It’s not everyday you get to talk to a legend of the music industry, so it was quite the thrill to be given the opportunity to chat with the one and only Chuck D of Public Enemy last week.
In town later this week to play a sold out gig in Melbourne, before hitting up Falls Festival, Field Day, Southbound, Sunset Sounds and a sideshow at the Metro in Sydney on the 4th, Chuck chats to us about the world that is Public Enemy – what to expect on the Fear of a Black Planet tour – and WikiLeaks. Read on!
Larry: As I’m speaking to you in New York the week before Christmas, I’m guessing that it’s pretty cold up there at the moment?
Chuck D: Shit! Hell Yeah! It’s not cold – it’s freezing!
New York might get a White Christmas?
I won’t be sticking around to find out! I’m off to the Summertime!
That’s right, you’ll be heading down to us!
Yeah and I just left South Africa. We were down there for the 6th leg of the Fear of a Black Planet tour. We were in Cape Town and Johannesburg having a wonderful time, and I headed out to Nigeria too.
I was reading an interview with you before the tour down there – you commented on how important it was to you to get down there and play some shows
Yeah it was groundbreaking man. When we in Public Enemy started our careers, there was a lot of things that leaped across and resonated with South Africa, and the struggles of their nation. To get there 23 years later really brought a tear to a lot of people’s eyes. The power of music, the power of hip hop, how strong it is in South Africa – and the whole continent – it’s something that we’re very happy to have been a part of.
We’re getting to the end of 2010, looking back at the year, it must be one of the highlights of the year?
Yeah, we’re getting to the end. Everything we set out to do at the beginning of the year we accomplished. We covered four continents, Australia is the fourth. The Fear of a Black Planet tour took us to Canada, around the United States playing in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, New York – we’ll be doing the West Coast as part of our 8th leg in 2011. We went to London and Paris. We went to a few countries for the first time – Luxembourg, Poland, like I said South Africa and also Bulgaria. It added it up to 76 countries for Public Enemy! And we’re looking forward to coming down to Oz to cap off the year. We always love it down there, this is our 6th record breaking time.
Of course you were last down here two years back, at the same time in fact, celebrating the 20th anniversary of It Takes a Nation…. You’re now celebrating the 20th anniversary of Fear of a Black Planet – how has it been for you guys focusing on this older material in the live environment?
Well the big difference is that two or three years ago, we were the first rap group to start the trend of performing albums. We were asked to do it in 2005, but we rejected the idea. Then when the 20th anniversary of It Takes a Nation… came in 2008, we opened that door, and once we finished we closed it. This year it’s Fear of a Black Planet themed. The whole idea helps rap artists structure their shows, and give expectations to the audience. And promoters like it too, because it gives them something to use for classic rap artists. So as it’s Fear of a Black Planet themed, we’ll be playing a lot of tracks off that album, but there’s also going to be a lot of other songs that we have.
You’re playing both festival and club shows in Australia – how do the two compare when you’re down here?
Well festival shows give you a lot of people, but they also give you limited time. You play a festival time, you usually get an hour max. At a club show we get two and a half hours, and whether it’s a big crowd or an intimate crowd, that’s the beauty of that. But they’re both joyous for each reason. They’re not the same, but they give you the equal amount of satisfaction. Just depends on your approach going into it.
I listed to Fear of a Black Planet for the first time in full in about four years today, and it really is remarkable just how well it’s held up, and how much of what you’re talking about remains relevant. Do you find that or do you think the meaning of the songs have shifted with the times?
I think it’s shifted – but I mean 20 years is not a long time in the world. It might be a long time for recording, for music, but not a long time in the ways of things… the way governments and people are. Technologies have shifted things a bit faster, but governments pretty much remain the same. They move really slow. As a matter of fact, governments, they like to look at their successes in terms of cutting people up into categories – determining human beings on their characteristics rather than their character – where as culture kind of does the opposite. Culture brings everyone together… it doesn’t matter what you look like, we can all groove to this tune, and we can all check out this site… But government wants to split you down to height, weight, eye colour and … colour. That’s why sometimes you have to be wary when we hear the government say they’re in control of the culture and the arts. I’m thinkin’, “woah, what’s that about?”
And that’s what Fear of a Black Planet addressed so well twenty years ago – that the idea of race was a ridiculous one concocted by racists so they could control.
Unfortunately this indeed is a discussion we still have to this very day – but in the last few weeks we’ve seen how technology can force governments to move as fast as it does – with Wikileaks popping out of the woodwork and changing the game.
That’s right – WikiLeaks is the Napster of the government. *laughs*. If the truth is out there, it’s out there. It’s only a matter of time before someone picks it up and runs with it. Genie is out of the bottle. We had digital music level the playing field for recording. Did you ever think that digital could level out Government? And yet here we are.
Indeed! The next few months should be interesting ones… and bringing up Napster, you’ve reminded me of that time period, where you were one of the first to come out and embrace the concept of digital downloads, setting up your own online hip hop based community (RapStation) where digital downloads were a focus…
No question. We were one of the first to walk away from the corporations and the million dollar record contract and we walked into the realm of knowing what would tick us over into 25 or 30 years from now. We wanted to get into more revolutionary things. We’re a revolutionary situation, not evolutionary. Evolutionary is when you get it. Revolutionary is when you don’t get it, so you’ve got to knock that door down and pave the way. Going into the digital realm, and going into our own movement, is not something we do for ourselves, but something we look to do for others. And here we are. And whether people are getting their music on their phones or on their computers, we feel that this is a gigantic step forward.
The biggest joy I’ve had Larry is to be able to create portals for our music in the genre we happen to exist in. Hip Hop Gods is what I created for my peers. Hiphopgods.com is where classic hip hop lives on to the break of dawn. I was inspired by classic rock radio, which started coming out in the 70s. When everyone was playing Meat Loaf and Led Zeppelin, they were playing The Beatles and Chuck Berry. And so in the day of the web, I wanted to do that for Hip Hop, so when someone like Digital Underground or (Run) DMC comes out with something new, they have their own home – where don’t have to compete with the Young Jeezys and the Rick Rosses.
And looking towards 2011, I understand there’s some new music coming out?
I just take it one song at a time, it’s how I’ve always done it. I don’t even like to take on the concept of an album. Even though there will be a Public Enemy album, it’s just one song at a time, with collaborators. I think that the album concept is outdated. Unless you go into the album with a cohesive structure, a theme, an idea that’s going to make the listener stay with you without trying to jump from track to track, then you don’t need to be making an album. Just take the tracks one at a time.
I know it’s getting late for you Chuck so we’ll have to leave it there, but we can’t wait to see you down here over New Years!
Hey man, I can’t wait to get back to the Summertime!
Yeah I don’t envy the cold you’re dealing with over there at the moment!
Ah, it’s not that bad. Like I said, we just left Summertime and now we’re going back, so we have friends and family over here in the States who are just jealous *laughs*.
