Chuck D Schools Gene Simmons on Rock Hall Inclusion: 'KISS Doesn't Have a Lot of Roll'

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"Gene Simmons seems to say this every three years,” Chuck D noted in a TMZ video, referencing his group's 2013 induction, a year prior to KISS. "I guess when the latest group of hip-hop artists and rap music artists come in he’s gonna issue his point. He’s the rock god, you know? But what he fails to realize is that it’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And everything else, other than rock, when rock n’ roll splintered in the ’60s, is the roll.”

Last year’s inductees included Outkast and Salt N Pepa, with A Tribe Called Quest getting the call in 2024.

Ticking off soul music, reggae and rap, Chuck D said the vocal on top of the music is what he deemed “the roll, that’s the flow, that’s the soul in it. Yeah, KISS are rock gods, but they don’t have a lot of roll to them.” Born in 1960 and raised as a child in the peak of the civil rights movement, Chuck D, 65, said he’s not even phased by being told he doesn’t belong somewhere. “I really relish the opportunity that I’m able to even be in the music business at all,” said Chuck D. “Thank God for hip-hop and rap music making it possible.”

Well aware that Simmons, 76, “is never gonna get off of that point,” Chuck D expects the greasepaint rocker to keep banging on about rap’s place in the RRHOF, casually plugging his new book, In the House of Chaos: Art & Activism With Public Enemy’s Chuck D, as well as the fact that he taught a UCLA class on hip-hop culture and its deep historical roots.

Chuck D’s response follows Simmons' appearance on the LegendsNLeaders podcast, where he questioned Grandmaster Flash's inclusion while lamenting Iron Maiden's absence. "Ice Cube and I had a back and forth — he’s a bright guy, and I respect what he’s done,” Simmons continued. “It’s not my music. I don’t come from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language. I said in print many times: Hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, nor does opera, symphony orchestras … it’s called the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

In his retort, Chuck D also noted that he’s not trying to change Simmons’ seemingly sclerotic beliefs, but rather keep the dialogue open. “Ghetto don’t mean Black… ghettos came out of [a] European term, a cluster of people who were kind of like the same tribe in the same area,” he said. “You just gotta have education so you won’t be rattled by things that just come out of left field.”