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5

It’s the Flavor

In their continuing quest to make a name for Long Island, the Spectrum crew had taken to recording local rappers and playing the tunes on air. The Townhouse Three, a group from Freeport, Long Island, were one of these lucky groups. (In later years, Busta Rhymes, Charlie Brown and Dinco D of Leaders of the New School would be equally fortunate.) While they were careful to keep their own soulful identity, like almost everyone else, they modelled themselves on the Cold Crush Brothers, the innovative collective of pioneers from The Bronx (Cold Crush member Grandmaster Caz had to suffer the indignity of having his rhymes bitten (copied) by Big Bank Hank of The Sugar Hill Gang. If you listen closely to ‘Rapper’s Delight’, Hank even spells out his nickname, ‘Casanova Fly’). Later on, the trio struck a chord with hip-hop fans as Son of Bazerk. Chuck remembers their songs being just as good as anything else that was about at the time, if not better.

‘People thought they were regular records, better than the records we were playing.’ Cos once you hear it on the radio it wasn’t no difference.’ In just under a decade, Son of Bazerk would sign to Hank Shocklee and Bill Stephney’s SOUL label and enjoy a big hit with ‘Change the Style’. The song’s video, which features Bazerk dressed up as a reggae singer, a doo-wop crooner and a heavy metal artist, is one of the funniest hip-hop videos ever made and was a favourite on Yo! MTV Raps.

The Townhouse Three, aka Son of Bazerk, were another important factor in forming what would become Public Enemy. In 1982 Tony ‘TA’ Allen, known as TA the DJ, introduced William Drayton, aka Flavor Flav, to the fold. In the early eighties he went by the name of MC DJ Flavor. Bazerk needed someone to play keyboards on a tape he was recording for WBAU. Flavor, who was known as a musician around town – he’d also briefly played drums in a band with future Bomb Squad member Eric Sadler – was his preferred candidate.

This true original made the right impression on the Spectrum crew almost instantaneously. After Flav was introduced to Chuck, Hank and Keith, someone, it’s unclear who, made the mistake of starting a game of the dozens while he was present. Flavor Flav remembers this moment well. ‘Back in the days the thing was the dozens,’ he says of the phenomenon more commonly known as ‘yo’ mama’ jokes. ‘We were always snapping on each other’s moms, snapping on each other’s pops, snapping on each other’s cribs, snapping on each other. So, I went up there, and started to snap and everything. Next thing you know I was taking on all three of them. Chuck, Hank and Keith. And I was winning. Matter fact, I wasn’t winning, I won.’ He turns to Chuck, who was sitting on the other side of the tour bus when I spoke to him, and in an excited, playful voice stakes his claim in the snapping game. ‘I showed y’all that fucking night Chuck, you know that shit. That’s why y’all kept me around. That’s why y’all niggas kept me around ’cos I was murdering y’all. I ain’t gonna lie.’ Chuck’s laughs are enough to satisfy Flav that he’s right.

‘I had to defend my title that night,’ he continues. ‘I was killing them that night. Next thing you know I started hanging out at the studio, they let me start staying up there, started letting me get involved. That’s how I ended up becoming part of the entity.’ The humour and light relief that Flavor would bring to PE had always been there. ‘Claustrophobia Attack’, one of his pre-PE songs, featured him rhyming over the Ohio Players’ ‘Fopp’ about the perils of getting caught in an elevator with a woman who has bad breath.

Flav was so good he was beating future professionals at the dozens. One night after a gig, the Spectrum crew found themselves chowing down at a White Castle burger restaurant around three in the morning. A local comedian from Roosevelt named Steve White happened to be present, and a snap battle ensued between Steve and Flavor. Steve was no soft touch and would go on to feature in both film and TV. He has appeared in the Spike Lee films Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and Clockers and Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America, and has graced TV shows like Hangin’ with Mr Cooper.

‘He was considered the next Eddie Murphy,’ is how Bill Stephney sums White up. Despite this, like everyone else, he just couldn’t handle Flavor. ‘They went back and forth, back and forth and Flavor just killed him and the whole place just started roaring when Flavor came up with this one line. Flavor has always been a star.’

Nevertheless, as Bazerk already knew, Flavor had even more on offer than his ability to tell ‘yo’ mama’ jokes. He had mastered numerous instruments, and his skills as a musician would become very useful to PE. The first instrument the young Flav learned was the organ. His mother bought his older sister an organ and before long little William had learned to play the theme to Batman. Then, in school, he began learning the drums during sixth grade. From there it snowballed. He started to learn how to read music and after he began playing with the school band, MC DJ Flavor picked up every instrument he could lay his hands on and learned them by ear. ‘I just started messing with all the other instruments in the band room and everything. Just by myself in school, cutting class and going down to the band room. That’s how I learned how to play the flute, the French horn, xylophones, tuba. I can play the oboe, all that.’ As someone who had been in bands before he joined PE, he knew what it felt like to perform and was comfortable onstage. In short, he slotted in perfectly. In time, Flavor Flav would become PE’s secret weapon.

By his own admission his childhood in Freeport was something of a troubled one. Flav was also well known locally for shenanigans that had nothing to do with his skills as a musician. Like a lot of black ghetto families, or any families living in neglected areas, his family consisted of a few different types. There were extremes of good and bad. ‘My family was mixed up,’ he says. ‘My moms and them went to church, my pops and them were street. You know how regular family life shit go.’ Flav describes his young self as ‘a real bad kid, real wild, a real handful’. There was the usual petty thuggery: stealing cars, and things of that nature. But this didn’t last. Before he joined PE, William went to college and got himself a chef ’s degree. At one point he was a school bus driver. ‘I ended up growing up and being mild mannered,’ he points out. Spectrum’s good-natured decision to let other young guns knock out some tunes at their beloved headquarters paid off well. By the end of 1982, Flavor had his own show. His Saturday night slot from ten till eleven-thirty led perfectly into the Spectrum show.