Who is Flavor Flav and what is his connection to the USA water polo team?
He’s the water polo team’s chief hype man and Team USA’s most enthusiastic supporter, but there are many more strings to Flavor Flav’s bow.
Team USA’s women’s water polo team have already hit the jackpot at the Paris 2024 Games. Since the event started last Saturday, they have been able to count on the unconditional support of probably the most enthusiastic person in the whole of the French capital right now - Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav. Chuck D’s irrepressible PE sidekick has been enjoying the Olympics more than anyone, cheering on his fellow countrymen and women in every event - particularly the water polo teams.
Flavor Flav lampin’ on the Left Bank
And his support will go way beyond the Paris Games. At the start of last month, Flavor signed a five-year sponsorship deal to become the USA water polo women’s and men’s national teams’ official hype man. Among his tasks, bringing the noise to the poolside. “Supporting USA water polo teams is an honor,” The MC said. “As a girl dad and a champion of all sports, I’m excited to bring my energy and voice to this incredible sport. Niche sports often don’t get the spotlight they deserve, but they are packed with incredible talent and heart. Together, we’re going to make some serious waves!”
He’s the perfect man for the job. Chuck D explains why Flav is the greatest hype man of all-time: “He invented it. He’s his own universe. His one job in Public Enemy is to be the star and he gave me room to breathe in my verses. He’d suck all the fame, all the stardom out of the room,” he explained.
Public Enemy redefine rap music
Within the space of a couple of years of forming in the mid-80s, Public Enemy spawned from a popular act on the local circuit in Long Island to becoming the most influential artists in hip hop, ironing out their rough, basic sound to produce pioneering albums like It’ll Take A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, with it’s complex layers of obscure breakbeats and samples as a sonic backdrop to Chuck D’s incessant, rapidfire machinegun delivery and Flavor’s interjections and stepping up on Cold Lampin’ With Flavor. On its release in the summer of 1988, nobody had heard anything quite like it.
After 15 studio albums and six Grammy nominations, Public Enemy remain active to this day and releasing material although it’s been a while since they last hit the road and Chuck and Flavor are the only two existing members of the original band...
The Rent Man called... Flavor Flav helps US college Olympian
It’s a little known secret that Flavor is a talented multi-instrumentalist, he taught himself to play the piano at the age of five and also is a skilled guitarist and drummer. According to Chuck D, Flavor has mastered “at least 15 instruments” while Ice T assures there is no musical instrument that USA water polo team’s new hype man cannot play.
So that’s just a glimpse of the multi-facted, multi-talented Flavor Flav - the everywhere man who is propelling the water polo teams onwards and upwards in Paris. And not just them - as soon as he heard that discus thrower Veronica Fraley, who makes her Olympic debut tomorrow hadn’t received payment and is worried she might default on her rent, he messaged her: “I gotchu... DM me and I’ll send payment TODAY so you don’t have to worry about it TOMORROW... and Imma be rooting for ya tomorrow LETZ GO!!!”
As Chuck D might say, “Everyone has a Flavor Flav in their family...”