The VIBE Q: Chuck D
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Standing in a crowded ballroom inside the Anaheim Convention Center, Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, known to the Hip-Hop generation as Chuck D, held the NAMM Impact Music & Culture Award in his hand.
“I don’t usually accept individual accolades, trophies,” Chuck said. “I don’t accept anybody who says this is about me. My whole career it’s been because of a ‘We,’ not a ‘Me.’ We just turned the M upside down.” That sense of collective strength is what gave birth to Long Island’s Spectrum City DJs, and in turn to the seminal rap group Public Enemy, and to their crew the S1W’s. Indeed, that same spirit is what gave birth to Hip-Hop itself. (Chuck will be performing in the Bronx on August 11 2023 for the Universal Hip Hop Musuem Block Party.)
“If I could break this sh*t in a million pieces,” Chuck said, looking at the heavy translucent trophy. “I would give it to each and every one of you out there.”
Chuck D has been coming to NAMM—a gathering of the National Association of Music Merchants—for more than a quarter of a century now. Not because he plays an instrument. “I can’t play the state lottery,” he quipped. But because he reveres musicians.
“All due respect to every single musician and vocalist out there y’all,” Chuck added. “We pay homage to the musicians, the songwriters, and the beauty and the gift of music. Musicians spend time to possibly come up with something that could possibly be a universal language. And that’s what I think is the core that holds the world together for our similarities and knocks the bullshit difference to the side.” The same day he received the award, Chuck sat down with VIBE to reflect on Hip-Hop’s first half century, and where we go from here.
VIBE: The celebration of Hip-Hop’s 50th birthday began with that big performance at the Grammy Awards. How did that moment come together?
Chuck D: Listen, these things come about because somebody decides that it’s important to keep things like this going. So you gotta keep things like this going, giving awards or highlighting people or giving people their “flow-ers.” I didn’t say “flowers” but “flow-ers.”
Their “flow-ers.” Very good.
Yeah. For MCs and Hip-Hop, their “flow-ers” as opposed to flowers, you feel me? And I don’t really dig individual accolades or trophies but you can’t be disrespectful to the structure that really could be the path for others. So Questlove and his integration into the Grammys—cause LL Cool J had been part of the Grammys for a long time, as far the Grammy’s TV presentation. And in the 50th year of Hip-Hop, they employed and enlisted Questlove of The Roots to put together… So Quest reached out to me and I was like, “I’m pretty sure you could do it without me.” And he was like, No, I can’t.
Did you not want to deal with the Grammys, or were you just too busy?
I’m always busy. I’m even too busy to be here… So Quest reached out, and I was like, “I don’t even know if I can get the time to do it.” But he reached out, reached out, reached out… And then he gave me what we call the Jerry McGuire request.
Oh, is that show me the money?
He didn’t show me the money, but it was like, “You need to do this.” That type of thing.
Well, I’m glad you said yes. We all are.
And I’m glad that I was a part of something because the whole two days was festive. I mean, we came out on stage 60 seconds, but everything in the preparation before, behind the stage, that was a two-day event that was like a family barbecue.
Watching you step out right after Rakim, the energy was crazy. And crazy to think there was a time when Hip-Hop artists had to boycott to be recognized on the Grammy stage!
Well, we had the first boycott to be recognized as being a genre and a music to be worth having. You know, an area to be celebrated or to be regarded. So we protested. I mean, on our second album, the line from the song “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic” is “who gives a f**k about a goddamn Grammy?”
It sure was!
That wasn’t to attack the Grammys for anything else other than “Yo, y’all need to acknowledge that we are music, too.”
It’s poetic justice to see this art form, this culture, receiving all these accolades in its 50th year. Although, of course, some are just jumping on a bandwagon.
Bandwagons happen everywhere, man. When something goes good and looks good, smells good, tastes good, then expect the bandwagon to be rolling.
We are celebrating August 11, which commemorates a DJ Kool Herc party on Sedgwick Ave. But there were earlier forefathers, too, records by people from Cab Calloway to The Last Poets.
They wasn’t considered Hip-Hop. They were pretty much foundational. Foundational understandings of words, rhythms on top of musicians that really played. So if somebody got in front of a musician’s track and the cat was really playing, the best thing they could figure out at the time is to do some sort of rhythm. But you don’t dictate the musician. You figure out how you fit with what the musician was doing. That was always a golden rule of thumb. And spoken word found its rhythm on that. But later on when the rappers came along, they figured out a way to actually, like, seriously throw a rhythm to that spoken word. And not only just fit in but also ride alongside.
You once said something about rappers getting “thrown off the horse” when rhyming.
Yeah. Back in the day when the DJs ruled the earth, people would get on the microphone and they could not choose their beat. They had to get on the beat that the DJ’s actually playing…And if you was not on that rhythm, you got thrown off the horse.
What made you believe you could do this?
I knew I always would make it. That when I get on the mic, it’s gonna sound different than anybody ever. Hip-Hop started out with sound. It’s emphasis, it’s not so much just sound. People today listen with their eyes—that started about 25 years ago. So it’s not how you sound anymore. For a recording, how you sound could get enhanced through a board, through a studio. How you sound live is a whole different appreciation that you gotta go back to last century.
What was your personal spark of inspiration that made you want to be a rapper? Were you hearing other MCs on the radio? Was it parties? Mixtapes?
Well, radio jocks had style, debonair voice, rhymes, and they also could bring in the commercial to make you go and buy a product that you never thought you ever would buy. So the radio DJs also begat some of the MCs that came along that would get on the mic and emulate the same thing.
Were there certain radio personalities who stood out for you?
New York radio jocks like Gary Byrd, Gerry Bledsoe, Hank Spann, Chuck Leonard, who came from Buffalo and went to the Black station and then went over to WABC, which was one of the biggest pop stations in the world. These Black jocks had a vernacular. They call Hank Spann the Soul Server. And their voices, even on scratchy AM radio, would be so dynamic you were swept into it.
They called Gary Byrd Imhotep, after a high priest from ancient Egypt.
Right. Imhotep Gary Byrd, who coincidentally made one of the standout records called “The Crown,” becoming not only an artist who rapped on Motown, but who was also produced by Stevie Wonder in 1982.
Have you ever heard the theory that the birth of Hip-Hop has to do with budget cuts in music education? A lot of the creative kids who would love to make music were not taught how to play instruments in school. So all that creativity went into turntables.
Oh, yeah. That had something to do with it. I mean, people are creative and Black folks in society, if you’re not given that voice, there was always portals of being able to express yourself. Whether it be at the church, whether you making some beat or instrument on the sidewalk, whether you steppin’ and jumpin’, whether you on the chain gang. So the rhythm was always a part of the expression. You take those opportunities away from young people in the early Seventies and out of that is going to come something musical. Somebody is gonna take records and make instruments out of those if they had other things taken away. So it was a no-brainer. A lot of the stuff in Hip-Hop didn’t start by no accident of misunderstanding. It happened with great practicality.
This was a big year for Long Island Hip-Hop. Your brothers, De La Soul, had a big moment. And rest in peace, Dave.
They rocked the world with good records. You know, I was like “unc” to them, older brother, uncle. That was a special people, special group, special friends vibe. We’re almost all related.
It’s that Strong Island energy. Yourself, De La, EPMD, Rakim, Busta Rhymes. What is it that you brought that was unique?
Um, guidance. The science of Hip-Hop and rap. I mean, no different than if you took somebody and they discussed the importance of a Duke Ellington and a Louis Armstrong to a Dizzy Gillespie, a Thelonious Monk to a Sarah Vaughan. And I was able to do it with rap music and Hip-Hop when people were just feeling it. I was pretty much an artist that had a journalistic understanding of what we did and still was able to do it.
Speaking about giving people their flow-ers I noticed your tweet about how KRS and Rakim changed the art of Emceeing.
Yeah. KRS and Rakim changed the flow of EMCEEing as significantly as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington really moved how jazz operated in the twenties and thirties. So they were significant. And some big things lead into other things. Infrastructure is important. So my involvement in my relationship with KRS-One being the chairman of the Hip Hop Alliance, which is the first union in Hip-Hop. Kurtis Blow being founding president as well as MC Lyte.
What does the Hip Hop Alliance do?
Our partnership with SAG-AFTRA is very important. Because for the longest period of time, Hip-Hop musicians have been insurance-less. It seemed like there was organizations set up for musicians—you know, MusiCares and organizations like SAG. I always have to get my insurance through SAG, and I made sure I had enough screen time to be in the Screen Actors Guild. But we felt that having an alliance with SAG-AFTRA was very important in making us have the beginnings of a union. So it’s a lot of people involved, sent to the thousands.
What else have you been working on this year?
I published a book of my naphic grovels. And we’re finally unveiling what we call the world’s first cultural media app, which is called Bring the Noise. Bring the Noise is probably the biggest thing I’ve ever been part of.
What kind of app are you launching?
TikTok for 35 and older. Hip-Hop core, Hip-Hop based. Not uninviting to anybody under 35 but dealing with fam. There’s filmmakers, artists, musicians, and then going from there.
Creators.
Well everybody thinks they’re a creator. They pass gas in the tub they think they created it, but…
(Laughs) So true.
It is a little different when you talk about doing art at a later age and stage as opposed to just, you know, flying in and doing it cause you need to fill your time with something to do. That’s what NAMM is about. You see 20-year old musicians and you see 50-year old musicians. They might play the same instrument, but they might have two different crossing agendas as far as their lives are concerned.
Yeah, I was reflecting on you receiving an award at NAMM. In the past NAMM seemed more like a rock and roll audience, but I see they’re making a space for Hip-Hop.
It’s a business. It’s an industry. Hip-Hop is built off of the technology that existed, you know, turntables and microphones. I mean, I’ve used a microphone for like 40 years. You would think I would have a microphone company. Basketball players got shoes that pay them $300 million a year. You know what I’m saying? I’m just throwing a stupid figure out there. But, you know, once upon a time basketball players didn’t get paid for shoes. It’s like, “Oh, we’ll give you free shoes.” Then they realize, “Okay, wow, this is an industry here.”
We all have these conversations about who’s the greatest basketball player, right? Is it Jordan? Is it LeBron? We also have conversations about the greatest MCs. And your name has to come up in those conversations.
Well, I know I’m the loudest.
In terms of making your viewpoint known?
No, I’m the loudest. Period.
Just the vocals.
Yep. That. That’s my only claim.
We gotta give you more than that. One of the reasons why people revere Public Enemy is that you weren’t just rhyming for the sake of riddlin’. You were using your words for a purpose.
I was older. I mean, I’m not gonna be 27 years old sounding like I’m 14. I mean, that’ll be impossible for me to sound like I’m 14 anyway. But I was always about, “be who you are. Act your age.” So I wasn’t out to appeal to the kids. I had Flava for that.
Much respect to Flav by the way. But that was not always an easy stance. You were fighting the power.
I wasn’t an individual, either. We were a big crew. A big team.
That’s right.
So what I wanted wasn’t necessarily the thing it always had to end up as. What I wanted to be, I presented myself within that context of a group of a whole bunch of different elements.
It’s interesting to think that Public Enemy was born during the Reagan years going into the early Bush years, right? There was a crisis in urban America.
Well, you figure ’81, ’82 as far as really being integrated as an amateur and radio and stuff like that. But our first records, you’re talking 86, 87. So that’s right there. You know, Reagan / Bush years, right smack dab in the middle. Crack, guns…
AIDS.
AIDS. Yeah. All those things at that time.
It was a crazy moment in America. And here we are again today.
I mean, to NOT address it would be like—for real? You know, old head rhyming. I mean, you don’t see these things?
Right. It’s almost like dereliction of duty. Then and now.
Well, Public Enemy allowed a lot of people just to be free and easy. You know, you always gotta have security at the door in order for the party to be popping. We was just security.
That’s right. And you had the S1Ws. I always appreciated that name, the idea of the First World.
Because we had been knowledgeable of enough stuff around the world, even before going there. Where we would be considered—everything we did and all our people—third world people.
Right.
And you had to tell people that not only are we not third world, we’re not even second world. Second world considered like maybe, you know, on the other side of a then iron curtain. But we have a history that says that we were first, so why not? We’re first world people. So if you could figure that out, then a lot of the stuff that Public Enemy gotta say would become more digestible.
Well, the last time that I checked, it was one planet that we all cohabitate.
Yeah. It’s like, you know, we people too.
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