He is best known for his role in the formation of Public Enemy, which is widely regarded as one of the most successful rap groups in the history of music, having released 14 studio albums and more than 40 music videos. Public Enemy’s first studio album, “Yo! Bum Rush the Show,” was released in 1987 and was met with widespread acclaim upon its release.
The band’s subsequent studio albums, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” (1988), “Fear of a Black Planet” (1990), and “Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black” (1991), all received the Platinum certification. Flavor Flav is a familiar face on reality television, having appeared as a guest star on shows such as “The Surreal Life” (2004), “Strange Love” (2005), and “Flavor of Love” on VH1. He is also known for wearing a big clock around his neck (2006-2008).
Early life
On March 16, 1959, in the town of Roosevelt, New York, William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., better known as Flavor Flav, was born. In Freeport, New York, he spent his childhood with his mother Anna, his father William (who owned a restaurant), his brother Steven, and his sister Jean. He taught himself how to play the piano when he was 5 years old and also played guitar and drums as a child.
He began playing the piano. In addition to participating in the church choir, Drayton went to Freeport High School; however, he left the school in the middle of his junior year. As a little boy, he was playing with a lighter when he unintentionally started a fire in the home that he shared with his family.
When he was a teenager, he was taken into custody on multiple occasions for burglary and robbery. In 1978, William made the decision to pursue a career in the culinary arts.
While attending Adelphi University on Long Island, he met Carlton Ridenhour, better known as Chuck D, and began making appearances on the campus radio show that he hosted. Later, the pair started rapping together, and Drayton began performing under the stage name Flavor Flav around this time.
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Career
Public Enemy was established in 1985 by Chuck D and Flavor Flav, and they released their first single, “Public Enemy #1,” the following year, which caught the attention of Rick Rubin, an executive at Def Jam Records.
They made their debut with the album “Yo! Bum Rush the Show,” which was published on February 10, 1987, after they had acquired a contract with the label.
The album went on to receive a Gold certification from the RIAA, and the group’s subsequent release, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” in 1988, went platinum and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in “Billboard.”
The next year, in 1990, Public Enemy released an album titled “Fear of a Black Planet,” which had two songs that peaked atop the “Billboard” Hot Rap Songs chart: “Fight the Power” and “911 Is a Joke.”
Since then, the band has issued a total of ten additional studio albums, some of which include “New Whirl Odor” (2005), “Rebirth of a Nation” (2006), and “The Evil Empire of Everything” (2012). The band’s fifteenth studio album, “What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?,” is slated for release in September of 2020.
The group made an announcement in March 2020 claiming they were dismissing Flav from the band as a result of a disagreement regarding a Bernie Sanders rally; however, Chuck D later stated that the announcement was a prank.
In 1996, Flav released a solo album under his own name, and he has since made guest appearances on songs by a wide variety of musicians, including Anthrax, George Clinton, Ice Cube, Will Smith, and Snoop Dogg, amongst others.
In 2004, he made his debut on the reality television show “The Surreal Life,” where he met the Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen, who later became his girlfriend. This was the beginning of his career in reality television.
The following year, VH1 offered the couple their very own show called “Strange Love,” but towards the end of the season, Nielsen decided to end the relationship and go back to her fiancé, therefore the show was cancelled. The following year, in 2007, Flav was the special guest of honor at a “Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav.”
Flav had previously starred on the dating show “Flavor of Love,” which aired for three seasons. As an actor, Flav has been seen in a number of movies and television shows, including as “New Jack City” (1991), “Private Parts” (1997), and “The Bernie Mac Show” (2004).
Additionally, he has had recurring appearances on “Under One Roof” (2008-2009), “Nite Tales: The Series” (2009), and “Dr. Fubalous” (2012). In the past, Flav has been the proprietor of several restaurants, including Flav’s Fried Chicken, Flavor Flav’s House of Flavor, and Flavor Flav’s Chicken & Ribs.
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Personal Life
Three of Flav’s children are from his relationship with Karen Ross, three are from his relationship with Angie Parker, and one is from his relationship with Elizabeth Trujillo. He was engaged to Trujillo while he was dating other women on “Flavor of Love,” and the couple is said to have gotten married sometime after 2013.
He was dating other ladies at the same time. Following Flav’s arrest in October 2012 for allegedly hitting Liz and threatening her adolescent son with a knife, the couple made an appearance on the VH1 show “Couples Therapy” the following year.
After being taken to court by Parker in 2012 for the child support debt of $111,186 that he owed, Flav paid Angie $25,000 in June of that year and agreed to make monthly payments of $1,200.
This allowed him to avoid serving the six months of incarceration that he would have been sentenced to if he had been convicted.
His family staged an intervention in order to persuade Flav to seek treatment at the Betty Ford Center. Flav has battled substance abuse and legal problems throughout his entire life.
In 1991, he was arrested for assaulting Ross, and in 1993, he was arrested for cocaine, marijuana, domestic violence, and attempted murder. After his father passed away in 1997, he also sought help for his substance abuse problems at the Long Island Center for Recovery.
Since then, Flav has been subject to a number of arrests; he was sentenced to nine weeks in Rikers Island in 2002 for driving with a suspended license and parking tickets, and he has racked up charges for driving crimes in 2011, 2014, and 2015. At the time of his arrest in 2014, Flav had a total of 16 suspensions on his driver’s license.
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Net worth
Rapper and reality TV star Flavor Flav hails from the United States of America, and he has a net worth of $2 million.
