The legendary Chuck D joins us for an #AudacyCheckIn to talk about the making of his new album and more! 🎤
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00:00Andre Brown later on becomes Dr. Dre, the Dr. Dre for the Yo MTV Raps, which by the way,
00:07they named Yo MTV Raps off our album, Yo Bum Ruster Show.
00:14What's up, it's your boy DJ Scratch, and today I'm here talking to a hip-hop icon.
00:20Grammy Award, Lifetime Achievement recipient, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, hip-hop
00:27icon, the one and only, one-third of Public Enemy, my man Chuck D. What's up, Chuck?
00:32Takes one to know one.
00:34Man, listen.
00:35How you doing, Scratch?
00:36I'm great, man. I'm blessed to even be here talking to you, man.
00:39Man.
00:40One of my first-time experiences in hip-hop, one of my greatest, I might say my greatest
00:45first experience in hip-hop is scratching, the first time I scratched on a major record
00:50was EPMD, So What You Saying, and the record that I used was a Public Enemy record,
00:56Public Enemy, number one. Please don't sue me.
00:59No.
01:00That was 36 years ago, but please don't sue me.
01:02No, you understand, back in the day, when you did that Scratch, those were badges of honor.
01:08That was a badge of honor that you would even use that Scratch, because we come from the
01:13DJ idiom ourselves. We came from radio DJs and also Scratch DJs, no big pun intended,
01:19but, you know, when you actually did it, it was like, oh yeah, it's like, it's family.
01:26It's 360-degree cycle, you know, and plus, you know, Eric and Paris from Long Island,
01:32the Charlie Morata studio that me and Hank visited.
01:35We never recorded there, but we visited and talked to Charlie and everything.
01:40It was all cool, so it was all in the family anyway, and so when that came about,
01:44and I think in the beginning, Caleb Boyce came out on tour, he went back, you came out.
01:49Yeah.
01:49And that was 88. And then we also toured in 88, when we had the first Brain the Noise tour.
01:55Yes.
01:55In the winter of 88, because up to that point, hip-hop tours were only summertime,
02:01summertime, summertime, summertime, and we went out in the winter, and that was the first hip-hop tour
02:06that went to all the arenas in the wintertime, and so I got to thank you for that.
02:09Yeah, man, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for clearing that record.
02:12Hip-hop, when we first heard it, wasn't an occupation yet.
02:16Right.
02:17So back then, who was the MC or DJs or the person in the moment that made Chuck D want to be like,
02:26yo, that's dope, I want to rhyme too? Who was that? What was that moment?
02:31Well, coincidentally, Scratch, I was rhyming at my college, Adelphi, just to shut people up from grabbing the mic,
02:40because I wanted to get my dance on. It was college. I was already college age, man.
02:45Rappers of Light came out in 1979. I was a sophomore at Adelphi. So when they had the Thursday night throwdowns, right,
02:52the DJ, Larry T from Freeport, Long Island, would be the DJ hired by the frats to do it Thursday night.
02:59Boom, we were going to have the Black Night. Everybody used to convene there. Everybody like Eddie Murphy,
03:03Hank Shaka, everybody. So that was the place to be in Nassau County, Long Island, and it was my school.
03:10And, you know, as soon as they would play a record, then they had an open mic.
03:16And everybody from Brooklyn, the Bronx, because that's where Adelphi was, everybody from all over,
03:22they thought automatically that, okay, what they heard in the summer of people getting on the mic and rocking it,
03:27they thought that because they was from the place that they get on the mic too.
03:30And most people on the open mic was terrible.
03:34So if you're asking a girl to dance, right, and back in the day, it's like you're asking a girl to dance.
03:38No, I'm not no suave welfare type of dude, you know what I'm saying?
03:42So you got to have the game.
03:44So when they dance, get a girl on the floor to dance, and all of a sudden somebody get on the mic,
03:51and it's chaos.
03:52So it's messing up the hustle.
03:54Yeah, I never learned the hustle.
03:55When the freak came out, it was open season.
03:58So then, I'm talking 1978 to 79, right?
04:02So then, cats get on the mic, and you just F up the whole groove.
04:08And the girl don't want to dance with you no more.
04:10So I was like, you know what?
04:14That mic is going to be open.
04:16I'm going to get on that mic, and I'm going to sit everybody down.
04:20So there'd be a long line trying to get the mic.
04:22They'd be playing Love is a Message of Good Times or whatever.
04:24Whenever I get the mic, sure enough, well, you think there's nobody behind me.
04:28Nobody wants to dance the mic at that morning.
04:30I only did it, and then Hank heard me in one of them, and it was like, listen, Spectrum City, I got this thing.
04:38I was always a fan of them.
04:39And he says, yo, I need an emcee.
04:41And I was like, ah, you know, I'm doing this just as a thing.
04:43But back then, it was about the voice on the mic as opposed to bars you have or rhymes you've got to have.
04:51If you had, like, a 14-year-old voice, you wasn't getting on the mic.
04:54Right.
04:54If not fact, if you was a girl, you wasn't getting on the mic either.
04:58You had to have one of those emcee voices.
05:00I had it.
05:01I had some rhymes.
05:02I kept the party going.
05:04I didn't get in the way of the DJ because that was the number one thing.
05:07Stay away from the transition.
05:08Don't talk over the transition.
05:10Yeah, stay away from the transition.
05:12Know when the DJ's dropping in another beat.
05:14Be able to be a smooth transition over there.
05:17So drop out when he comes in.
05:19I had all that rhythm down because I enjoyed hearing a good party with an emcee and a DJ in lock.
05:26If the emcee ain't in lock with the DJ, leave the emcee, cut the mic off.
05:30That's right.
05:30The DJ can figure it out themselves.
05:32And then they got rap records.
05:36Sit all these amateur emcees down.
05:40That was the beginning of the end of the open mic.
05:44But I was able to be somebody, even with rap records, that would still get on the mic.
05:49And when I joined Spectrum in the beginning, it was more like navigating the record.
05:54So even if it was a rap record or instrumental, maybe I rhyme a little bit here.
05:59Maybe I let the record play there.
06:01Maybe, you know what I'm saying?
06:02So I'm going to the DJ.
06:03The DJ is always in control and in charge.
06:06And you have to understand that you have to understand that sonic playground.
06:12The emcee was not in step with the DJ.
06:15It was a garbage trash event.
06:17And a garbage trash event back in those days and even later on, it could be a security risk.
06:25Absolutely.
06:25So when did y'all, when did, how did Public Enemy come to be?
06:30How did you Flavor Flav and Terminator X meet?
06:32How did y'all form the group?
06:33We were all, we were all participants on WBAU or Delphi Radio.
06:39And we was the first to actually integrate ourselves in radio, playing rap records, playing rap records and talking about them right.
06:46We were very scientific about it.
06:48And we became the radio station that Run DMC listened to because they were right over in Hollis.
06:54Right.
06:54And then Curtis Blow and all of them.
06:56We were doing our thing in Long Island.
06:58And in the city, they wasn't playing rap as much as us and breaking it down.
07:04Like, Mr. Magic was on.
07:06And then you had Red Alert and Chuck Chillout, who they never let talk.
07:10It'd only be on the weekends on Kiss.
07:12And then you had the end of the dial.
07:14You had WHBI.
07:16Awesome tool.
07:17Yeah, exactly.
07:18Awesome tool.
07:19And then you had the Zulu beats.
07:22And that's where Magic came out about it.
07:24So we aspired to be that.
07:26Right.
07:26We didn't want to make records.
07:28But when we made records, I think this is a spark, a bulb in you.
07:34Me, I thought that what we were doing is something that wanted to emulate.
07:39I wanted to emulate World Famous Supreme Team.
07:41Because I thought what World Famous Supreme Team was doing on WHBI with CLR Justice and Mastermind.
07:50Yeah.
07:50I thought that that chaotic everything was something that turned me on.
07:57You know, I never thought about that because just their production and everything does remind me of Public Enemy's production.
08:04Yeah.
08:04The production, people calling.
08:06Yeah.
08:07I mean, record stopping.
08:08Yeah.
08:09You know, this is chaos.
08:10It was chaos, but it was something that organized chaos.
08:13And very few people bring up World Famous Supreme Team as an influence.
08:17Absolutely.
08:18World Famous Supreme Team was definitely an influence for us and me.
08:21So how did y'all make it to Def Jam?
08:23Because back then, you know, Rush Management, Rolling with Rush had just became a thing.
08:28Everybody wanted to be rolling with Rush.
08:30Yeah.
08:31How did y'all make it to Def Jam Records and Rush Management?
08:34One of the DJs, well, two of the DJs that helped make the WBAU scene was Bill Stephanie,
08:40who later on became the first executive at Def Jam under Russell and Rick, Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin.
08:46And then also after Bill was Andre Brown.
08:49We were all in the same class.
08:51Andre Brown later on becomes Dr. Dre.
08:54The Dr. Dre for the Yo! MTV Raps, which, by the way, they named Yo! MTV Raps off our album, Yo! Bum Ruster Show.
09:02Right.
09:02Wow.
09:03I never knew that.
09:04I never knew that.
09:05So Dre actually was working.
09:08He was actually the first DJ with the Beastie Boys.
09:12So Rick Rubin was the first DJ, and he moved on into production and doing his thing from the dorm.
09:20And then Dre moved in that slot, and he traveled with them on the Raisin' Hell tour.
09:25Remember, Run and everybody, Run especially and Jay, they're all listening to what we're doing at WBAU.
09:31They're not even listening to the city.
09:33Right.
09:33Because everything we were doing is like anything that pop up out of rush, we on it.
09:38So I used to do drop promos for WBAU, and a lot of them.
09:46And Run and them used to, and the Beasties used to take them around as their tapes, as entertainment tapes.
09:54They wasn't taking anything from the city.
09:56They was taking the WBAU tapes.
09:58When I did Public Enemy No. 1, I remember going up there to promote the, you know, a tape to promote the radio station.
10:05But basically, it was happening like, there's a longer story with that, without getting long-winded.
10:12But really, Blow Your Head is something that I used to listen to while I was skating.
10:17I'm a skating freak.
10:18James Brown.
10:18I was a skating freak at Roller Ring, and the DJs used to play Blow Your Head, but they could not connect.
10:27You already scratched short break, but back in the day, you might have been nice, but to connect that break and blow your head,
10:35wham, wham, wham, after the windup, and the beat would come in there, and then it was a hard thing to connect.
10:42But it was always in my head, like, damn, man, if this beat could just go on and on, I mean, because people would lose their mind.
10:51And y'all slowed it down.
10:52Yeah, and they would play Blow Your Head, Scratch, after, like, couples.
10:57Right.
10:57So they'd be like, all skaters, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham.
11:01And let me tell you, when you were talking about gooning out, it was bananas when, wham, wham, and that beat come in.
11:08It was like the first M.O.P. Annie up.
11:13It was like that.
11:14It was bananas, bro.
11:16It's that sonic, that loud noise before the beat drops.
11:19Yeah, I'm telling you, it was a skating thing, and then it was always in my head.
11:24And so when I made the promo, I made a pause tape out of it and made a promo for WBAU.
11:29Jay was hanging out up at BAU.
11:32Dre was the radio jock.
11:34I passed it over Jay's lap into Dre.
11:37Dre played it.
11:39It became like a folk, it became like a legendary thing in 85, and they were playing the tapes.
11:45Rick heard it.
11:46Rick was like, we got to get this guy.
11:48I turned Rick down for two years.
11:49Wow.
11:50It's like, because they just started Def Jam in 84.
11:53Yeah.
11:53But we wanted to become radio guys.
11:56We didn't want to become recording.
11:58We did Spectrum City as a record, but we wanted to be, could you imagine, think back,
12:03because I don't need to be long-winded about this.
12:06Could you imagine if we wanted to be world-famous, Supreme Team-like, or like BLS or KISS?
12:14Right.
12:15But they were like, rap is only going to be in the weekend.
12:18Late at night.
12:19A couple of songs.
12:20Well, yeah, Houdini's going to get in there, whatever.
12:23But keep that hip-hop crap, keep that shit all the way out of here until the weekend.
12:28And that's what we wanted to do.
12:30And basically, it was no way we could get a radio.
12:33They had one radio station out there in Long Island called WLIR, and they did punk.
12:38And Bill worked for them.
12:39If they would have flipped their format in 1984 into being rap in 84, we would have been, like, legendary, man.
12:48I mean, we ended up being legendary.
12:49We ended up being legendary.
12:50But in radio, we would have been legendary because our format was just, it was revolutionary, man.
12:57It played rap right.
12:59And I feel, in this city, Scratch, in this world, I still don't feel that they've done rap right.
13:05Yeah, I agree.
13:07I agree.
13:08I mean, the rock guys get it, man.
13:11I mean, you can't go into any one of these companies and play around with a Styx or Def Leppard.
13:17And they ain't even Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones.
13:20And they take care, and they curate that and caretake it.
13:23And you can't penetrate it with negligence or nonsense.
13:27Rap music and hip-hop, we done seen the swamp that they turned it into.
13:32Absolutely.
13:32And we done seen, like, okay, yeah, okay, just a DJ.
13:36You know, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, you get the, you know what I'm saying?
13:38It's like, no, these positions and the skill set should be revered.
13:42Like, your skill set, it should be, and it is, to people that know, as much when you talk about, like, you know, Coltrane or Charlie Parker, you know, it's like scratch with the turntables.
13:55Why not?
13:56But if you don't have the people with the body and the knowledge and the wherewithal, not only to know what it is, but to make musical comparisons.
14:06Right.
14:06This is what we always lacked.
14:08And that's why I'm here at The Block.
14:10Yes.
14:11Yeah.
14:11Because they understand that and they appreciate that.
14:13They appreciate the history.
14:14They have the actual knowledge.
14:16And the people that are in place actually have the knowledge of those artists and these DJs as well.
14:23Unfortunately, every radio station isn't like that.
14:26But fast forward, now you're touring all around the world.
14:30Now, what was the craziest tour experience you ever had?
14:38Craziest tour?
14:39I have two Public Enemy crazy tour experiences.
14:42I'll share one, but what?
14:44Well, I mean, every tour has its own characteristics.
14:48I remember, you know, playing, you know, headlining with Luke.
14:51And I'm like, okay, we're going to get the stage set up for you guys.
14:55And Luke said, nah, keep those things up there that the S1s were on top of.
14:58Yeah.
14:58He said you would put dancers on top of it.
15:01So it was like, Luke said, you ain't got to make a stage change.
15:04And so, you know, those were all experiences from my man.
15:08And then also, like, the rock rap hybrid, like when we toured with Airthrax.
15:16That was crazy.
15:17That was crazy.
15:18Because every day I had to step my level up in speed and power.
15:21It's one thing to have power, but to step it up in speed and two different genres, that was something that when I came from that tour, I said nothing could stop me.
15:35Now, I don't know I categorize as an emcee like others because our brand, our style is different.
15:43Mine was speed and power.
15:44Right.
15:44You know what I'm saying?
15:45And you couldn't mix Public Enemy records with other records.
15:49You know what I'm saying?
15:50You had to mix Public Enemy records with Public Enemy records because they're crazy.
15:54It's crazy like that.
15:55So, I learned from that tour with Airthrax that if it wasn't crazy and fast and powerful in 91 by 92 with Airthrax, I came up out of there like, yo, man.
16:08Because it was like one of those things like either you do the stage or the stage and the song's going to do you.
16:14Yeah.
16:14So, I had to be like totally 100% fit to do those songs because your lungs is going like this.
16:21Yeah.
16:21And not a lot of cats, I mean, you know, Kane could deal with speed and power and dance.
16:28I'm dealing on speed, power, and throwing fists, and fighting, and jumping like it's punk.
16:33It's all about conditioning.
16:35It's about conditioning, really, because you, Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J.
16:40Yes.
16:41Were like the main three that had that breath control, running back and forth across the stage, not losing a breath and making it happen.
16:49But I'll share a Public Enemy story.
16:51I was 19.
16:54I was opening up for Run DMC and Public Enemy on the Run's House tour.
16:59And the first show was in England, in London.
17:04Yes.
17:04Brixton Academy.
17:05And right before that, there was a big thing that was going on with Public Enemy because y'all had pissed off Margaret Thatcher.
17:16I think she's the prime minister of the year.
17:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:19We had words for that.
17:20We had words for her.
17:21And that was the first time this has ever happened.
17:23Like, rappers pissing off world leaders.
17:26Right.
17:27And Professor Griff was banned from the country.
17:32Right.
17:32And I remember I finished doing my set.
17:36I'm the opening act for Run DMC.
17:37It's my first time ever out of the country.
17:40Yeah.
17:41He wasn't banned from the country.
17:42He wasn't banned?
17:43No, he wasn't banned from the country.
17:44And we wasn't banned either.
17:46But there was a lot of noise about us.
17:47No, y'all wasn't banned.
17:48But it was some trouble.
17:50It was after him.
17:50It was about, yeah, he'd come publicating me with a whole bunch of stuff.
17:53I remember.
17:54It was after Griff.
17:55Yeah.
17:55And I finished my set and I go in the crowd.
17:59I go all the way to the top because I want to watch the show.
18:02I'm studying.
18:03I'm learning from y'all.
18:05And out of nowhere, Professor Griff pops up on the stage.
18:09And he was actually banned from that venue, from that city.
18:15And he runs on the stage and everybody goes crazy because he was banned.
18:20He was actually banned that day.
18:22And everybody went crazy because he popped up on the stage.
18:25Right.
18:26He gets on the mic.
18:27Everybody say F. Margaret Thatcher.
18:29And the crowd sang it.
18:32F. Margaret Thatcher.
18:33F. Margaret Thatcher.
18:35This is England, by the way.
18:37This is a monarchy.
18:39You don't talk about the queen.
18:40You don't talk about.
18:41You know, it's not like our country where we have freedom of speech.
18:43And that was at Brixton.
18:44Listen, that was the last show that the original four played together up to that time.
18:49So I was like, this was his last gig at that particular time before he went off and did
18:55the last Asiatic Disciples project on Luke Records.
18:59But yeah, we was like, yeah, we're going to do one last show with all of us together.
19:02And boom.
19:03And that was one for the ages.
19:05He was running back and forth across the stage.
19:08Then he left the stage.
19:09I finished the show.
19:10And he snuck out of England somehow before daylight.
19:16Snuck out of England, went to France.
19:19I think they took the ferry.
19:21Yeah.
19:22The ferry to France over, you know, to Dover.
19:24And it was all over the news the next day.
19:29It was in the paper.
19:30I think I still have the newspaper.
19:32It was in the paper.
19:33Margaret Thatcher, Professor Griff, everything that was said, everybody was after him, but
19:40he was already going out of the country.
19:42And then when we got to France, you know, the tour continued with Griff.
19:46Right.
19:46That was one of my.
19:48So you were like saying, what the hell am I in?
19:52Yeah.
19:52You were like, what is this now?
19:54You know?
19:55Yeah.
19:55Yeah.
19:56You know, our interviews, man, were a lot more exciting than a lot of Cats shows.
20:01Because we would go in the countries and they would be like, the journalists like they
20:08are in the NBA.
20:09And they'd be like 50 deep.
20:11And they're not asking like rap questions.
20:14You know what I'm saying?
20:15And so we kind of knew what was coming at us, but we would look at an artist that was
20:20kind of playing with us and they'd be like, what the fuck is this?
20:23You know, like, you know, the whole key was like, we were saying something that a lot
20:30of people were feeling at a particular time.
20:32Yeah.
20:34Like the queen.
20:36I remember going on stage and calling Queen, Queen Eliza, B-I-T-C-H.
20:42Yes.
20:42I was like, you know, so, I mean, part of the reason is that they infantiled us by saying,
20:51oh, here comes the rappers with rap music out of the United States.
20:53So they thought it was going to be high school kid stuff.
20:56And so we gave them more than what they bargained for.
20:59So, you know, and we said, as you infantile the music, you can't infantile us as far as
21:07a people, man, woman.
21:10And we spoke for a lot of people that, and especially black folks back then in Europe and the UK.
21:16Let's talk about the new album real quick before we close it out, man.
21:18Radio Armageddon really is like a throwback to, like, what we did at BAU.
21:25Yeah.
21:25The producer is a guy named C-Doc who started out as our filmmaker, but he has manifested the
21:34learn and development the way the Bomb Squad did things and some and with his style and
21:41in the world of, well, you can't use a sample nowhere, no more anyway.
21:47But there's ways to go about it and there's levels that you can go into and recreate, and
21:54I'm not going to say what it is, but his sudden left turn production style and his acceptance
22:01of DJs, scratchology, turntablism, MC.
22:10When you hear me actually on the record as an MC, it's not like a public enemy record.
22:15It's more like I'm emceeing rappers coming in.
22:17So when we did New Gens, I kind of had this quirky style in there, but it's sort of like
22:24emceeing, and when you hear Daddy O, it's conventional.
22:28What Rock Is is my favorite song on that album.
22:30What Rock Is, yeah, naming topics and...
22:32Three different tempos, like it starts out super high tempo.
22:37Yeah.
22:37And then it goes, like, half tempo.
22:40Yeah.
22:40And then the beat switches to, like, a Miami bass.
22:43Gear changes and sudden left turns.
22:45Amazing.
22:46And then, I'm telling you, the next piece of work that this dude does, and it's already
22:54in, I can't say anything about it, but it's probably, and it's hard to blow people's minds
23:01by listening, because people don't listen with their ears no more.
23:04They listen with their eyes.
23:05They got to see it.
23:06They screen ages.
23:07But, I'm telling you straight out.
23:10That was a bar.
23:12Screen ages.
23:13Screen ages.
23:13Everybody, from eight to 80, they screen ages.
23:15They need to screen, but this next thing that C-Doc has done, I call him Brian Eno.
23:21Brian Eno is the producer of U2.
23:24C-Doc is Brian Eno, because what he's about to bestow into the Sonic marketplace, you don't
23:35have to like it, or you don't have to listen to it, but it's going to be heard.
23:41Man, that one song changed my mood three times in one song.
23:44What rock is?
23:45Yes.
23:46Because you rock.
23:47I was driving.
23:48I was driving fast.
23:51The beat changed.
23:52I slowed down, and I'm bopping my head.
23:54I'm like.
23:55Yeah.
23:56And then it switched to like a Miami bass.
23:58Now, I'm like this.
23:59Yeah.
24:00It's meant to be ugly and misunderstood.
24:02And I had to look, and I'm like, did the song change three times?
24:06No, this is the same song.
24:07This is crazy.
24:08This is dope.
24:09Radio Armageddon has no beginning and end to it.
24:12It really had no beginning and end to it.
24:13So, one of the things that, you know, with EP going around and doing promotion today,
24:19it's like, okay, this is the song that's sore like the single, but it got no beginning
24:24and end.
24:24Right.
24:25You can't shave singles off of it.
24:27And the one, I guess the next one is called Black Don't Dead, which means like, you know,
24:32as black folks, we always hear that, you know, yeah, black don't crack.
24:36It's not really like an MC record as opposed to like, it's damn near like a radio station
24:41with acid poured on it.
24:44It's an amazing project, man.
24:45Yeah.
24:45And thank you for coming through.
24:48It's an honor to talk to you again.
24:50And how crazy is it that we was on tour when I was 19 years old and now we're here?
24:55I don't, I don't, we're growing.
24:58We're growing.
24:59We're growing.
25:00Yeah.
25:01We share our friends, Gina Barge and Lee Farmer.
25:05Absolutely.
25:06Out in Chicago.
25:07Lee and Gina, salute.
25:08Love y'all.
25:09Yep.
25:10Man.
25:11It's an honor.
25:12Thank you, Chuck.
25:12Well, I'm proud of you being the hero that you are, the innovator and pioneer that you
25:19are in, in the fact that you're a technology master that, cause I've, I've been hearing
25:25you fight that fight for a long time as well.
25:29Thank you, Chuck.