ChuckD & Ice T – The Art Of Rap premiere, Hammersmith Apollo, London, 19 July 2012:
None other than Chuck-D follows me back on twitter, the ‘most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps’ man himself! One of the biggest artists in the music industry and part of Public Enemy, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. Having seen Public Enemy play a number of times over the last 25 years, I was of course very excited. I arranged to meet him at The Art Of Rap premiere at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. When I say meet, he said come find him, so I figured it was less than a 50/50 chance of meeting Chuck.
On my way to Hammersmith Apollo, I saw Taipanic wearing the same tee I gave him a couple of weeks earlier at the Pharoahe Monch gig. It was the first time I’d seen someone, outside family or friends, sporting my wares and me and my brother were like ‘yes Tony’; his response was ‘What else was I gonna wear bruv,’ nice that put us in high spirits for the film and made us more hopeful of meeting Chuck.
Fortunately, my arrival couldn’t have been better timed, as I entered the lobby I saw Ice-T getting papped, went straight up to him and he signed the print, I was like ‘WOW!’ Shortly after, Chuck was getting papped and after they finished shooting, I elbowed my way through and presented the print to him.
He went to sign the print and as soon as he saw it, his head popped up to see who it was. ‘Hey you’re Madina?’ I said ‘yeah!’ He then signed the print and asked me to come upstairs, introduced me to his wife and daughter and then did a whole heap of interviews, along with Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and Melle Mel – with me in tow! I managed to get my photo taken by the paps, with Chuck, at the premier of the best Rap documentary I have ever seen. It was like a who’s who of UK Hip Hop in there and there was me hanging with Chuck. Let me tell you something, Chuck is a genuine and smart guy, who deserves all the respect he gets. Much more than just a legend of Hip Hop, a legend FULL STOP.
