Watch: Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World tonight on PBS at 9 PM ET. Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy talks about the Black struggle during the ’60s helped give birth to hip-hop. 

Chuck D will see the publication of his first art book this coming fall. Livin Loud is a body of work influenced by his politics and musical influences. The pieces will be accompanied by Chuck D’s commentary informed by his time growing up in the ’60s during the Civil Rights movement. Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello wrote the foreword for the book that has over 250 works. The book brings Chuck D’s career full circle as he was a graphic artist before he co-founded the rap group Public Enemy. He explained this move in a press statement:

“I was already expressing my political viewpoint through my art and graphics, so the bridge into music was a natural next step. First, I expressed myself with my head and my hands, and then later with my voice.”

Genesis Publications will release Livin Loud on November 29th as a hardcover and there will be 1,200 signed copies bound in cloth with gold foil in a clamshell box. A second volume is included and has a reproduction of Chuck’s sketchbook. The deluxe edition has numbered prints of Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and Run DMC. The Collector’s edition has the same features except for a numbered print of Public Enemy. To order the book check out ChuckDbook.com. 

Chuck D of Public Enemy has shared an open letter to Live Nation the entertainment that is being sued along with Apple and Travis Scott for the Astroworld Festival tragedy.

 

Chuck D of Public Enemy will narrate and co-produce USE OF FORCE: The Policing Of Black America, a new documentary that looks at deadly police misconduct and reform solutions. The film has interviews with various people from the movement including Mrs. Valerie Bell, mother of Sean Bell who was shot and killed by New York City police in 2006. Bell states,

“This film sheds light on the need for police reform and my relentless focus to ensure no other family lives through the pain of fifty shots. What happened to our family was not good, but I am grateful to God for allowing me to fulfill my purpose. God will always get the glory while Sean Bell gets his rightful story.” 

Premo Studios, Stable Six Islabrava Productions are producing USE OF FORCE. Cary Grant, Lathan Hodge, Esteban Martin and NFL All-Pro Defensive End Calais Campbell are Executive Producers of this international production. 

Chuck D. says, “These experiences need to be told and retold and it’s the selflessness of these families that keeps us pushing for reform. Cary, Lathan, Calais and their team make USE OF FORCE a necessary history lesson – one that we’re still living through.”  

USE OF FORCE has interviews with victims’ families, law enforcement, prosecutors, political leaders and activists including:

• Valerie Jarrett, Former Senior Advisor to Former President Barack Obama
• John Choi, County Attorney (Ramsey County, MN) and prosecuting attorney in the Philando Castile case
• Valerie Bell, Mother of Sean Bell, killed by NYPD
• Alicia Garza, Principal at Black Futures Lab, Co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the Strategy & Partnerships Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the co-founder of Supermajority
• Jonathan Parham, Former Police Chief (Linden, NJ)
• George Hofstetter, University Innovation Fellow at Stanford Fellow and founder of George Hofstetter Technologies
• Glenn Kirschner, Former Federal Prosecutor and MSNBC Legal Analyst
• Roy Austin, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under former President Barack Obama
• Jacquelyn Carter, Executive Director of the Alliance for Safe Traffic Stops
• Sean LaJacono, Former Metropolitan Police Department Officer (Washington, DC)
• Adanté Pointer, Civil Rights Attorney (Oscar Grant, Willie McCoy)
• “Pastor Mike” McBride, Director of Urban Strategies and LIVE FREE Campaign with Faith in Action, co-founder of Black Church PAC and the National Black Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, Advisor on former President Obama’s Faith Based Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
• Dr. Taft Quincey Heatley, Lead Pastor, Shiloh Baptist Church (Alexandria, VA)
• Frank Baumgartner, Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, founding member of the Board of Directors of Healing Justice and author of “Suspect Citizens.”

USE OF FORCE will be screened at international film festivals in the fall of 2021.