Chuck D on Prophets of Rage & the State of Hip-Hop
(photo: Digital Trends)
When Prophets of Rage kick off their U.S. tour July 19 in Cleveland – while the Republican National Convention is in town – co-frontman Chuck D understatedly notes that it “should be interesting.”
The rock-rap supergroup featuring the instrumental core of Rage Against the Machine, the Public Enemy frontman and B-Real from Cypress Hill will be bringing with it a setlist that includes such incendiary protest songs as Rage’s “Take the Power Back” and “Killing in the Name,” Cypress Hill’s “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” and P.E.’s “Fight the Power.”
And, of course, Rage Against the Machine had a history of provocative performances at past political conventions, including at the Democratic National Convention in 2000, which ended with the power cut off and a melee between protesters and police. In 2008, at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, the band was prohibited from performing on the State Capitol lawn by riot police, Rage instigator/guitarist Tom Morello claimed – although they did manage to bust out a few songs a cappella with megaphones. Following RATM’s show the next night at the Target Center, more than 100 people were arrested in a spontaneous demonstration outside the arena.
On top of that, Morello stirred the pot by with his guest appearance on Ryan Harvey’s recently released recording of “Old Man Trump,” which features lyrics Woody Guthrie wrote about Donald Trump’s father, Fred, more than 60 years ago. In a video recorded to promote the song, Morello lays into Donald Trump, saying, “When it comes to race relations, he’s like an old-school segregationist. When it comes to foreign policy, he’s like an old-school napalmist. When it comes to women’s issues, he’s like a frat-house rapist. So let’s not elect that guy.”
“We didn’t ask for the political climate to be this weird so we can be the anecdote,” Chuck telsl Yahoo Music, but the fact that the country is divided on a number of hot-button issues makes the formation of Prophets of Rage “twice as interesting.”
Chuck’s still buzzing about band’s May 31 live debut on the Sunset Strip, the scene of riots of the late ‘60s. “The Whisky [concert] was our ‘Woodstock moment,’” he says in a transatlantic phone call while traveling between Public Enemy gigs in Manchester and London. “It was like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young coming together with three acts: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies. You had Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill coming together. The difference was there were only 300 people in the room, but with social media and the way things metastasized, a million people might have been there, and it’s growing.”
Prophets of Rage’s following is indeed growing. Their Whisky A Go Go gig was followed days later by another sold-out show, this time at the 3,700-capacity Hollywood Palladium, and the supergroup’s above-mentioned, 35-plus city tour will hit mostly amphitheaters across the country, along with a few arenas. For the veteran frontman of Public Enemy, though, the size of the venues isn’t all that important.
“I don’t care how big the place is,” he says. “The size of the stage matters to me. Everything else is a matter of process, so it could be 150,000 people or 300 in a room. I played to 30,000 people last week. It’s all relative to me after a while. Our performance and our staging is the thing that’s important, and calling off songs that people have known for a long time and people can apply to their reality is the point we’re trying to reach.”
Those songs are a combination of Rage Against the Machine staples, along with “Rageified” versions of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill classics. The sextet, which also includes P.E. turnablist DJ Lord, secretly began meeting at the beginning of the year, with two months of grueling rehearsals that often pushed Chuck to the limit. Chuck calls Morello “a perfectionist” and says while the concept of Prophets of Rage looked good on paper, the band had to make sure it worked in reality. “We agreed in order to beat the paper you’ve got to give up the blood in rehearsals,” Chuck says. “Whether we’re going to 'Rageify’ songs or take on Rage songs, it’s got to take perfection.
According to Chuck, Prophets of Rage was all Morello’s idea. "A couple of years ago we closed out the Grammys with kind of like a super-collaboration with myself, Tom, Z-Trip, LL Cool J, and Travis Barker. It stayed in Tom’s mind,” Chuck says. “At the same time, Rage had done their last performance in 2011, so with a combination of just being able to take the two and also the climate that’s here.”
“This all came together organically,” he continues. “It wasn’t like a record company put it together. It wasn’t like a management or agency put it together. It was something that was like the perfect storm out of Tom’s head. It went beyond even his initial plans. You can kind of ride it out, but the other side is going to plan itself, too.”
While Chuck says Prophets aren’t aiming to replicate Rage, he and B-Real do have the task of filling in for Rage singer Zack de la Rocha, who reportedly is busy with other projects. “You got myself and B-Real taking on Zack de la Rocha’s lyrics and also inflection. Nobody can take the fire and fury and tone of Zack de la Rocha on his lyrics, but B-Real brings his flow and MC craft and what I provide is the power,” Chuck says. “B also has the ability to go bilingual with the quickness, which is rare for any MC in the United States.”
The band – which includes Rage drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford – also had to figure out who would handle lead vocals on which songs, since Prophets features the two MCs instead of one singer. “It’s a feel thing,” Chuck explains. “Like if I take on a 'Bulls on Parade’ or 'Guerilla Radio’ or 'Take the Power Back,’ I can kind of go into a hard song, where B-Real can take on a more flowing song like 'People of the Sun.’
"And also, in our dynamic, in our regular groups, we have trade-off MCs and hype people,” Chuck continues. “B-Real’s trade-off MC is Sen Dog and mine is Flavor Flav and we carry the opposite tone, so when we do a P.E. record it’s easy for B-Real to do the Flavor part. When we do a Cypress Hill record, it’s easy for me to do Sen Dog’s part.”
As far as that goes, Chuck insists that Prophets isn’t just a revival act. The band also has some new, original material, including “The Party’s Over,” which should be released prior to the tour kickoff. (Morello recently confirmed on Twitter that the band was recording a couple of songs with noted produced Brendan O'Brien before the tour.) “That’s the fun part,” Chuck says. “We’re doing the new material as it all comes together, organically. This is not like a 1990s thing or 2004. Initially, we could have three or four songs that are good. It’s not necessary to knock out 12 new tracks. It’s not that era anymore.”
Prophets of Rage also brings rap-rock back from the dead – a genre that began with the iconic collaboration of Run-DMC and Aerosmith, early Beastie Boys (Prophets cover “No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn” live), and the P.E.-Anthrax reboot of “Bring the Noise,” but was soon played out by Limp Bizkit and a bevy of imitators.
While Chuck, of course, appreciates the power of hip-hop, he also says that rock 'n’ roll has its advantages. “The one thing that makes the rock world powerful is that they all play together,” he says. “In the hip-hop world, things got a little crazy because they let record companies individualize their efforts. And it became less powerful when they took one rapper, one guy and just put him on stage like they’re Tony Bennett and sh-t. I don’t care how many rhymes one got. It’s not that interesting after 12 or 15 f–king minutes, but when you have a band, a bassist, playing with a drummer, playing with a guitar player, maybe with one or two vocalists, it’s panoramic… They let hip-hop dwindle down to a individualist sport, and to me that’s not impressive.
"That’s why Cypress Hill and Public Enemy still tour the world and some U.S. areas don’t get it,” he continues. “A rock act, they got to be together. They got to be in sync with each other. In hip-hop, they don’t think you need more than one person, which is bulls—. No knock against the Kanyes or the Futures, but I’m like what else comes with this package?”
With Prophets of Rage, the instrumental prowess of Rage Against the Machine is part of the package, but it’s only part of the equation. “B-Real is the rap-rock superstar, and I think DJ Lord is the greatest turntablist on the planet, versus anybody and with Tim, Brad, Tom coming together it’s almost like the planet’s lined up to one of the most powerful units ever,” Chuck says, adding, “I’m the weakest of the six, and if I’m the weakest of the six, all hell breaks loose.”
As for how this self-declared “weakest” member will stay strong on the road with Prophets, he surprisingly reveals: “I do Pilates, which to me is the perfect workout for any MC, because it’s all about your core. Your core strength is everything, especially if you do power vocals. It’s not like I’m in my forties, either. My instructor comes up with a great combination of Pilates, yoga, and core strength training, and it helps me out, so that’s what I do – and I still we get wiped out by rehearsals that go into three and four hours.”