I posted a couple months ago about my recent ‘discovery’ of hiphop group Public Enemy. At this point I have 15 vinyl singles, 5 vinyl albums, a handful of CDs/cassettes and 3 sealed live VHS tapes. I try to only collect sealed or promo copies because those are much more rare than open/regular copies. My crown jewel so far is a good condition vinyl promo of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest hiphop albums ever.

I’ve picked up pretty much every album/song I’ve wanted so at this point I’m focusing purely on sealed and promo copies. Not sure when I’ll consider my collection complete, but that’s the fun of collecting. The ironic part about it? I don’t own anything that can play vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, or VHS.

A few weeks ago I posted my growing collection of vintage Public Enemy singles and demos. I was watching an interview of PE frontman Chuck D recently and he mentioned that he went to Adelphi University and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. I went online, found a PDF version of the 1984 Adelphi yearbook, and sure enough, there’s Carlton Douglas Ridenhour. I went on eBay and found someone selling an original copy of the yearbook so I nabbed it.

I’m not huge into yearbooks as a collectible because practically every celebrity has a yearbook, but I had to own this one because it represents an important connection to Chuck D’s body of work:

* While most musicians have graduated high school, not many have a college degree. A common theme of Chuck D’s lyrics is self-empowerment with an emphasis on education as a key to success.
* Chuck D said of his time at Adelphi that it was “the foundation of [his] social, political, and musical world”, an impressive statement given the socially-conscious nature of his music.
* He hosted a hip-hop show on Adelphi’s student radio station, WBAU, through which he met another Adelphi student named William Drayton Jr, better known as the other half of Public Enemy, “Flavor Flav”.
Do any of y’all own a celebrity yearbook?