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 Shock-lee 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 multi-million 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. Long regarded by fans and other hip-hop musicians as the quintessential hip-hop act, Public Enemy exploded onto the scene in the late 1980s in New York City with the release of their first album Yo! Bum Rush the Show. The combination of Public Enemy's politically conscious, brutally honest lyrics--through which they presented undiluted black power with more style and clarity than had been present in hip-hop music before--and the innovative, experimental ways the "Bomb Squad" produced PE's work, resulted in a powerful new musical force. With the help of key players such as an emerging Russell Simmons, Def Jam records, and Rick Rubin, and friends like theBeastie Boys, PE has now become legend as we near the twentieth anniversary of their landmark record It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.