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Legacy Magazine 3rd Annual
"Interview Of The Year" 2007
Winner
CHUCK D
CHUCK D:
Legacy Magazine "Interview Of The Year" 2007
Well Ladies and Gentlemen... It's our 3rd year handing out "Legacy Magazine interview of the Year". In 2007, Legacy Magazine landed some of it's hottest interviews to date. That's why it even a Greater Honor to award CHUCK D with "Legacy Magazine interview of the Year" 2007. Everyone and their mother knows Chuck D is the front man for one of the most revolutionary musical acts in history, "Public Enemy" and during this interview Chuck reflects a lot on those very ideals that helped set the platform for Revolutionary Hip Hop.
Come check out what Chuck D had to say about winning Legacy Magazine "Interview of the Year" 2007
S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah…You know who this is! This is “the man” S1! Legacy Radio, Legacy Magazine, Legacymag.net…And check it man, today we’re gonna go ahead and put it out there Legacy Magazine interview of the year 2007 and this year the winner is Chuck D…What’s good baby? How you feeling big dawg? Talk to us…
Chuck D: Well you know I really appreciate it…I don’t try and speak for myself, I try and speak for all of us, so what ya’ll contribute to the hip hop world and into the music world and just to the world in particular and letting us speak, you know I’m honored…Thank you…
S1: Alright that’s definitely what’s up…We interviewed a lot of heavyweights last year, a lot of heavy hitter I’m not going to front…It was a pretty good year for us last year but your interview stood head and shoulders above all the rest…Just an individual who is into music but is also into the politics, also into life, also into reality…It was a well rounded interview, definitely…
Chuck D: Interviews is always as good as the questions that are asked…You asked good credible questions and therefore I was able to give some decent answers…
S1: That’s definitely wassup…Again we do appreciate that…But on another tip we understand that you’re a very busy man and it sounds like you got a couple of hectic days coming up…What is it that you are doing nowadays? What do you got planned? What are you currently working on? What’s going on with Chuck D? Talk to us…
Chuck D: You can simply go to Publicenemy.com and it will tell you everything that we’re doing and I’m talking a minute to minute, moment to moment type thing…I’ve come off a 4 year period where we’ve done 7 albums and produced 14 albums, Slam Jams label has something like 85 videos so I mean I’m not going into what I do because that’s really not that important…My thing is trying to figure out ways to make people understand that the future of them and music and hip hop and music is that independent situations, labels and instead of things always on the big screen, things are now on the small screen…Videos, you get em on youtube.com, the myspace page be poppin , all the magazine that have internet access such as yours…That’s where the world is wired like that so for the entertainment community at large it’s like no longer do you wait to get put on to that spot that nobody ever knows where that on is…You can put yourself on and it’s not gonna coming from what you asking for, it’s gonna come from what you mentally demanding…
S1: That’s absolutely a great point you gotta be a go getter…Know what you want and you’ll acquire it…They making it simple for you nowadays but you still gotta go out there and do it…
Chuck D: And anything that you do, you gotta do that…It’s about not only wanting to do something but about getting the training or training yourself to try and do it well so people can return to you say hey you know what? I’m a satisfied customer…
S1: Alright that’s definitely wassup…Again we got Chuck D, Legacy Magazine is very happy to go ahead and award Chuck Legacy Magazine Interview of The Year 2007…One more thing that I wanted to touch on…You just brought up the independent tip at Slam Jams…We do know that you currently released an album last year late December “Trib to JB” which is short for Tribute for JB…Again on Slam Jams…Just bring us up to speed on that…
Chuck D: Well when Mr. Brown passed on Christmas 2006 you know without James Brown there’s no rap music, hip hop because the foundation of hip hop, rap, Afrika Bambatta, Cool Herc and Flash they embodied the James Brown sound…So when he died I just said wow it was such a seismic event, I’d like to figure out what I could do to make some dedicated records to JB and so all the singers, musicians, rappers and DJ’s within my labels said hey let’s just do it amongst ourselves like a family type of tribute…So we took about 12 James brown cuts, did them over in our own particular way, catch rhymes on them and sang on them…
S1: Alright that’s definitely wassup, that’s positive and again that’s the type of thing that you would expect from PE…Where can catz come out and check it?
Chuck D: You can get online at beyond.fm when you go on Slam Jams website where you can hear cuts and download them…But also I would like to mention that I just participated in a James Brown tribute concert headed by Bootsy Collins and all this came about when we did the JB awards last June…
S1: Alright that’s wassup…Again I got the man, the legend Chuck D…Chuck it’s always a pleasure talking to you…Again Legacy Magazine interview of the year 2007 if you haven’t read it, make sure log on and check it out…Any last words Chuck?
Chuck D: Yeah you know reading is a revolution…So the whole thing is to read and comprehend and that’s why we need more people thats able to breakdown the actual ideas and minds of all the artists and glad that ya’ll are allowing that platform to pop and happen…
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CHUCK D Original Interview
S1 & CHUCK D
The Chuck D Interview
S1 & Chuck D
Chuck D: Hip Hop, Racism & Barak Obama
I couldn’t have come up with a better title for a Public Enemy album then this one, “How To Sell Your Soul To Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul.” That is the title to Public Enemy’s 14th album and their message hasn’t really changed that much over the last 20 years. With Flav in the mind of mainstream America with his hit show Flavor of Love you would think that P.E. is finished but that’s far from the truth. S1 recently caught up with Chuck D and this is what he had to say:
S1: This is S1 Legacy Magazine, Legacy Radio, Legacymag.net and today I got the man the wonder, the legend, even though he doesn’t consider himself one, I got my boy Chuck D from Public Enemy…How you feeling today champ?
Chuck D: I’m good…Just knocking out interviews around the world…My trusted great person Jolin knows how long I been trying to get things off of putting off interviews, so everybody forgive me cause it’s usually a long and winding road…
S1: I got a feeling that the people that are on here right now are definitely appreciating it and taking it all in with love and joy…I got a few questions that are fairly important I think within the hip hop community… But to start it off, what do you think about the state of hip hop? Some people saying it's dead, some saying it's alive, some saying it's in a coma?
Chuck D: Well the state of hip hop is being governed by a bunch of people that sit around in a board room and it’s going to always be one dimensional…I mean if Nas says hip hop is dead, maybe he is saying that if it continues to be one dimensional, talking about these aspects of life that deal with death then how much life can there be…Hip hop is life!!! As opposed to hip hop is dead…When hip hop is life, that means there’s a total balance and reflection of everything around us…So I think that if we think that more is always better, bigger is always better, it’s a problem when art falls into the machinery of commerce being the final denominating say so…I mean many people even listening now… It’s like, to be judged by more is better the same problem that the country has trying to choose a president…Meaning that, that person that gets the most votes automatically is the president, but it’s not just about the most votes cause we have this other thing that really makes the final tally and people confuse and fuck with it…So even when it comes down to someone that’s doing a radio show, it’s like okay I do my radio show…So what’s going to allow you to do the radio show? Well I gotta have the most listeners…So that means you’ll do anything to get the most listeners instead of doing the right thing…Well how about I got a magazine, so we got to sell, you know we printed up 100,000 magazines so now we got to get rid of these magazines…So what’s gonna get rid of the most magazines? So we got to do anything to get rid of the most magazines…So anytime something is based on you gotta do bigger and better and more, it could run into problem areas on the long term…And so I’m just basically saying sometimes we have to breathe a little slowly and understand that there is a quality of life as opposed to a quantity of life and hip hop is involved with the quantity instead of the quality…I tell people all the time hip hop should be like life itself you sip it slowly like wine you don’t guzzle it like a 40…
S1: No doubt those are definitely words of wisdom…Been there done that!!! Listen Chuck I got another real question for you on the reels and I want to get your opinion on this…Now as far as Imus using hip hop as a defense…
Chuck D: Yeah…
S1: I’m just gonna say that and I want you to respond because I’m just curious what your thought is on that…
Chuck D: Well his excuse is a scapegoat for him getting away with racist behavior…I mean I was outside of the country when it happened and I could see that from 8,000 miles away sitting in France…Imus has been the same Imus for the last 15-20 years because you know what? He is on a radio show, he has a radio show cause it’s based on the most amount of listeners and he’ll do anything to keep the most amount of listeners to come in…His job is out of quantity not the quality of his show…The quality of the show is crap…The quantity of his show is how many people can you get to listen to it as a shock jock…I hear radio shows in the morning on the black stations, which really ain’t no more they are urban whatever the hell that means…That means you don’t have black ownership so you can call it urban, I thought urban just meant city…So a lot of times they have the radio shows in the morning and they’ll get away with jokes and call people out just to say that they got by means that they can keep the listener in traffic…Sometimes you got say, you know what? We got to stop coming up with tricks to come up with something that keeps the listener based on quality…But like I said if you are going to be judged by quantity being always a rule quantity, I tell people all the time dog food goes double platinum every 2 weeks…What the hell does it mean to you if you ain’t got a dog…That’s why you don’t see the owners of Alpo going around with diamond encrusted Alpo cans around their neck, it’s only dog food…
S1: No doubt…
Chuck D: It is what it is…To me when people start talking about rap music and hip hop and you got to be able to keep people listening by any means necessary, I can’t take a chance with Common unless he’s bringing it because your job is like you gotta do that in order for you to keep your job…So whenever people are in a desperation sense of having to do anything to keep their job or business they will do anything but that has a law of diminishing return cause it only gets worse cause somebody will go lower then you to do whatever they got to get done…And so what we had, the bar of quality has been lowered for sake of quantity and there always has to be a balance there…You know with every 50 Cent you gotta have a Common…You know if hip hop is so big they why don’t you have…Name 2 all woman hip hop squads and crews? I got one on my label named True Girl Order…These are 4 woman from Atlanta and Charlotte…There’s another group 3 Caucasians women from Long Island called Northern State…Name another hip hop female crew?
S1: I can’t do it… I’ll fess up quick…
Chuck D: There you go…I mean people come up and say Salt-n-Pepa a group from 20 years ago!!! I say that if hip hop is so big and you can’t name an all women crew and woman producers and engineers other then Missy…Then how big can the art form be with no women involved in the structure and fabricate of it…And that means you have to have rebuilt someway…
S1: No doubt…That’s real tough, that’s real tough…I got another quick question for you…I know that you have a radio show which I do tune in time to time it’s a great show…I love the fact that you do have that outlet to express yourself and express hip hop along with you…But just from a political point of view, what’s your take on Barak Obama?
Chuck D: My take on Barak Obama…I think he and his wife are great symbols of, you know, they come out of our community…I think in truth America is a gigantic situation that just cannot be solved with a brush stroke…A brush stroke appointment that thinks it’s going to be the band aid that fixes the ailment, meaning what? In a America people can come up with the opinions, their philosophies, their theories all they want…But the actual fact in the matter is that every single president has been a white male and not only that it’s that every single person that has lost to the president has been a white man…So I think America is corrupted by a limited two party system…I mean how long is that going to last and actually say you gonna have some real reform and change and have some fortitude in the system…Really when you have that taking place the fact of the matter is Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, they are juxtaposed by the democrats to essentially cancel each other out…Now there has been a population in America that has elected Bush twice that has a bunch of people scratching their heads!!! Man do you understand that there’s 300 million official people in America that really want to hold on to the way of old…Which means I’m gonna choose me a white male…So the Democrats if they gonna actually play some games…Then why not choose a guy like John Edwards and have Barak and Hilary run as Vice President and ease a person into the Presidency that way as opposed to thinking that they are going to go head up with racism, and then even them getting there, knowing that the Republicans are gonna go in there and chew them up immediately…Cause whoever gets in there next after Bush is going to be cleaning up…So if Barak even was the President, his first month is hell…He got to clean up a mess of 8 years and then of course he’s still a new guy…So my thing is that I’m a realistic person, I’m a citizen of the world…I have to say well yeah this persons leadership qualities…And who is to say who can handle what…But all I know in this system, the way it goes…Let us not be stupid and naïve…
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Interviewed by S1 for LegacyMag.Net
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Nothing But the Best!!!! That'z our WERD!!!!!
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