Public Enemy emcee Flavor Flav has recently received a lot of trolling for his bizarre rendition of the American national anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at an NBA game.
On October 29th, Flavor Flav (real name William Drayton ), the rapper, attended the Atlanta Hawks versus Milwaukee Bucks basketball game, where he got on the microphone and sang the United States national anthem.
Despite the emcee’s flamboyant nature and past drug use, he has recently taken to X (formerly Twitter), where he has revealed that the performance came from a place of sincerity and love for the US.
Writing on X, the lyricist posted, “It may seem odd for Flavor Flav, a member of Public Enemy, to do the National Anthem. But I had family that served in the United States military, and I wanted to honour them.”
He continued, “I had family that fought in World War 2. My dad was in the army. They fought for the land that we live on, and some of them didn’t make it back. So when I was singing it, I was thinking about them and the advancements we have made in our community that I can perform the anthem. [American flag emoji]”
50 Cent is one of many rappers who has taken to social media to critique the artist, stating that he was singing off-key and reposted a clip of the rendition writing, [eyes emoji] WTF [facepalm emoji] I think this means we going to war, this is a sign fvck it get the strap!”
Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids also shared his stance on X, writing, “Yall got me fucked up. Biggest glitch I’ve seen in a grip. We are not on the right timeline.” However, Flavor Flav still tweeted it was an honour for him.