At a truly amazing Toronto show, hip-hop legends Public Enemy poured everything they had into a two-hour set that spanned their remarkable career. Though he raps about being on the “senior circuit” on PE’s latest album, Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp, 52-year-old Chuck D fed off the raw energy of the live rock band-PE configuration and his manic partner in rhyme, 53-year-old Flavor Flav.
He ran around with the energy and hunger of a man half his age.
“I was inspired today by Run DMC in Pennsylvania,” Chuck said in an interview shortly after the show Sunday night. Earlier in the day, Run DMC reunited for their first show since original member Jam Master Jay was shot 10 years ago in what remains an unsolved homicide.
They were invited to play Jay-Z’s inaugural Made in America festival in Philadelphia, which Chuck had some choice words about, both onstage at the Sound Academy and again in conversation. Even though he respects Jay-Z, he said that for political reasons, he declined to play at the festival.
“I know I’m made in America but I’m really made on the planet,” he told CBC Music. “I’m not made by America. So, we like to protest and be difficult. But I salute them for bringing rap music to the forefront and for Run DMC to get that slot.”
One of the biggest highlights of Public Enemy’s Toronto show was an impromptu appearance by Canada’s original king and queen of hip-hop, Maestro Fresh Wes and Michie Mee. The Maestro dropped some amazing new verses about being the "prime minister of hip-hop" that had the crowd, D and Flavor Flav roaring. Michie Mee spit some rhymes, too, but was really there to “bless” the night, as Chuck D graciously put it.
When asked to name a hallmark of Canadian hip-hop, Chuck D had a succinct answer: honesty.
“There was a time where Toronto artists started out very honest because hip-hop was honest,” he explained. “Then, U.S. hip-hop was backed by a certain point of view and those that were dissatisfied with how they could not launch out of Canada and be more known, they started to mimic the U.S. too much. Then they returned to their roots of just being honest with it, and that’s been a big thing for Canadian hip-hop.”
Always outspoken, Chuck D’s unflinching eye locks on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne boasts on a recent song called “Catch the Thrown.” While hip-hop’s golden age was about black empowerment, the music is now breeding millionaires, seemingly out of the gate. It was one thing to stand up for one’s pride and self-respect and demand more, it’s quite another to vault up off of the streets from nothing and tauntingly brag about one’s wealth and becoming a one percenter.
“It’s really very important that hip-hop and rap music supports the people,” Chuck D said. “’Catch the Thrown’ is very obvious in the lyrics. It’s like who’s gonna catch the people who are thrown at, thrown under and thrown to the side? And ‘watching the throne’ is a little arrogant elitism that we’ve always shot down.”
On Oct. 1, Public Enemy will release The Evil Empire of Everything, a new LP the group describes as a fraternal twin to Most of My Heroes. It features contributions from Ziggy Marley, Henry Rollins, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and others.
“It’s really like an odd approach to music,” Chuck D says of the album. “I have this record called 'Everything,' which is like, if Otis Redding could rap today, how would he sound? And then the song is about people who swear that they have everything but really have nothing, and people that have nothing but, if they look around, they really have everything.”
Watch this interview with Chuck D:
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