Every few years, like clockwork, Gene Simmons decides to remind everyone that he doesn’t understand hip-hop. And every time, someone has to school him. This round, Chuck D handled the lesson.
During a February 7 appearance on the LegendsNLeaders podcast, the KISS frontman complained that Iron Maiden hasn’t been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame while artists like Grandmaster Flash have. Then he went further. “I don’t come from the ghetto,” Simmons said. “It doesn’t speak my language. 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.”
He dismissed the entire genre as “a spoken-word art” where “you put beats in back of it and somebody comes up with a musical phrase, but it’s verbal.”
Chuck D Was Ready
Public Enemy’s Chuck D, whose group was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2013 (one year before KISS, for the record), responded in a video posted by TMZ on February 12. His take was measured but sharp.
“Gene Simmons seems to say this every three years,” Chuck D said. He then broke down the institutional argument Simmons keeps getting wrong: “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.”
The punchline landed clean: “KISS are rock gods, but they don’t have a lot of roll to them.”
Chuck D also corrected Simmons on the word “ghetto” itself, noting that “ghettos came out of a European term, a cluster of people who were kind of like the same tribe in the same area. Ghetto don’t mean Black.”
Simmons Doubled Down
Rather than sit with the feedback, Simmons told People magazine he stands by every word. His defense? “The word ‘ghetto,’ it originated with Jews. It was borrowed by African Americans in particular and respectfully, not in a bad way.” He added: “How could you be [racist], when rock is Black music? It’s just a different Black music than hip-hop, which is also Black music.”
Acknowledging rock’s Black roots while dismissing hip-hop’s place in the same institution is not the defense he thinks it is. It’s selective respect.
Why This Matters
This isn’t just a music debate. It’s a political one. Hip-hop has been the most powerful cultural vehicle for political expression in America for four decades. Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” wasn’t background music. Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” wasn’t spoken-word poetry. These were political acts packaged as art, and they shaped how an entire generation engaged with issues of policing, poverty, and power.
When someone like Simmons uses the word “ghetto” to dismiss hip-hop from institutional recognition, he’s echoing the same gatekeeping logic that kept Black artists out of mainstream awards, radio playlists, and cultural institutions for generations. The language has softened, but the impulse is the same: your art is valid, just not here.
Chuck D understands this because he’s lived it. Public Enemy didn’t just make music. They built a political movement inside a genre that people kept trying to delegitimize. And the Rock Hall eventually had to recognize that, a full year before they got around to KISS.
The Takeaway
Hip-hop doesn’t need Gene Simmons’ permission to belong anywhere. It never did. But every time this conversation resurfaces, it’s a reminder that cultural gatekeeping is political gatekeeping. The same people who dismiss the art will dismiss the politics it carries. Chuck D knew that in 1988. He knows it now.
