ture collaborator Hank Shocklee to hone their music-making talents,
build important professional networks, and establish their place in
hip hop. The infusion of black nationalist politics in Public Enemy’s music and style was in tune with the times. The eighties and the rise of Reaganism ushered in a period of intense racial and political dis-cord. Many black collegians found themselves in the eye of contro-
versial storms about a‰rmative action, diversity, and the degree to
which race mattered"nearly a decade and a half after the civil rights movement’s most important victories.
In 1982 Chuck D moved a step closer to launching Public Enemy
when he got his own radio show on Adelphi’s WBAU. A DJ crew he
had joined a few years earlier inspired the show’s name, The Super Spectrum Mix Hour. In response to the show’s popularity, the station manager expanded it to an hour and a half. In those days WBAU’s au-dience consisted of black listeners from Queens and Long Island, in
addition to young whites who enjoyed the garage music and indie
rock that was featured on the station. When the show first began,
there was not enough recorded rap music to feature on the regularly
scheduled program. In order to fill the time slot, Chuck D and the
small crew he worked with began making original tapes of local tal-
ent to air during their broadcast.
Chuck D started experimenting with his own vocals, honing the
MC skills that would leave an indelible mark on hip hop. Though he
was drawn to hip hop, Chuck D was not eager to sign a recording
deal. His activities as a radio personality, party promoter, mix tape producer, and MC had introduced him to a number of individuals
who had been exploited by rap music’s first wave of recording labels.
From the very beginning of his rap career, Chuck D was diĆłerent
from most MCs. When he made his first commercial recording in
1987, he was twenty-six, ancient in hip-hop years. But he believed his age gave him added perspective, a more mature worldview about
the realities of race, which shaped his approach to and purpose for
rhyming. śRappers,” he wrote in 1997, śonly rap about what they
know,” noting, śI didn’t want to rap about ŚI’m this or I’m that’ all the