Chuck D.
Chuck D.
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, better known by his stage name Chuck D, is an American emcee, author, and producer. As the leader of the rap group Public Enemy, he helped create politically and socially conscious hip hop music in the mid-1980s . About.com ranked him at No. 9 on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time, while The Source ranked him at No. 12 on their list of the Top 50 Hip-Hop Lyricists of All Time...
ProfessionRapper
Date of Birth1 August 1960
CityQueens, NY
song hate band
There's nothing worse than a good video and good song, and you see a band and hate them because they can't perform. That's wack.
cutting past artist
In the past, people were going to record stores and buying albums or CDs. And the label was exposing their artist as much as possible and maybe getting them picked up by a major. Now I tell people to cut a good tune and have it up in the marketplace the next day. You better be prepared to give it away, and people will come pay to see you.
hate people records
I like Rick Ross as a person. I like Jay-Z and Kanye West as people. But I hate the companies that they record for.
song rap diversity
Rap music and rap records used to always be like this: we get one or two shots to a piece cause it was a singles marketplace and when the major record companies saw that it could also handle the sales of the albums then they started to force everybody to expand their topics from 1 to about 10 and you gotta deliver 12 songs, so a lot of times if you took a person who wasn't really developed, and the diversity of trying say 12 different things, you know the companies were like "Cool! Say the same thing 12 different ways."
thinking grace enemy
I think the Internet was the saving grace for Public Enemy. Before that, travelling the world saved Public Enemy.
thinking too-much lawyer
I think too much of the music industry is for the lawyer and accountant mentality.
hate pages kashmir
I totally hate when somebody takes a classic and desecrates it. I like Jimmy Page and P. Diddy, but what they did to 'Kashmir' was a debacle.
trying walking
The truth has no form, you know. It's not like walking around trying to actually ask for favors and to be acknowledged, it is what it is.
stuff term
I'm a multi-tasker. I was down with that stuff before they invented the term.
writing technology reality
The immediacy of the technology of the web allows us, as songwriters, to write something very sharp and quick. That has a lot to do with helping a songwriter be more reflective of reality, instead of being in an area where you have to process things. It's the difference between processing fish and catching it in a boat.
boston rocks berries
I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.
thinking hip-hop able
I'm envious of the way that electronic dance music has organised itself. It has been able to understand what it ain't rather than what it is. And I think that slipped away from hip-hop as soon as the DJs lost the majority of the say so in the direction of the music.
uplifting two government
Government and culture are two diametrically opposed forces - the one blinds and oppresses, the other uplifts and unites.
brother rap gun
Bass! How low can you go? Death row...what a brother know. Once again, back is the incredible, The rhyme animal, the uncannable "D!" Public Enemy Number One. Five-O said, "Freeze!" and I got numb. Can I tell 'em that I really never had a gun? But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun.