London UK; A true musician never stops doing music, a true artist never stops  doing art. Art being the extended language from one's soul, makes an  artist not only just do it, but be it. Sounds like blastmaster KRS-ONE's assessment on hip hop, well then follow the teacher when he talks. As far as myself, I consider myself simply a musicologist and curator. Maybe an ambassador for the artform of rap music and hip hop.   If I'm in passing I hope that people could understand that there's never a simple, quick answer to what I'm so called 'doing now.' I get the above daily question from many people in America. Folks virtually plugged into the sound and image box that feeds them, wait  for the TV to tell them. TV. Emitted radiation into the radio-TV-movie  nation has led to the alienation of the masses and the obvious truth. 

Flav's reality of filming a 'reality' TV show is done in real time of two weeks. People ask questions 6-7 months later based on what they saw the night before. This illusion of reality has folks thinking that something / someone's busy based on the amount of media exposure, not figuring out the gapped delay between real and play.

Usually this question comes my way almost daily about Public Enemy, in the street, in the mall, post office, bathroom stall, cleaners, and airport... contrary to popular belief PE is always in some sort of perpetual motion. Our new studio album 'New Whirl Odor' has been  released to the world market, and when I say world I mean it. My SLAMjamz label's- 'think global, act local' approach has its' base in Paris, with partnerships in Europe, Asia, Australia, with growing structures in South America, and South Africa. All this is hard to  comprehend in the USA. In these out of sight out of mind times, I've taken the elite bop- jazzist approach to hip hop and rap by completely ignoring the dressings and whip cream around it. The age of five hundred TV channels, massive web surfs, info through phone, video games, watches, and print news alike have all lent themselves to hemorrhaging whippings of mass distraction. So how in the world do I promote recordings in a wild, wild west environment of competition? The answer is there must be some passing of passion and  love for the art. Somewhere in the fact of slowly assembling your own standard and creative painting/sculpture all your own.

The past century relied on a commercial connection to art, and especially in my case recordings. Although raised in an artistic household with skilled high school and college training, I had to maintain the basic realization that architectural rendering - not drawing  comic books or paintings would support my living. Sure I had inspiration, but I had to check myself to the floors regarding my realities. No different when my artistic side attached itself to hip hop and music. I was lucky to arrive at the beginnings of a public paying a good fee for hip hop music. Now that hip hop / rap resembles the American way of things by making the corporate toppings more powerful while sucking the bottom and middle fields, it's either get  very rich or die trying to make good art.

So at this point of competition with the status quo of hip hop and rap, I think it's a ridiculous idea to even attach music I'm involved with to the realm of Mike-Jeezy-plomats. Public Enemy's music is built upon an anti-popular platform, sort of 'poppin a wheelie on the  peripheral edge of popularity.' This explains why anything reviewed by this direction taken will always be a mixed bag. This philosophy is coupled by a largely adapted purist approach, much like the founders of BLUE NOTE records when they started their label on what they considered real jazz as opposed to the popular form of swing dominance of the late 1930s. In the building of my label thus as followed in the making of New Whirl Odor, this anti-popular rebellion has reflected the artistic mode of not only the avant- garde of the jazz-past but also the artists -labels that advertise in this magazine. I'm very cool with that, bop, regardless of what the populous thinks... laborers in the day, musicians at night. Craft-people who dig  the aspect of never repeating oneself. So I figure that New Whirl Odor will have some criticism for not being FEAR or Nations, but hail the bigger picture, eh? I never really ever ventured to compete against those models. Simply said NEW WHIRL ODOR is another way of  saying 'the world is a ball of confusion'. That's all. With Americans being told the who, what, when, why, and how by US government, and other countries doing their model in their own ways towards its humans, there's a collective stench keeping earthlings from being in true tune with each other and the planet. I'm an optimist however, and NEW WHIRL ODOR is a hip hop 'monoxide alarm' detecting the silent killers while understanding not everyone will have them in their home.

The following release dates for PE in Europe alone are;

Italy : november 14th

Spain : november 21st

Portugal : november 14th

Switzerland : november 7th

Germany : November 4th

Austria : November 4th

Poland : November 7th

Benelux : November 1st

Greece : November 21st

Australia / Nea Zealand : November 14th

Japan / SE Asia : December 5th

Followed by massive press that clears roads for independent movement..

When asked currently if I'm in the studio making a new record I answer that RECORDING is like the blood itself in me, it's a natural process based on the vibe of the moment, whereas we have four studios in perpetual motion. There's at least twelve past, present, and future  material in the form of CD (two new studio albums next year, reissues of our four home videos, greatest hits CD and  greatest videos DVD, performance DVDs in far reaches of the earth, special project collaborations, and archive reissues from the Universal master and  catalog) and DVD to further the PUBLIC ENEMY story concluding with a boxset in 2007. But there's no haste to slide things out from us in order to fulfill order forms in retail business, this too must have a natural feel in timing before being turned into simply 'product.'  Besides PE the SLAMjamz label has other artists that hope to use the lost hip hop art of TOURING to build an audience person by fan.   Speaking of SLAMjamz, the uses of WEBSITES and technologies are a base of getting our word out. I formed RAPSTATION.COM,  BRINGTHENOISE.COM, and REMIXUNIVERSE.COM as services for a growing hip hop world. The releasing of music by artists online and through traditional offline outlets earth-wise, serves as a business card at the least to the public. Simply we develop and try to have a standard of rappers who can rap, singers who can sing, musicians who can play,  and most of all performers who can perform. Trying to form and achieve this standard is a thankless job, but its rewarding once the understanding is rooted in realistic cultural and yet business reality. I encourage thousands of artists and music people to get their websites, studios and labels right and not worry about funds being a deterrent to starting.   Personally alongside this I try to keep my inbox down to about 750 EMAILS an answer them while on long flights. Being involved with two RADIO SHOWS - The show On The Real on Air America Radio network, is done in NYC every Sunday with my CO-host Gia'na Garel. Also my weekly AOL Chuck D's Worldwide Throwback and Underground Countdown  Show is on and kickin' twenty records chosen a week. At the same time this being my 16th year on the lectures circuit, doing about twenty-five universities on rap, race, reality, and technology, both reelect and dictate directions from and toward my book imprint  OFFDA BOOKS which is begging for more of my attention and time. As well as navigating of ideas on the PE comic book on American Mule comics. With all of this I must still find the time to spill my mind in writings such this terrordome monthly blog on www.publicenemy.com and those monthly pieces for ELEMENTAL Magazine.

All of this is one reason why it's very difficult to answer calls or mailvery quickly in passing exactly what I am doing. There is hip hop across the planet and it needs to be chaperoned and thus it is my job to continue do so in 2006. Yes, in the words of H Rap Brown 'do your  thing, as long as your thing is the right thing' I will still do mine, even if I continue to pop a wheelie off the peripheral edges of stardom and popularity.

Ok, i wanna say enough with reviews but i must repeat that much of this business remains personal. For example my interviews run vast and thorough, not the norm. Rap, race, reality and technology runs the gamut on what a journalists mind needs in order to fill up the space required. In fact Edna Gundersen and Steve Jones have to discover new ways to interview and review. The more distance between them and the age bracketed music they have to cover, makes it an increasingly difficult job i would think, as with more career yet understood artist like PE. Although I could say a bit its not much of a rock toss difference than whats been id before. I still would have to say that major doesn't mean better, and often i wonder why so much major music gets un-challenged priority in not only USA TODAY , but ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, as well as every citys daily newspaper..because rap/ hip hop is just considered kids music I again can only guess how much crunk they really understand.

Ms Rosa Parks was a soldier. I definitely always thought this. I also thought the OUTKAST record a few years back was just misunderstanding between 2 generational cultures. As in the case with Bill Cosby we have to respect and expect the fact that many old school 60 plus folks will not understand what comes out the mouth and heads of the 20-40 year old generations. They will be feisty and cantankerous, and we want them to have that energy. As in the case of ms Parks, we need to treat and revere folks well while they're alive, damn near create our own holidays. Somebody again play the Neville Brothers 1989 song Sister Rosa..would you please..

Mrs C Delores Tucker was another great woman who stood up in the face of the corporate pimps who had already hand picked their negros to head up black music departments to fester and builld 'niggitivity' as KRS calls it. Herself and Rev Calvin Butts went 2 against the entertainment world at the time, and this gathered no support from the industry and but a wee bit more from the black community. Again in a land where overt racism seems melted down in a marketed tv and movie laded madison avenue imagery, the subtle racism mixe with classism spills like an undetected oil leak, better yet carbon monoxide. The heads of situations are still using 'blackface' to vouch for the need to inject 'ghettology' into the world as the main theme not just as an aspect of black culture. C Delores Tucker took a flashlight to them. If this was the communitys lone warrior Then we are to go nowhere with weak ass males.'Soldier' or 'souljah' is a misused moniker. Why? Well soldiers are ready for war. War is ugly and incovienient. War brings casulty. If you dumbassify everyone and everything surrounding you, you have to venture off and figure who's gonna be smart enough to be a doctor to handle the ill? A 'doctor' freestyling his/her craft no one wants.......so er, I repeat , you gotta wack 'army ' if you have no hospitals..... .cmon, ..soldiers my black azzzzzzzzzz....

Saw the movie 'G' with Blair Underwood and cast of credible actors playing out a decent relevant script. Dug the movie, and at the same time it had me hating hip hop when I left the theater. Reason. Well the lead character 'SUMMER G' plays the mogul the puffyrussellharrell type who has made his millions endorsing an attitude , lingo, and lifestyle that he doesn't choose to use or believe himself. This cat was a borgiouse dude who could'nt and wouldn't allow people who looked like him to match his level. In the black-white like an old tv set way of speaking its difficult for whitefolk in america and throughout to detect the radiation of racism passing through faces like these. Its hand off third party racism, to a willing fullblack. Hip hop to me is artistic and cultural climb but with a reach back and down to pull up and help bring the level up. Ok, again im preachin to the quiet. But Hip Pop should maybe be catagorized as such. But the college educated exploitation of the masses is very CecilRhodish to me where the come up is the come down. Ms Tucker saw this spiralling in a unreversable direction ten years ago.

Spellman College courtesy of MC LYTE called yours truly to speak on a panel at the start of Hip Hop Week there. It was charged and fiery with panalists Dr William Jelani Cobb, actor- activists Darryl CHILL Mitchell , and Malcolm Jamal Warner, and Magic a dj from Atlantas V103 radio.

University of KANSAS and also Southern Connecticut brought me out And the response at UK was enormous in Lawrence KS. It was my second lecture at the school, and we'd performed in the same room 12 years back. I barely recalled. Talked outside with the HEET MOB from KC and drove through some wicked downpour.

Dan Aquilante gave a good review of NWO in the NY POST , but as with many reviews of the record,its not coverable in one listen. In the song Makes You Blind he says i was taking a jab at 50. Not really true, rather i was calling these time 'get rich or die trying' as exactly what theyve turned to.

From Jazz Professor Dr Nelson E. Harrison cybraxis@mindspring.com

jazz club - n.  A place where people pay a lot of money not to listen to jazz, most of which does not go to the musicians to whom they are not  listening.

jazz festival - n.  A place where people pay a lot of money not to listen to music that is not jazz in the first place. sad but true

Nba dress code...well i was called franticly to give my take and opinion of it last month, when David Stern issued the rule that National Basketball Association players must be appropriately dressed entering and leaving the arena. Its a no-brainer. 1. The players regardless of their salary are no more than employees, its not even a joint venture because owners and teams must submit to the leagues requirements and players must do the same to their coaches and teams. 2. Again USA hip hop is largely dis-organized so to follow disorganization is counter-productive for the NBA by the white business male establishments 'long term' marketing motif. 3. This is why the league finally realized plucking underdeveloped players based on their maturity from high school had long term diminishing returns. Again its about pushing a product there as in mainstream rap music. Not about a culture, community, family, or anything like that. Theres not a black owned team nor arena yet to change this policy league wide so without a forceful black community voice, it brings it all back to reality that the line between a multi millionaire ballplayer and a N.O. Katrina victim may not be as thick as you think....

Rioting in France and young blackfolks are threw with authorities talking loud and not backing whats said. The killing of a black youth by police sounds all too familiar, eh. Well yours truly is heading out to the hotbed of PARIS doing a hip hop performance. Although i've been hitting France quite a few times this year ( MIDEM and NOCTURNE is our distribution base in Europe) i really couldn't detect the heat of unemployment and stress because of the language barrier. It only takes one incident , and i'll definitely hear the deal from the real side this upcoming week 4 sho.

All this and rolling into PE 54th tour To Europe, starting in PARIS ending in LONDON November 16th ...my obstacle people is to block everything out for a couple days and memorize A few new songs off NWO...

THurs 10.11.05     Elysee Montmartre, Paris, France. Fri 11.11.05       Rockefeller, Oslo, Norway. Sat 12.11.05        DAY OFF (Travel day) Sun 13.11.05     Mondo, Stockholm, Sweden. Mon 14.11.05    013, Tilburg, The Netherlands. Tue 15.11.05     The Village, Dublin, Ireland. Wed 16.11.05    The Forum, London, UK.

Speaking of sports pun indended,Stephen A Smith IS the new Cosell, trust me..his new show FRANKLY SPEAKING is a great addition to ESPN..i dug when he answers questions at the end of his show, and one time he asked the crowd during a brief lapse in asking them to say something because they were on National TV.

Ive been doing these tdomes for so long that before it was called a diary, today its called a ' blog'.

Lastly i dedicate this tdome piece to a real cool cat that passed away Mr Eric Coston aka Philadelphia Hip Hop radio dj E.C. LaROCK. A real good cat all the way around. I was sadly informed of this by both hall of fame hop hop radio legend LADY B and hip hop dj TAT MONEY and Yvette from the EB. All great people who've exhibited Philly Brotherly and sisterly love to us. It was just a couple months back that E.C. LaRock who was also assisting LADY B on her SIRIUS hip hop satelitte radio show and had come to let and escort me into the building. We conversed about many things in a short period of time and reminisced as well as spoke forwardly about the rapgame. Tat Money also informed me that there were many at the wake Including many that got their blast from EC sharing and giving us his time on WDAS down there. Death, Its a process of life as spoken in the Bones,Thugs, and Harmony classic 'Crossroads', but it seems the good die young and less heralded, we'll see how much space and time our rapmags, video show , and radio stations give a holla out. EC had a struggle with diabetes in his adult life, we wish his family strength, peace and love in this time.

Peace Mistachuck@rapstation.com