March 16
William Jonathan Drayton, Jr.'s Birthday
 


William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., better known as Flavor Flav, was born on March 16, 1959. Growing up on Long Island, William showed a high level of musical skill, singing in the youth choir and learning no less than fifteen instruments. His youth was marred by legal trouble – he accidentally set a house on fire and served time for robbery and burglary before dropping out of high school.

 While attending Adelphi University, Drayton met his future collaborator, Chuck D. Drayton took a stage name from his graffiti tag – Flavor Flav – and the two began rapping together.  A short while later, Public Enemy was formed. Public Enemy was one of hip-hop’s first major crossover acts, combining smart, incisive lyrics with innovative scratching and sampling. Flavor Flav served as the group’s “hype man,” whose job was to get the audience excited during shows, chanting call-and-responses and dancing frenetically about the stage. Flav often wore large hats and glasses and was almost never seen without a comically outsized clock hanging around his neck. Flavor Flav is often credited for popularizing and legitimatizing the role of the hype man, a major hip-hop template that has also been filled by the likes of Jay-Z and Puff Daddy. Public Enemy’s lyrics were highly political and encouraged black youth to stand up for positive black culture, rather than gangster warfare or crime.

Flavor Flav’s personal life didn’t always match Public Enemy’s positive message, however, and in fact the group’s active production status was put on hiatus in the mid-90s due to Flav’s frequent difficulties with the law. He was convicted of attempted murder in 1993 for shooting at his neighbor, and spent months in jail on numerous drug convictions. It looked like America might soon forget Flavor Flav’s, well… flavor. 


However, as it did for so many other musicians, VH1 stepped in and brought Flavor Flav back to national prominence. He was a standout star on the third season of celebreality show “The Surreal Life.” His bizarre relationship with fellow cast member Brigitte Nielsen became the subject of a spin-off series – “Strange Love.” When Nielsen returned to her boyfriend at the end of the show’s sole season, Flav responded by launching his own Bachelor-style reality show – “Flavor of Love.”
“Flavor of Love” had Flavor Flav choosing from a number of young romantic hopefuls, giving each of them a first-impression nickname. At the end of each episode, Flav would send several of the contestants home, eliminating them from the competition. Those who he kept were awarded one of his signature giant clock necklaces, as he told them that they “know what time it is.” Flavor of Love, buoyed by Flav’s eccentric personality and frequent catfights between the legitimately insane contestants, was a huge hit for VH1, anchoring its new “Celebreality” block, lasting three seasons and spinning off a complicated chain of subsequent shows.

In January 2011, there were countless  media reports that Flavor Flav went into the fried chicken business in Clinton Iowa and opened FFC, Flav's Fried Chicken. Flavor has his eyes set on taking over Colonel Sanders empire with his own secret recipe.
and tol;d reporters, "When you take the breading off the chicken, all's you gonna taste is some boiled chicken," he said. "But the secret with FFC is I season my meat first. Then I let the meat season the flour...If you take the breading off my chicken, you'll still taste all of my seasoning ."According to one reviewer,  the Flavor Flav chicken wings had an  ut were "surprisingly tasty.", and others. '

Although Flavor Flav's recipe is secret, here is our approximation of the recipe which we call Public Enemy Fried Chicken. Eat your chicken heart out, Colonel Sanders .Pair it with Confessions of a Pit Fighter (2005), possibly the only decen t film that Flavor Flav has made.
 
 

Public Enemy Fried Chicken

Ingredients
 
 /2 cup hot sauce
1 tsp grated nutmeg
2 tsp  sweet basil
3&1/2 pounds of chicken pieces
1/2 cup milk
2 extra large eggs
 		 1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp  sweet basil
2 tsp  garlic salt
1 TB ground black pepper
2 cups bread crumbs
Canola oil (this should eliminate the reported "extremely oily smell" _
Instructions
|
  1. Mix hot sauce, nutmeg, and basil together
  2. Brush hot sauce mixtures on chicken,  Refrigerate for a minimum of two hours or overnight.
  3. Blend milk and egg together.
  4. Combine flour,  salt, and pepper.
  5. Dip sauced chicken pieces in flour mixture, then egg/milk mixture, and then in bread crumbs.
  6. Fry in hot oil at 325ºF for 13 to 15 minutes on each side or until golden brown and done

Serves 4

© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes