Yesterday, a judge sentenced Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav to nine weeks in New York’s Rikers Island prison. Because of the sentence, Flavor Flav will miss tour support for Public Enemy’s latest album, Revolverlution.
Flavor has been held in Rikers Island over a week for allegedly driving with a suspended licensee, having numerous parking tickets, and for showing up late for meetings with his probation officer. Flavor was facing almost 4 years for the charges.
PE front man Chuck D, told AllHipHop.com his partner was a victim of a judge who sought to make “an example” of Flav. “The judge was saying ‘This is a court of law not ‘Let’s Make A Deal. The thing between the judge and Flav is some back and forth-type s###.”
“Its stupid. ‘I’m like is it a drug charge, is it a body or whatever,” he said. “It was a traffic ticket. I don’t even have a license. I don’t f**k with the system.”
Group member Professor Griff will continue to stand in for Flavor Flav for the duration of the tour.
In related news, MTV2 has agreed to air an uncensored version of Public Enemy’s “Give The People What The Need” video, which the station wanted censored. Initially, Chuck D said, the station objected to the references to Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer.
Chuck D said he felt the network was being hypocritical with its original stance and that the decision to compromise was bittersweet.
“It’s not about playing my video or whatever. You can’t just put stereotypes out there and all of a sudden get political about what you are not going to do,” he said.
“Telling me ‘We can fix it by playing the video is like calling me a n#####’ and then saying ‘sorry’ three minutes later,” he concluded.
