Professor Griff

Rapper, spoken word artist, and speaker Richard Griffin, better known by his stage name Professor Griff, was the ‘Minister of Information’ for the legendary hip-hop group Public Enemy. He supported the ideologies promoted by Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan while he was a member of Public Enemy, which influenced both Griffin’s and Public Enemy’s ideologies.

Griffin gave interviews to UK periodicals on behalf of Public Enemy before the 1989 release of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, during which he made homophobic and anti-Semitic statements. Following a meeting with the National Holocaust Awareness Student Organization in 1990, Griffin apologised publically for his remarks. Griffin once more acknowledged the errors in his 1989 assertions in his 2009 book Analytixz. He also spoke of his numerous in-depth chats with Jewish record executive Lyor Cohen in a YouTube interview in August 2018, claiming that the two would engage in respectful historical disputes.

Griffin subscribes to an Afrocentrist philosophy. He is a member of the Five Percent Nation. Griffin founded his own band, the Last Asiatic Disciples, after leaving Public Enemy. Griffin’s albums have had increasingly spoken-word lyrics and an Islamic and Afrocentric aesthetic. He was a member of the Nation of Islam, which was mentioned in his solo music’s lyrics and album titles. His lyrics frequently reference the New World Order conspiracy. Griffin wed the rapper Solé in August 2017. After Solé and R&B artist Ginuwine were divorced, the couple rekindled their 27-year-old romance.