Flavor Flav and fellow Public Enemy member Chuck D have reconvened for a new track called “Everywhere Man.” While not necessarily a Public Enemy reunion track, it marks the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees’ first collaboration in years. The concept sprouted from Chuck D, who noticed Flav was magically popping up at the most unexpected places—from Taylor Swift concerts to star-studded award shows.
Flav and co-writer/producer Sam Hollander were able to take it to the next level. With the assistance of new technology, “Everywhere Man” has been translated into 27 different languages. They collaborated with artists around the globe to get the rhythm and music right in each of the languages, which includes Arabic, Bangladesh, Chinese, Dutch, French and German.
It all began last spring when Flavor Flav was a guest speaker at Harvard University. While there, he and Hollander worked with students from the Harvard Business School’s Innovation Lab. It was in partnership with the students that the idea to translate the song into various languages originated. They formed an A.I. company, Harv Aid, to best translate and perform the song.
“I give my thanks to God for even being able to have the power and opportunity to do all of this,” Flavor Flav tells AllHipHop. “A lot of brothers from our era aren’t here to talk about it, but God has been preserving us. We ended up becoming mouth pieces to the world. Our music, it helped shape and change a lot of people’s lives and it even helped change our own. I’m just grateful to be able to wake up today.”
Flavor Flav’s zest for life is evident in everything he does. More recently, he and Chuck performed at the Grammy’s Hip-Hop 50 tribute, which aired on CBS last month. While they are appreciative of the extra spotlight on Hip-Hop culture, they’re waiting to see what this year will look like when “Hip-Hop 50” is no longer marketable.
“What LL COOL J and Questlove did was was gigantic,” Chuck says of the Grammys celebration. “They were pursuant on having us involved. But one thing I have to commend Flavor on was I told him earlier, I said, ‘Listen, we’ll do the Grammys, but we don’t really want to be part of this whole thing unless we do something free for the people’—and that ended up being the 1520 Sedgwick concert in the Bronx on August 11, where we wanted to come out.
“And when Flavor said he was down with that, that was a stance right there because a lot of cats was getting money. Flavor was on the same page of understanding how important it was for not what Hip-Hop could do for us but for what we could do for Hip-Hop.”
Chuck and Flav connected for several events on the August 11, 2023 anniversary. In the Bronx, they attended the Universal Hip Hop Museum’s ground breaking ceremony and toast, hit up the Yankee Stadium concert with headliners Run-DMC and, as previously mentioned, performed at a free show for KRS-One at the designated birthplace of Hip-Hop, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Needless to say, they were in high demand and recognized everywhere they went.
“We’ve got these very distinctive voices like James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman,” Flav notes. “That’s because of the many times that we’ve been heard, the many times that our voices has been sampled. When people hear that in real life, they’re gonna come running and see if that’s really us.”
