Most of the world knows William Jonathan Drayton Jr. as Hip-Hop personality Flavor Flav. For many rap fans, the New York native is the most famous hypeman in the genre’s history.
Flavor Flav made a name for himself as a member of the seminal rap group Public Enemy. He stood out from other rap figures of the late 1980s by wearing a clock on his neck.
In celebration of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 50 Years of Hip-Hop exhibit, Roxanne Shante hosted her Have a Nice Day show on LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells Radio from the SiriusXM studio at Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Roxanne used that episode of SiriusXM’s Have a Nice Day to speak with Flavor Flav about Hip-Hop’s fifty-year anniversary and his legendary career. In particular, the Flavor of Love reality star shared the story behind his iconic clock chain.
“So one day, as a joke, this crackhead came through my projects, you know what I’m saying?” he began. “[She was] selling these shower clocks that she stole from a place called Fortunoff.”
He added, “She went to Fortunoff, stole this big box of shower clocks and came through our projects selling them. So my boy, Son of Berserk, took the stopwatch off my neck and put the clock around my neck. Everybody was laughing. It was a big joke.”
Flavor Flav then explained, “So they dared me to wear that clock on stage but during the show. So when we went to open up for the Beastie Boys in Passaic, New Jersey, 1986, I wore the clock, Roxanne. And then the next day on the front page of Newsday, New York Times, New York Post, the look of the clock was dope.
Flavor Flav and the rest of Public Enemy released several studio albums. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet are considered classics. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Public Enemy in 2013.
