Chuck D: 'We are in the war of art, not the art of war'

In the late '80s, legendary hip-hop group Public Enemy blasted onto the world stage with fierce anthems like 'Fight the Power'.

Ahead of their Auckland show this October, founding member Chuck D chats to Music 101 about illustration, the future of hip-hop and the power of pilates.

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With support from local rapper MELODOWNZ, Public Enemy bring their On The Grid 35th Anniversary Tour to Auckland's Trust Arena on 15 October.

Chuck D credits pilates workouts - which he's done for about 12 years - for his ability to still belt out rap songs at 63.

"Public Enemy songs are like training for a decathlon - they're high pitched, they're punkish. We have a mantra that either you do the songs or the songs do you, so you have to be in top shape to go about it."

A lot of men don't understand how stretching out the core helps build strength, he says.

"They think they gotta beat their bodies up. And, you know, go to fitness gyms and stuff like that but after 50, you have to take a new approach and a different technique."

This year, 12 years ago he started working with pilates instructor Kathy Lopez, Chuck D co-authored the book RAPilates which features exercises like Public Enemy No 1, (aka a jackknife) and He Got Game (aka a neck pull).

Growing up in Long Island, before he got "smitten by the technology" of hip-hop as a teen, Chuck D was passionate about baseball and football.

Now baseball is the only sport he follows "kind of religiously", sometimes appearing on the New York Knicks digital platform Knicks Fan TV.

Chuck D says its owner Casey Powell, aka 'CP The Franchise', is somebody whose energy he looks up to.

"I'm always the OG that's honoured that he would ask me questions on how to shape his career as the main talking man on sports in New York."

With his online radio project RAPstation and the cultural media app Bring The Noise, Chuck D is taking Powell's "technical aplomb" into developing hip-hop culture.

"My fight is to bring infrastructure to the [hip-hop] table and have it recognised all over the planet as being a very diverse culture and forward-momentum music."

Although rap culture used to be strong, many artists could benefit from the approach necessary in the highly competitive world of rock music, he says - "Get the point across and be strong about it".

Alongside music, Chuck D has also become a "prolific illustrator" in recent years.

He's completed thousands of sketches, some featured in the 2023 fine art book Livin' Loud.

An early comic book fan, he studied graphic design at university and likes to create artworks with a mixture of Sharpies, white-out and paint "all mixed up in conflict with each other".

"Being able to come up with something that makes somebody say, Damn. that took me to another place, that jarred me.

"To me, I think that's always the meaning of art. I would always like to try to do art that love it or hate it. It strikes an emotion."

At their best, art and culture are about "peace, love, understanding, wisdom and spreading information and education", Chuck D says.

"We're in the war of art, not the art of war. We don't speak in the language of bombs, bloodshed and bullets."

Touring with a band named 'Public Enemy', Chuck D is very aware of people taking the group's name and reputation "at face value" in different parts of the world.

Before visiting a place, he likes to learn about its specific cultural challenges.

"You've got to diffuse all the unnecessary energies to be able to say, Hey, I'm going there to do music for people in a different place and I have to neutralise that activity between them and authorities or even the government in order so we can go there, do our particular programme, and people leave better than how they came in, which is the number one goal for everybody, that you leave better."

As a band, Public Enemy like to focus more on "the brilliance of other people" rather than talking about themselves, D says.

He's proud to champion global hip hop artists and in Auckland will be supported by MELODOWNZ - an artist he's played on RAPstation.

"Coming to a place and playing is half the fun. The other fun is being able to take artists who are doing their thing in their country and being able to play it around the world."

"I tell people all the time, if you're an artist and you're going to these countries and these lands, and you don't take advantage of this gift to see the planet … If you don't take advantage of it It's a tremendous loss if you don't do that."

Right now, as well as all of his other projects, Chuck D says he's trying to make sense of "this crazy, wild-ass year" via a book called 2024.

"You can't make that shit up … I cannot explain what I'm seeing and I'm not going to pretend to explain what I'm seeing."