesus.” ”Welcome to the Terror Dome” was immediately denounced as anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League of B`nai B`rith.
Later, the group responded to rumors that Arsenio Hall was reluctant to book Public Enemy on his top-rated talk show for fear of offending sponsors. During a tirade at the Palace nightclub in Hollywood last winter, rapper Flavor Flav berated Hall.
”My whole thing was that he was putting rappers on his show, and he apparently didn`t want us on,” Chuck D explains. ”It`s not that I cared, really, but people kept asking me, `Why aren`t you on the ”Arsenio Hall”
show?` I said, `Maybe he`s afraid of angering his sponsors.` I felt he should have known people were watching him because of him, and not the sponsors. When Joan Rivers invites you on her show before Arsenio Hall does tells you something.”
Allegations of hatemongering have resulted from the various Public Enemy controversies, a notion Chuck D dismisses outright.
”I`m not hateful, and my records show it, so (forget) them,” says the rapper, addressing his critics. ”I like to judge critics before the criticism. If the critic is willing to be personally and publicly accountable for his comments, then we can deal.”
Chuck D was born Carlton Ridenhour in Hempstead, N.Y. The rapper credits
`60s militant group the Black Panthers with enlightening him about the black struggle. By most media accounts, the Black Panthers were bent on destruction. But, in Chuck D`s neighborhood, the organization was seen as a positive force for change: ”A lot of people looked at the police the same way a lot of the establishment looked at the Panthers.”
”People who don`t know anything about black people usually don`t take the time to find out about that environment,” the rapper says.
”Communication narrows down the fear element, but the collective white community is being fed by their information channels, which is a filtered-down information channel. When it comes directly from someone, it harder for people to distort the truth.”
The rapper`s life was to take another pivotal turn in 1982 when he became a deejay at Adelphi University radio station WBAU in Garden City, N.Y. Programming rap and other street sounds, Chuck D was championing rap long before mainstream radio entertained the notion.
The rapper now sees himself as ”a dispatcher of information” but cautions fans against acquiring all their knowledge from the group`s records. ”I try to let everybody know who the real educators are,” Chuck D says. ”Education is a deep thing, and you really have to take a dive into it. They can`t get it all from our records. Our records are only 60 minutes.”
