RAPilates: Body and Mind Conditioning in the Digital Age

Hip-hop icon Chuck D presents a gorgeously illustrated Pilates exercise program for people of all ages, including the over-forty crowd

LEGENDARY HIP-HOP ARTIST CHUCK D has been touring the world for four decades, since his band Public Enemy put out their first album in 1987. Now, at age sixty-three, Chuck is frequently asked how he still manages to put on such high-energy performances so many years later. His response is simple: he practices Pilates, a form of exercise and body conditioning that has become increasingly popular over the last decade.

Chuck's appreciation for Pilates took a major leap in 2016 when he was setting out on a rigorous tour schedule with a powerful and energetic new band called Prophets of Rage (a supergroup including members of Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine). Over the next four years, the group would perform to more than two million people across the globe. As Chuck admits, he simply could not have delivered on such a massive level without his practice of Pilates.

In this volume, Chuck and his Pilates guru, Kathy Lopez, present the "RAPilates" program of more than thirty mat-based exercises for people of all ages and experiences. The exercises are beautifully illustrated in the inimitable style that Chuck has demonstrated in his previous books of visual art, including STEWdio and Summer of Hamn. Like those two books, RAPilates is published on Chuck's Enemy Books imprint, which is hosted by Akashic Books.