Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and Public Enemy cofounder Chuck D will give the lunchtime keynote at the U.S. Book Show during the comics and graphic novels program on Tuesday, May 24. He will be discussing the his new book imprint and graphic novel with New Yorker staff writer and former New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh.
Chuck D's imprint Enemy Books will be hosted by Akashic Books. Its inaugural offering, a paperback trilogy entitled Stewdio: The Naphic Grovel Artrilogy of Chuck, will be published in June in a limited edition box set featuring Chuck D's visual art. Akashic founder and publisher Johnny Temple calls Chuck D and his imprint "a force to be reckoned with."
“Librarians, museum curators of culture, and booksellers are a beacon of light in this era of mass nihilism,” said Chuck D. “We all need to spend more time with them, which is why I’m coming to the U.S. Book Show to talk about graphic novels and naphic grovels and my new Enemy Books imprint with Akashic—and why art and books matter now more than ever. People today listen with their eyes.”
Chuck D is also the author of the illustrated art book Livin’ Loud (Genesis Publications, 2023), Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2017) and Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality with Yusuf Jah (Random House, 1998), among others. He wrote and narrated the 2023 PBS four-part documentary series Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World.
Registration, with early-bird rates, is open for the U.S. Book Show. See the full schedule here.
