Flavor Flav



William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. (born March 16, 1959), known by his stage name Flavor Flav, is an American rapper, television star, hype man, and member of the politically conscious hip hop group Public Enemy. Flavor Flav's visual trademark is an oversized clock hanging from his neck. After falling out of the public eye in former years, he has recently reappeared as a star of American reality television. He has starred in multiple VH1 programs, including Flavor of Love, and the 2007 Comedy Central Roast. Contrary to his image as a buffoon, he is a classically trained pianist.

Quotes

 * Yeah boyeee!
 * Catch phrase, often delivered with comic timing; recounted in Rickey Vincent, Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One (1996), p. 309. Alternately reported by other sources with spelling variations.


 * Well let me tell you something, I can't be nobody but myself. Ya know what I'm saying? The thing that makes the world love Flav is Flav being himself. So honestly man, to tell you the truth: it was not hard to be myself. It was real easy.


 * Well let me tell you like this, the rap scene right now has taken its own course and its own direction because you have so many rap records of all different calibers coming out. And me, I favor everybody, I like everybody and the reason why is because I want everyone to Favor Flav. If I favor one certain rapper or one certain singer then only one certain singer/rappers are going to favor Flav. So me, I'm just a friendly ghost and not only that I'm a musician. I like all kinds of music. And everybody making records right now is definitely respected by Flav and for all you new comers just starting to make records: welcome aboard.

About

 * The simple reason why we work together is just the contrast in our voices. People try to come up with intellectual reasons for 'the noise' and it ain't nothing intellectual. We was just making BAU tapes and needed voices to cut through that shit. Flavor got a powerful trebly voice, with cut. I got some bass with treble and pitch, which also cuts. So you put me and Flavor together and it's basically like Bobby Bird and James Brown — Everybody over here? Get on Up! The Bird/Brown combination set off everything.
 * Chuck D., quoted by Robert Marriott, "The Resurrection of the Jester King", The Source, August, 1994. p. 76.


 * What was crucial to the partnership, it should be noted, is that Flavor Flav was a clown — in the tradition of the best black comics — yet he was a clown with consciousness, empowered with knowledge of self, an entirely different persona from the "Stepin Fetchit" and "Sambo" stereotypes of subservient and uncouth black Americans. Flavor Flav was and is a fool, but a fool on a mission. On the cover of Nation of Millions, he wears a gigantic clock as a medallion — a preposterous getup — yet it is designed to illustrate, through a comic medium, that time is indeed running out.
 * Rickey Vincent, Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One (1996), p. 309.