William Drayton (1959- ), better known as Flavor Flav, is an American rapper. He was a part of the hip hop act Public Enemy, playing sidekick to Chuck D. They reached their height in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 2000s Flav appeared in several reality shows on television, most notably “Flavor of Love”, one of VH1’s most successful shows.
He is known for saying “Yeah BOYYYEEE!” and “Wow!”. He likes to wear a huge clock and, sometimes, a Viking helmet with horns. He also wears big hats, big sunglasses and gold teeth. Off stage, though, he is well-mannered and well-spoken.
Public Enemy rapped about serious issues. Chuck D compared it to the New York Times. Flavor Flav’s “911 is a Joke”, for example, was about how slow ambulances are in coming to save people in black neighbourhoods.
Flav got the idea of wearing a clock from one of the men in the recording studio who always had a stopwatch hanging from his neck.
Flav was part rapper, part showman but he can also play the piano, drums and guitar. He is a classically trained pianist.
He is still a part of Public Enemy, which still tours and puts out records.
Flav came out with an album of his own in 2006, “Flavor Flav”. It reached #80 on the American hip hop chart. The Source gives it 2.5 stars. It came out under his own label: Draytown. Def Jam, the record label for Public Enemy, would not touch it.
Flav was arrested several times for drugs, in 1996 for marijuana. In 1997 he overdosed. He says he no longer does drugs.
His over-the-top style plays well on reality television. In 2004 he appeared on VH1 on season three of “The Surreal Life”, a show where has-beens live together in a big house somewhere in California. There he had a relationship with Brigitte Nielsen, one that was continued in 2005 for viewers at home in the show “Strange Love”. That did well enough that VH1 gave him his own show, “Flavor of Love”, which ran for three seasons.
On “Flavor of Love” (2006-2008), Flav picks out 20 women from among the hundreds who try out and then lives with them in a big house somewhere in California. Every week he chooses one woman to go home until there is only one left, the winner of the show.
The aim was supposedly for Flav to find a woman who would truly love him for him and not just for her moment in the spotlight. Well, none of the women truly loved him – they just wanted their moment in the spotlight. Not that it mattered: as it turned out, Flav already had a woman.
The show made him famous again and filled his bank account, but it was sad to see someone who was once part of Public Enemy sell out like that.
He comes from the same black middle-class town on Long Island that Chuck D and Eddie Murphy come from: Roosevelt, New York.
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You term him a “sell out”. I and those who have followed him for almost 2 decades recognize him as an entertainer and business man.
He’s decided to branch out and make money in the process. What’s wrong with that?
In your piece, you acknowledge that Public Enemy has not done much since the middle 1990s. So what is William Drayton to do but seek an outlet where he can make money and put food on the table.
Those of us who listened to Public Enemy’s brand of music in the late 80;s/early 90’s recognized early on that Flavor Flav was his own “brand” and “style”. Flav capitalized on his noteriety and made money in the process. After all he’s not getting any younger.
What time is it?
Instead of labelling him as a sell out, it’s “time to recognize” William Drayton’s accomplishments and congratulate him for the success he has achieved thus far.
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A man has to support his family, but I would hope there are more honourable ways to do it.
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Well, Aba, PE’s mainstream visibility may have peaked in the mid-’90s but their output has not stopped at all. The did the soundtrack for the Spike Lee film “He Got Game”, which was released in ’98 and won a Grammy nomination. In the 2000s, they’ve released 4 albums on their own indie label, the most recent came out last year. And they still tour.
Flav is a very intelligent man, I’ll give him that. The whole persona he puts on is as noted, a facade. What’s the difference between what Flav does and Hulk Hogan or some other outlandish celeb do?
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Thanks for the correction about Public Enemy.
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It is hard for me to put Public Enemy and “Flavor of Love” together in the same sentence or the same thought, but with Flavor Flav you have to. I find that somehow unsettling – even though I enjoyed them both.
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The Flavor Flav comedy roast was probably one of the funniest roasts I’ve ever seen. When they said Flavor looked like a skeleton wrapped in electrical tape, I nearly died laughing. He seemed to take it all in stride.
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