Still bringin’ the Noise
Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. opens up about race, legacy — and what he really thinks of Taylor Swift
WHEN Chuck D— frontman of the legendary hiphop group Public Enemy — takes the stage at Nile Rodgers’ FreakOut! Let’s Dance Festival in Riverhead, LI, on Tuesday, it will be a homecoming with strong historical implications.
“You know what’s crazy?” the Long Island native asks The Post via telephone from his Georgia home. “I did my first gig in November of ’79 with Hank and Keith Shocklee [members of P.E.’s production crew, the Bomb Squad] out in Riverhead. I’m going back to where it all started.”
Sharing the bill with a diverse range of acts that includes Chic, Beck, Duran Duran, Keith Urban and Janelle Monáe, the politically minded 55-year-old is most excited about performing tracks from Public Enemy’s latest work, “Man Plans God Laughs.” It’s a full-throated collection of protest songs channeling the righteous anger of such classic P.E. statements as “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” and “Fear of a Black Planet,” but with a synth-heavy contemporary twist.
“I was inspired by Run the Jewels and Kendrick Lamar,” Chuck explains of the album’s dense, dark feel. “It’s all about moving ahead.”
The Post caught up with Chuck to hear his views on #BlackLivesMatter, how music-streaming services trick the public — and the power of Taylor Swift.
Critics have described “Man Plans God Laughs” as Public Enemy’s take on the #BlackLives- Matter movement. Do you agree with that assessment?
There’s a world order going on in front of our faces that tells us none of us really matter here in the United States of America. The album pretty much says it throughout. I’m a citizen of the planet Earth. I’m not subservient to one particular government or religion. I’m a culturalist.
But there’s also vintage Public Enemy fire and brimstone on this album.
No lives matter if every life doesn’t matter. The song “Honky Tonk Rules” is clear: we are under the rules of the wild, wild West. We are tired of getting treated one-sided. What I tried to do . . . is show how a 55-year-old emcee should talk.
I’m like that uncle on the porch. He tells you five or six words and you get it, or you better get it [laughs].
Do you feel in competition with your own legacy?
I hear it all the time: “Yo man, you should make another ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.’ ” But ... [our sound hasn’t] moved that much.
How did you end up involved in the FreakOut! Festival?
Nile [Rodgers] told me what he was trying to do and I said I’m down. I’m from Long Island . . . I would walk there if I could.
Are you surprised that Rodgers and his band Chic have yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
I think it comes down to people not being knowledgeable on a lot of black music. Chic is beyond definition. They dominated disco, but they weren’t a disco band. They were just a badass group of musicians that transcended disco, funk, rock, pop and rap.
As the creator of the online-radio outlet rapstation.com, you have always been ahead of the curve on the digital-music front. Where do you side on the whole music-streaming debate?
My take is that streaming services have not defined themselves clearly. They are just radio stations, and streaming on demand is just like cable TV, except the powers-that-be are trying to make a revenue model out of it. It really doesn’t amount to much, so how are you going to make this into a real business? By people paying more for subscriptions?
Taylor Swift seems to be a woman of action about this, right?
The technologists and lawyers in the building are always dealing in the long term. They are thinking about the marathon and not the 60-meter dash. And the person that is dominating the 60-meter dash right now is Taylor Swift.
I’m a citizen of planet Earth. I’m not subservient to one government or religion.”
— Chuck D