William Jonathan Drayton, better known as Flavor Flav, performed the national anthem at the Milwaukee Bucks game on Sunday night and sent social media into a frenzy. The 64-year-old rapper, six-time Grammy Award nominee, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer took center court at Fiserv Forum and belted out one of the greatest renditions of The Star Spangled Banner of all-time.
It may not have been the best performance in terms of vocals, because Flavor Flav and Public Enemy rarely sang ballads, but it was the best performance in terms of effort. His passion and patriotism was on full display, to the delight of everyone in the arena.
Flavor Flav, who actually attended culinary school in 1978 prior to his lengthy rap career, was a musical prodigy growing up. He taught himself how to play the piano by ear at the age of five and learned how to play 15 different instruments as a child.
Very few people can tickle the ivories like Flav.
Although he is an incredibly talented musician, Flav doesn’t have the greatest vocals. His ability to carry a tune got him through the anthem. It was not necessarily the most technically sound performance.
The same cannot be said for the theatrics. Flav put his entire heart and soul into the national anthem, and even finished it off with an extra little riff.
Even after a few chuckles among NBA players, staffers and fans, the crowd went bonkers upon the final note. They will forever be able to say that they saw Flavor Flav sing the Star Spangled Banner. That’s epic.
Most everybody loved the performance. As with anything, though, there were plenty of haters.
Flavor Flav doesn’t care!
Some people wondered why the Bucks would let Flav perform in the first place. Others did not think that Flav’s vocals were up to par.
None of that mattered to the clock-wearing legend himself.
The anthem was a long time bucket list item,,, that was fun!
I can’t live my life worried about what people might say about me. I won’t let that stop me from trying new things and doing things I wanna do. Some people might not like that. But a sure failure is if you stop trying.
— Flavor Flav on X, formerly known as Twitter
Flavor Flav eviscerated the haters with kindness. He had a blast and gave it his all.
What else matters?!