Chuck D on Public Enemy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction: 'It’s not ever really been about us'

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“Spike Lee, our good friend, was able to take a Public Enemy song, which definitely wasn’t getting played on the radio, and had the audacity to put it in a movie,” Chuck points out. “Not only did Spike Lee put “Fight the Power” in Do the Right Thing, he put it in 50 times. He killed it.”

From there, people around the world began to raise their fists to Public Enemy’s bravado. Chuck admits however, they never looked for approval nor do they now, even from the most prominent of subjects.

“To expect [President Obama] to say he listens to Public Enemy is absolutely crazy,” he observes. “We don’t expect him to say anything about it. If they jumped on his ass about Common, that’s what that is.”

The 25th anniversary of It Takes A Nation…

On top of the Hall of Fame distinction, Public Enemy also celebrates the 25th anniversary of its most influential album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, this month.

As a follow-up to their less recognized debut, Public Enemy released the record in April of 1988. This time around, they made sure that if music initially failed to notice them, it wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

The album charted for 51 weeks on the Billboard 200, and was certified platinum by 1989.

“When we first made it, we wanted to make a What’s Going On for rap music. We wanted to take it to high art,” Chuck remarks. “We wanted to be able to do something that actually wasn’t being done, and make it last for a long time for the art-form.”

Noting its current relevance, he adds, “Twenty-five years might be a long time in music, but it’s a short time in real life.”

Then hip-hop wandered astray

Expressing pride and frustration, Chuck describes a loss of integrity in hip-hop today, blaming not only artists but record labels as well.

“We’ve seen the disappearance of groups in hip-hop, we’ve seen the eradication of women,” he says. “There’s high art and there’s low art. Low art is no effort, no concern, maybe a little bit of selfishness to try and get money out of people and just call it hip-hop for whatever reason. There’s high art that moves people in ways that it touches your vibrations and your emotions in a way that you can find in yourself to do things… We’re proud to be part of the genre, proud to be part of the infrastructure, but very disappointed in how a lot of cats have dropped the ball.”

He stresses the significance of upholding the legacy.

“At the root of this [music] was probably a black person strumming a chord on the side of an old shack expressing themselves because they weren’t allowed to say anything to their slavemaster,” Chuck continues. “At the root of that is the blues, and at the root of that blues comes a certain attitude of a black man playing a guitar. In the same way, you have a black man on the turntable in the 80’s. You don’t see many black DJs anymore.”

The future of Public Enemy

Accordingly, Public Enemy will not let up.

The group moves forward on a mission to make music, tour, and encourage “raptivism” and black leadership. They even created a line of books to broaden the depths of their authority.

So, in other words, believe this hype.

Chuck comments, “We like to acknowledge and tip our hat to people who do things.”

Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @CourtGarcia