Flavor Flav’s roller-coaster life appears upward bound again

A crowd gathers on the Strip to gaze up at the familiar figure standing on the Hard Rock Cafe balcony. Although the walk sign beckons them to cross MGM Way, virtually everyone younger than 40 refuses.

"Flavor of Love!" one woman screams. "Woo!"

The figure raises his hands to acknowledge his admirers -- like a pope with gold teeth and a clock around his neck.

Flavor Flav is best known these days for a string of cheesy reality shows. But this weekend, he's reminding fans where he came from. On the Hard Rock Cafe's stage Friday, the rapper will perform his best-known Public Enemy vocal outings, bolstered by appearances by DJ Quik and Yo-Yo, in what he's calling his "Throwback Hall of Fame." (The Las Vegas resident gave similar performances on the same stage in April and June.)

Saturday night, Public Enemy will perform at the Jet Nightclub in The Mirage.

"Yo Beezo, waddup!?" Flav answers one of three constantly vibrating cell phones. It's an hour earlier, and the rapper is seated on a brown leather couch inside the Hard Rock. The voice on the other end screams Flav's self-promoting catchphrase so loudly, it's audible without speakerphone: "Flaaa-vor Flaaav!"

Before Beezo vibrated, Flav was pondering a question about his legacy. Not only was Public Enemy an MTV staple, many feel that its songs were to the early '90s what Bob Dylan's were to the early '60s. (In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Public Enemy 44th on its list of 100 greatest artists of all time.) The militant lyrics of Flav and lead rapper Chuck D, followers of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, editorialized problems many ghetto outsiders didn't know existed.

"They only come and they come when they wanna/So get the morgue truck and embalm the goner," Flav railed in "911 is a Joke," a 1991 diatribe against New York ambulance companies that allegedly ignored certain calls to Harlem and the South Bronx.

Public Enemy's status as hip-hop's most important group was cemented in 1992, when U2 had it open the second leg of its "Zoo TV" tour to join its nightly protest of Arizona's refusal to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

"No other musical group in history has ever put a national holiday on the map," Flav says after hanging up with Beezo. "But my partner Chuck and I did it."

Flav's neck clock dangles as he speaks, paint chips from its flaking hands swishing back and forth beneath the 6. Even though it's 2 p.m., the clock reads 4:30, the time to which it was last set (during a 2008 magic trick performed by Criss Angel for his "Mindfreak" cable show).

In 1994, Public Enemy took "a long-ass break." That's what Flav calls the better part of the decade he spent crippled by drugs and on the wrong side of the law. The various criminal charges included domestic violence, cocaine possession and attempted murder (for shooting at a neighbor in 1993).

"I did have my bottoms," says Flav, who was born William Drayton Jr. 51 years ago in Roosevelt, Long Island. "But that was all part of a learning experience. I'm glad that God let me live through those drug days. It really taught me a lot.

"Drugs are easy to get on and they're hard as hell to get off of."

Flav says he's done with cocaine and every hard drug that used to scream his name, "but I still drink my Hennessy and Coca-Cola, and I still like smoking my weed, I'm not gonna lie."

During Public Enemy's absence, gangsta rap took root, marked by body-count boasting anti-awareness. Following its 1998 soundtrack for Spike Lee's "He Got Game," Public Enemy released five more albums that failed to chart.

"What music really needed was for Public Enemy to try to come back and break the monotony," Flav says. "But by the time we came back and we tried, that gangsta rap was so strong, it was hard to do it by ourselves."

In 2003, a Public Enemy-admiring VH1 producer invited Flav to share a Los Angeles mansion with other non-A-list celebrities for a reality show. Flav was so magnetic in his courtship of former model Brigitte Nielsen, he stole the third season of "The Surreal Life." So VH1 built a spinoff show, 2005's "Strange Love," around their amusing mismatch. Even after the duo split, VH1 had Flav continue his alleged search for love for three seasons of a reality game show called "Flavor of Love," which spun off yet another VH1 franchise. ("I Love New York" televised a soulmate search conducted by "Flavor of Love" contestant Tiffany "New York" Pollard.)

"I don't think nobody ever in reality television did it bigger than Flav," Flav says.

The hype boosted his bank account and his recogition on Las Vegas balconies. But did it help his music credibility? Flav seems concerned about his public perception.

"Everybody is entitled to more than one job," he says. "Public Enemy was my first and only job. Television became my second job. A lot of people that was so used to me doing my first job, it was hard for them to stomach my second job."

Flav put a stop to the reality dating in 2008, when he invited the real woman in his life -- whose name he gives only as Elizabeth -- on "Flavor of Love" and proposed. The two share a Warm Springs Road house with their daughter, 3-year-old Karma (Flav's seventh child). Flav has called the valley his primary residence since 2005.

"I settled down," Flav says, although he adds that he has no immediate marriage plans.

"Not yet," he says, "but your boy is straight. No more 'Flavor of Love,' no more dating shows. I found my match. I'm good."

In fact, the new Flav is someone Las Vegans are more likely to see at Vons than out partying or otherwise finding trouble.

"Y'all better watch out, because your boy Flav got a Vons card!" he says, adding his infectious, Vincent Price-like cackle before another vibrating cell phone beckons.

Back on the balcony, Flav points to each of his screaming fans. Then he crouches slightly, cups his multiringed hands to his mouth and gives them what they're waiting to hear.

"Flaaa-vor Flaaav!" he screams.

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@review journal.com or 702-383-0456.