SAN DIEGO — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Chuck D will make a double impact at the 122nd annual NAMM Show, which runs Thursday through Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center.
The co-founder of the pioneering New York hip-hop group Public Enemy and Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award recipient will be honored with NAMM's first-ever Impact Music & Culture Award on Thursday night.
By happy coincidence, D is now rolling out Bring The Noise — named after one of Public Enemy's best-known songs — which he describes as a "culture app for musicians, artists filmmakers and hip-hop fans 35 and older." More on that in moment.
On Friday, he will be featured in a NAMM Show discussion billed as "Chuck D on Hip-Hop at 50, Hosted by Brian Hardgroove," presented by Black to the Future. Hardgroove (born: Brian Hargrove) is Public Enemy's bassist and musical director.
"Brian is a genius who is always building bridges between genres," said D, whose full name is Carlton Douglas Ridenhour.
D's award will be presented as part of the annual TEC Experience at NAMM, short for the National Association of Music Merchants.
"We wanted celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop," said NAMM CEO and President Joe Lamond. "And we wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) because technology has been very important in the development of music in general and hip-hop and EDM in particular."
D chuckled when asked what role technology played when he co-wrote such classic Public Enemy songs as "Fight the Power" and "911 Is a Joke."
"I'm involved with what gets out to people, not how it's made," he said. "I still write lyrics by hand."
Hardgroove has worked behind the scenes at the NAMM Show for the past decade. He was instrumental in D's selection as the first hip-hop artist to receive NAMM's first-ever Impact Music & Culture Award.
"I was working with the MIDI Association and convinced them to combine the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and the 40th anniversary of MIDI," Hardgroove said.
"This is a safe way for NAMM to honor hip-hop. It's a dangerous thing to try to represent 50 years of hip-hop if you don't have the right people involved because it's littered with landmines. A lot of people in hip-hop didn't get proper credit and are very angry about it. Chuck is a legend of hip-hop and no one will challenge his views."
Hardgroove will perform at this week's NAMM Show with his band, Resonant Alien, which features Public Enemy veteran DJ Johnny Juice. It remains to be seen if D will join them for a song or two.
What is sure is that D will at some point be talking up his new "culture app," Bring The Noise, to its 35-and-older target demo.
"We're not telling anyone to leave their social media," D noted. "You can stay on TikTok, Twitter, Instgram, Facebook."
Bring The Noise will offer videos, interviews, and nearly a dozen channels of hip-hop and hip-hop-related music, curated by D. It is designed to celebrate hip-hop and to broaden people's understanding and appreciation of the art form and its origins.
The app had a soft launch in March, by invitation, for friends of D's. Once word of mouth builds, he will do a public launch.
"Bring The Noise has all the things social media does," D said. "You can use it to play music live, communicate, all the things people do on TikTok and other platforms. But bring The Noise is about culture media, not social media."
———
