Don't Rhyme for the Sake of Riddlin': The Authorized Story of Public Enemy

Russell Myrie’s Don’t Rhyme for the Sake of Riddlin’ is the first authorized biography of Public Enemy, the foremost hip-hop group of all time. With unprecedented access to the group, Myrie has conducted extensive interviews with Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, Professor Griff, and the Shocklee Brothers, along with many others who form a part of Public Enemy’s legacy. Beginning with the group’s inception on Long Island and working up to the present day, Myrie writes with in-depth detail about the making of each seminal album, including It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and their multimillion selling album, Fear of a Black Planet. Myrie delves into the controversy sparked by Professor Griff’s alleged anti- Semitic remarks, the complexities of PE’s relationship with the Nation of Islam, the group’s huge crossover appeal with white and alternative music audiences in the early nineties, and finally the strange circumstances of Flavor Flav’s re-emergence on reality TV with shows such as The Surreal Life and Flavor of Love. A rare behind-the-music look at the group that fought the power, terrorized the music industry, and was crucial to the development of the hip-hop music phenomenon.

Publishers Weekly

The most critically acclaimed rap outfit in history is chronicled deferentially in this entertaining but frustratingly sloppy biography by Village Voice arts editor Myrie. The lives of Public Enemy's yin and yang superstars, the solemn lyricist Chuck D and the outrageous hypeman Flava Flav, along with their outsize coterie of producers, DJs, security forces and one "media assassin," are recounted anecdotally, often in the participants' own voices. The group's evolution from a collection of radio and party DJs called Spectrum City at Adelphi University in Long Island to a politically charged monster packing the streets of Brooklyn to film the video for "Fight the Power" was the result of a remarkable confluence of talent, discipline and luck. The characters come to life in small, insightful moments: Chuck D riding on Greyhound buses around the country by himself at the height of the group's fame, the Bomb Squad collaborating with Ice Cube in an East Coast-West Coast dream team. Myrie is defensive on controversial flash points of the group's history, particularly Professor's Griff's alleged anti-Semitic comments to a reporter. However, Flav's struggles with drugs and subsequent re-emergence as a reality TV Frankenstein come to life through his inimitable voice, making one wish for a well-curated oral history rather than Myrie's cluttered approach. (Mar.)