Hank Shocklee, a co-founder of Public Enemy, will contribute his production knowledge to the upcoming John Oluwole Adekoje film YE! A Jagun Story.
Even though the film won’t be released until next year, work on the soundtrack has already started, and the main song, “Sun Down,” was just released this week as a result of a partnership with Ninety and Teknimension.
The Bomb Squad commander not only composed the music for YE! but also selected the soundtrack with the assistance of up-and-coming Pan-African musicians from the U.S. to Nigeria and South Africa.
“The genesis tale of Stellar (Egbuson-Akande), the future head of the Ajumose, a secret, celestial league of bright women who use ancestral memory to restore the colonized brains of black people throughout the diaspora,” is how one press release describes the movie’s plot.
Stellar devises a plan to discover the murderer and get revenge after her family is cruelly slaughtered by child soldiers.
YE! The first of three parts in an independent African trilogy is titled A Jagun Story.
In a different part of the Public Enemy universe, Chuck D, Shocklee’s running buddy, sold some of his valuable repertoires in September.
Chuck D’s full songwriter royalties and half of his publisher’s “copyright interest” are both included in the contract with Reach Music. He will nevertheless continue to keep 50% of the interest on his publication earnings.
In an industry that is always changing, “doing this agreement was the appropriate timing for a forward and logical progression of [their] business together,” he said. Reach has always been in front of the curve when it comes to publishing and songwriting standards for the Hip Hop genre, and they will keep looking after my works.
The agreement covers more than 300 songs from 1987 to 2012 that bore Chuck D and Public Enemy’s namesake, including the well-known PE albums It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet.
Chuck D made an unexpected appearance in August at the Coney Island Amphitheater during the performance by Anthrax and Hatebreed.
The two musical legends performed “Bring The Noise,” a song they co-wrote for the Anthrax album Attack of the Killer B’s, released in 1991.
Scott Ian of Anthrax implored the crowd to “bring the noise,” and soon after Chuck D appeared out of nowhere and began to rap.
