Chuck D (Chuck d) doesn’t need an introduction – at least not anyone who is well-versed in hip-hop history. He has deep roots and he is the most recommended MC in music.
From a tribe called Quest’s “Performance Business” and Ice Cube’s “Only One Me” to Kendrick Lamar’s “B #### Don’t Kill Me The Vibe”, and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Mack daddy” have routinely emerged with the dynamics of public enemies, tangible evidence of his seismic influence and influence.
On Friday (May 16), Chuck D showed off the enemy’s radio station: Radio Contest, which is 14-track lyrical faces. Made of a fiery mini accompaniment carefully crafted by David “C-Doc” Snyder, the record is the same for the Bomb Squad days of the public enemy.
The lead single “New Gens” with Stetsasonic’s Daddy-O offers a loose paper on the project. Unlike Rock’n Roll, who embraced the elders, hip-hop often avoided its pioneers or fired them because they were washed, “too old.” Meanwhile, Paul McCartney of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles toured the 80s and still attracted their lofty respect.
“Call me dinosaurs/and prestigious dinosaurs, but I’m far from class pack,” Dad-O raps. “I represent the first team without a baby king.”
But what some people may not understand is that hip-hop is young enough to have no blueprints with this type of age.
“Apart from Ice-T, Flav and I are the only hip-hop Sexagenarians, there is actually no precedent,” Chuck D told Allhiphop. “Like what we did in the 40s and 50s, we are leading this lead.”
Chuck D describes the broadcast contest as a “compilation of sounds” which includes guest verses from Gangsta Rap Pioneer Schoolly D, Philly Legend Phil Most Chill, Universal Zulu Nation’s Donald D and Jazzy Jay, and acts as swiftly as 1/2 Pint, Ultramag7 and Miranda Writes.
“It tied it into a sound template like a carpet,” Chuck explained. “The C-Doc is able to provide what I’ve heard in my mind all my life, it’s just noise, friction and all kinds of destructive supersonics.”
The radio contest also focuses on the pandemic in hip-hop – artists died in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s when they were supposed to live their 80s. Whether it’s violence, drugs, cancer or other health conditions, rappers die at an astonishing rate.
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As noted in Chuck’s song “Black Dot Dead”, “We lost once or twice a month.”
“Once it was black, don’t break,” he said. “We have a certain skin elasticity, but we’ve been killed inside and out for a century or more. But, where we are now, so many things have caused early deaths for black people and under the radar, so yes, black people don’t break, but they can die.”
Throughout the project, the topic of ageism continues, and Chuck, who turned 65 on August 1, is very interested in this.
“My theme this year is attacking ageism,” he actually said. “I had to do some old rappers with ‘I don’t give AF ### some old rapper’ and that. Unfortunately, it’s behind the venture capitalists who can invest money in this. They’re by reading everything about rap, like ‘Man, I don’t want to get involved with S #####, talk about B ###### and Shothing People, etc. Every time I open the news, that’s what that element really means.”
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Public enemies have been fighting for nearly 40 years, and Chuck will not stop now. The group is heading overseas next month with Guns’N Roses, but first, they head to the Napa Valley on May 23 and then to Boston on May 25 for the Boston Call Festival.
Find the album below.
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