Public Enemy’s Chuck D: ‘Bob Vylan ain’t got no tanks... You can’t really kill nobody with a guitar or a microphone’ | OneFootball

It’s been five years since the last Public Enemy album, but the band’s frontman, Chuck D, hasn’t exactly been putting his feet up. “I’m a furnace,” he declares, and he’s not wrong. In the past few years, he has published a graphic novel, released a solo album and narrated an acclaimed TV series about hip-hop, all while hosting shows on his global radio network. This month, Public Enemy return with their 16th studio album, Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025. “I’m diversified across so many areas,” he tells me, “but Public Enemy is a juggernaut – it is a locomotive of its own.”

That locomotive has shed a few parts during the past 40 years – their DJ Terminator X left in 1999 to raise emus and the band’s Minister of Information, Professor Griff, was forced to leave the band in 1989 after making antisemitic remarks in a newspaper interview. (“Griff’s statements were wrong, and I apologised. He also apologised to me,” Chuck D said at the time, after announcing that “Griff had to lose his position.”)

I speak to the frontman while the controversy still swirls around punk rap duo Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury appearance. The duo led chants of “Death, death to the IDF” at the festival, leading police to launch a criminal investigation and the revocation of the band’s US visas. “When people say death to a country, they’re not saying death to a people,” Chuck D says, “they’re saying death to imperialism, death to colonialism. Bob Vylan ain’t got no tanks. They’re using words to say something must end. You can’t really kill nobody with a guitar or a microphone, but you could kill somebody with a drone and a f***ing tank. We have to be able to fight for peace and love by any means necessary.”

Public Enemy first played in London in November 1987. The day before that gig, The Art of the Deal was published by a New York-based businessman called Donald Trump. Chuck D and Trump grew up just 20 miles apart and are 14 years apart in age. Given that on their previous album, Chuck D described Trump as an unprecedented dictator, it seems fair to conclude he’s not a fan. “Dissed a sister just like they dissed your mama,” he raps on the new record, “47 is the president, but I voted for Kamala.”

“I won’t even say his name,” he tells me. “We call him 47, 45. We don’t even believe he believes half of the things he even says, but the problem is you don’t know whether he’s putting on an incredible acting job or not. He’s a showman – he’s an incredible showman. He is an entertainer.” Trump is also someone who, to quote the title of Public Enemy’s third record, seems to have a fear of a Black planet, and yet, I point out to Chuck D, 21 per cent of Black men voted for Trump. “Did you take the count,” he asks. “I did a song called ‘Don’t Believe the Hype’, which said to challenge information.” Maybe that number is true, but it’s hard for you to get your head around it, I suggest. “The interpretation of what government is has soured on people,” he admits, “because they didn’t believe that it worked for them. The United States is in a very polarised, precarious situation. Testosterone is like nuclear fuel – if used right, it can power things, but if used wrong, it could blow up the f***ing planet. And it has.”

It isn’t just politics that is worrying Chuck D. “AI is not going backwards, bro,” he says. “AI is not designed to get dumber. The hope is that we can figure out how to manage ourselves in the dance with these technologies instead of being intimidated by it. The whole key in technology is to understand how much we can manage it before it masters you.” Talking to Chuck D, I am struck by how he doesn’t so much answer a question as issue a pronouncement. Is this what you were like as a young boy, I ask, telling all your mates in the playground exactly what was wrong with the world? He shakes his head. “I was a quiet kid,” he says. “I listened more than I talked.”

Before he became Chuck D, he was Carlton Ridenhour, growing up in 1960s Long Island, interested in art, sports and history. “I remember being 10 years old and looking in a history book at a map of Africa,” he recalls, “and asking why is Belgium here and why are the British here?” If you had asked him then what he wanted to do with his life, he would have said to be an athlete or an artist. “Every single art contest I joined, I f***ing won bro,” he says. “I used to look at work by Basquiat and say, the only reason he’s good is because he’s with Warhol – I’m from Long Island. I was that cocky as an artist.”

He went on to study graphic design at Adelphi University in Long Island and that was where, sometime around 1985, he met William Jonathan Drayton Jr, aka Flavor Flav. Their shared passion for music and social activism led them to form Spectrum City, which eventually evolved into Public Enemy. “I have a loud, booming voice beyond anybody else’s,” he says, when asked to describe Public Enemy’s signature sound, “and Flavor has an unmistakably irritating voice that even AI cannot reproduce. We’re the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of hip-hop.” Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 and was followed by It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet.

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Chuck D studied graphic design at Adelphi University in Long Island and that was where, sometime around 1985, he met William Jonathan Drayton Jr, aka Flavor Flav (Sanjay Suchak)

These albums reshaped hip-hop by fusing dense, sample-heavy production with urgent, politically charged lyrics. “When I started writing, I wanted rap music to be revered as much as songwriters like Sly Stone and Bob Dylan.” Stone was an unsurprising reference point, so I asked him about Dylan. “They were the best songs on pop radio,” he says. “I mean, Hendrix did Dylan songs.” Did he agree that “Subterranean Homesick Blues” was a rap song? “Yeah, it is,” he says. “There’s a lot of racism around what people consider rapping. Hank Williams has a couple of rap songs too.” Chuck D’s ambition to write lyrics that were revered was fulfilled – some of his song titles and lyrics have entered the culture: “most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps”, “don’t believe the hype”, “bring the noise” and “Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant s*** to me”. That last line appears in “Fight the Power”, which was featured in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, released in 1989.

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Chuck D

“When I was growing up in the Seventies, Elvis was a bloated drug user,” he explains. “He was hanging out with Nixon, so I didn’t understand what was meant to be so great about him.” I wonder if Elvis still meant s*** to him. “I was 29 and full of vinegar,” he says. “I’ve always had an appreciation for Elvis.” This was a bit of a bombshell – like hearing Billy Joel admit that he really did start the fire or U2 announce that they had found what they were looking for. Public Enemy toured with U2 in 1992 and the previous year they toured on a double bill with Anthrax. “Those were some of my best teachers,” he says referring to the thrash metal band, “they taught us how to perform stronger, harder, faster.” Right now, Public Enemy are on tour with Guns N’ Roses. “It’s harder and I want it hard,” he says about why he likes touring with rock bands. “Rap music and hip-hop have been trained to take the easy way out – be popular and ask for people to love you. Public Enemy don’t care if you like us or not.”

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Chuck D photographed in 2007 (Getty Images)

Chuck D will be 65 in August. “Ageism s*** is way worse than racism,” he raps on one of the best tracks on the new record, “Father Time ain’t never lost... don’t forget Mother Nature still a boss.” “Age is something that we should brag about,” he tells me. “Being a sexagenarian means we have a lot of water under our bridge and we’ve seen a lot of things.”

Resting on his laurels is not on the cards. “Time is God,” he says – “the ultimate gift is to be able to have a revolution around the sun.” You’ve done more than enough, I suggest, so why not just chill. “And then do what?” he says, laughing. “I don’t clean latrines, bro. I don’t dig ditches. I had 17 jobs between 1977 and 1986. I loaded mail trucks, I moved furniture. Those are jobs, bro.”

It isn’t just ambition and perspective that drives him, but also the fact that 40 years on from when he founded Public Enemy, Chuck D is still breaking new ground. “There is no template for doing this in your sixties,” he says, “you’re looking at it right here.”