By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Senior National
Correspondent
There comes a time when a nation needs reminding that joy is not the enemy of justice, that laughter and love can exist alongside the deepest wounds of history. In this fractured America, this cold, suspicious place where one man’s color still shapes another man’s fear, there walks a small man with a giant clock. Flavor Flav, the timekeeper of hip-hop, the eternal hype man of Public Enemy, is now the hype man of the world.
He’s not Roosevelt, nor Eisenhower, nor Clinton, Bush, or Obama. He’s not Churchill or Gandhi or Malcolm or Martin. But perhaps that’s the point. In a world oversaturated with icons and polished politicians, the truest reflection of our times might just be a man whose greatest weapon is joy.
Public Enemy’s “The Hits Just Keep on Comin’” dropped recently, a rhythmic reminder that history, like that beat, never really stops. But Flavor Flav doesn’t just echo history; he bends it toward light. In 2025, while much of the world wrestles with hatred, division, and the ugly decay of empathy, Flav stands as a bridge linking people not by politics but by pulse, by laughter, by love.
He helped raise funds for Black families devastated by the Los Angeles fires, working with GoFundMe and the Black Music Action Coalition to bring relief to Pasadena and Altadena. He reminded a weary world that the struggle of one community belongs to us all.
Then, he turned around and rescued Red Lobster, not for fame or fortune, but because it’s a place where Black folks have celebrated birthdays, graduations, and Sunday dinners for generations. “You gotta get to Red Lobster and give it a try,” he said, “because this signature meal is hype, boy!” It’s easy to laugh, but that’s precisely the miracle of Flavor Flav. He gives the world permission to smile again. He doesn’t greet you with a handshake. He embraces you. He doesn’t perform joy; he lives it.
When others hoard wealth, Flav gives himself. He became the official hype man for the U.S. women’s water polo team, then extended that love to the bobsleigh and skeleton teams ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics. There he was in Utah, stars-and-stripes helmet gleaming, hurling down the track at sixty-seven miles per hour, shouting, “I did it! This was so awesome!” Athletes who had nothing in common but the ice beneath them left that track with high-fives and hugs, all because of his spirit.
He’s funded athletes, cheered for them, and even helped connect Taylor Swift fans and Olympians through kindness and curiosity. He calls himself “King Swiftie,” insisting that Taylor Swift “causes earthquakes” with her music. And who can deny it? If there’s a natural phenomenon to describe the magnitude of unity, perhaps it is an earthquake—shaking, breaking, reshaping the ground beneath us.
When most of America scrolls through hate, Flav’s Twitter timeline is an oasis of kindness. Trolls call him names, and his answer is simple: “I’m just a nice guy.” It’s that humility, that quiet insistence on decency, that makes him not just relevant but revolutionary.
He’s served pretzels on a plane, lifted strangers in airports, reminded us to turn our clocks back, and proved that celebrity doesn’t have to mean separation. The world Flav inhabits isn’t divided by race or class or creed. It’s stitched together by rhythm and generosity. He’s the unlikely statesman of this broken union, uniting Black and white, young and old, the fans of Chuck D and the disciples of Taylor Swift.
So when TIME Magazine sits to decide who among us defines this year, and selects their Person of the Year, they would do well to remember that power doesn’t always wear a tie. Sometimes, it wears a clock. Sometimes, it walks with a bounce, speaks in exclamation points, and loves with no preconditions.
Flavor Flav isn’t just the ultimate hype man. He’s the people’s timekeeper, a man reminding us that joy, in times like these, is an act of resistance. As one fan wrote, “Flavor Flav is a national treasure.” And maybe, just maybe, the treasure we’ve been waiting for has been keeping time all along.
