After inducting Kool & The Gang into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday night, Public Enemy’s Chuck D stepped into the press room and answered a few questions — but started things off by providing some commentary on the city’s recent big headline.
“Why the hell are y’all building another football stadium for the Browns? It’s all right here,” he said to the room of journalists. “They say, ‘We’re building it by the airport so we have shops and hotels.' Don’t you have shops and hotels around the middle of the city?”
He compared the decision to move, which was announced by the Haslam Sporting Group on Thursday, to the region’s former Richfield Coliseum. (The Richfield Coliseum was abandoned in 1994 and torn down in 1999.)
“When you put a stadium outside the city, what you have is Richfield Coliseum. Right? So, why revisit the Richfield Coliseum nightmare that you had?” he said. “It’s all right here. Y'all got the Guardians, events happening here, the stadium — and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? You’ve got it all centralized. Some years are up years, some years are down years. It doesn’t mean you move everything out of town.”
Chuck D, aka Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2013 as a member of Public Enemy. He also inducted Beastie Boys in 2012.
Read more about the stadium move news here.
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