DAY ONE

A hip-hop pioneer takes a look at one year (and a little more) in the world.

Public Enemy rapper Chuck D has made another career for himself as a creator of graphic nonfiction (STEWdio, 2023), and his latest book proves he’s just as comfortable in the medium as he is in hip-hop. The book contains his daily sketches from 2024 (and a few from 2025), a year he compares to 1984, when he read George Orwell’s famous novel for the first time. “Fast-forward to 2024—the year after Hip Hop 50. A year of celebration on the surface…but underneath, something else was brewing. Contradictions. Pushback. Strange energy in the air. History echoing louder than headlines.” The sketches vary wildly in subject—there’s politics, of course, with Chuck D musing about Vladimir Putin (“They sayin the Kremlins control over media is now absolute like the vodka”) and the infamous Biden-Trump debate (“I think the POTUS cap on age should be 65, hell Im tired even writing this”). But he also takes on pop culture, writing about the Kendrick Lamar-Drake feud, Southwest Airlines moving to assigned seating, and even Mountain Dew returning to its original logo. He also pays tribute to notable people who died in 2024, including Carl Weathers, Bill Walton, Bob Newhart, and Nikki Giovanni. The book ends with an entry from Aug. 1, 2025, Chuck D’s 65th birthday, and 10 days before the 52nd anniversary of hip-hop: “A better culture is part of a better answer,” he writes, closing on a note of hope. He doesn’t quite convincingly connect 2024 to 1984 (the year or the book), but it doesn’t matter—his observations are pithy and frequently funny, and his scratchy sketches are offbeat and delightful. “In a time where AI smooths everything out, this work keeps the scars,” he writes. “Keeps the rough edges. Keeps the human hand visible.” That’s what makes this such an unusual, and unusually powerful, book.

Brings the noise, plus a lot of heart.