Chuck D

Chuck D founded Public Enemy with Terminator X in 1985, recruiting Flavor Flav and Professor Griff to complete a group he called "the Black CNN." Their second album, 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' sold over a million copies and received a rare five-star rating from Rolling Stone in 1988. The Bomb Squad's dense, sampledelic production provided the bed for Chuck D's stentorian delivery of lines like "1989, the number, another summer." He wrote the anthem 'Fight the Power' for Spike Lee's 1989 film 'Do the Right Thing,' embedding Black nationalist thought into mainstream cinema. Public Enemy's first five albums all achieved RIAA platinum certification. Chuck D testified before Congress on digital sampling rights in 1990. He launched the multimedia platform Rapstation.com in 1991 and later hosted a show on Air America Radio. His 2020 audiobook, 'The Story of Public Enemy,' won a Grammy. He has taught at Cornell University and Adelphi University. By treating the recording studio as a press office and the stage as a rally, Chuck D established hip-hop as a primary vehicle for political discourse.