Yahoo Autos Public Enemy: Our 1988 Interview With Chuck D and Flavor Flav
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This article originally appeared in the January 1988 issue of SPIN.
Critics don’t like them. Black radio stations won’t play them. But in less than a year Public Enemy has managed to sell 275,000 copies of their debut LP, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, and has toured the U.S. and Europe with L.L. Cool J.
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They hit the stage like an alliance of shock troop and rap group. Behind them stand the S1Ws (which stands for Security of the First World), their gun-toting, Muslim backup crew (the guns are unloaded). The music is hard and the message is strong—maybe too strong for some. Chuck D is the meat of the message, and Flavor Flav is the spice—the younger sidekick who tempers the militance.
“You wear a clock to know what time it is. And when you know what time it is, that means you are aware. And we are very aware, so we wear bigger clocks than many.” —Chuck D
SPIN: Why Public Enemy?
CHUCK D: It’s to the public that totally believes in the goodness of the system and that believes that the system is good. I’m their enemy because the system is not good and the system has treated black people on the whole in one of the cruelest manners in mankind. And this is the same system that uses people on the whole—their hands over their hearts and swear to a flag. Or, you know, saying, “In God We Trust.” But whose God? Whose God do they trust? It’s the same country that had blacks in slavery and bondage for three hundred years and then another mental slavery that’s going on now which has gotten to the point of a brainwashing that has blacks killing themselves. So whose God is this country’s God? Hmm? So basically then, to the people that believe in this system and believe that America is beautiful—I’m their enemy. I’m the public enemy: the black man is the public enemy.
