To quote a famous song by rap group Public Enemy: "Don't

believe the hype." Even when it comes to the group itself.

PE's front-man, "prophet of rage" Chuck D., was actually a

relatively low-key, well-read Long Island, N.Y., college student

named Carlton Ridenhour, says Jacksonville resident Eric Sadler,

one of the founding members of the group. Scowling disc jockey

Terminator X was actually a quiet guy called Norman, who slept

with the bed sheets pulled up to his chin and is currently

raising ostriches in North Carolina.

Real life, said Sadler, can be diametrically opposed to the

images you get on television and radio. In more than 15 years as

a music producer (with Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Bell, Biv, Devoe

and others) Sadler has seen it all -- from the power struggles

behind best-selling albums to, "ghettos" that turn out to be

suburbs, and hardcore rappers who can't hold a beer. Real life,

he said, is a lot more fleshedout than pop culture.

"I don't like to do interviews about hip-hop because people act

like it is just one thing," he said. "Actually the music

encompasses everything; you can hear some hip-hop that has

country-Western in it, that has some classical in it, some rock

and roll in it. It's an attitude, a way of looking at things."

For example, who would have thought that one of the driving

forces behind one of the most influential -- not to mention

controversial -- pop groups of the past 20 years would be living

a relatively sedate existence in Atlantic Beach, surrounded by a

maze of palm trees and Spanish moss-drenched oaks? That he would

be living the domestic life -- his wife, Karen, heads up a video

production company out of New York, KD Sadler, Inc., and has

produced or worked with artists like the Pharcyde, Method Man,

L.L. Cool J., Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige. The couple has

two children, 7-year-old Karis, and 4-year-old Dylan.

To music fans, Sadler, now 38, is one-third of the famous Bomb

Squad, the production team responsible for some of the most

visionary music of the post-classic pop era. But while he is of

the music business, he isn't in it, per se. He was only

partially involved in the rejuvenated PE, which provided the

soundtrack to the Spike Lee movie He Got Game and headlined this

summer's Smokin Grooves tour. He is really the cool neighbor,

the good friend, the dad.

"I didn't want my kids growing up in a giant mansion or

anything like that," he said. "I want them growing up with

neighbors and kids knocking on the door wanting to know if you

can come out to play. I came down here, drove around Atlantic

Beach, saw the neighborhood, saw those trees, and that was it."

Sadler grew up on Long Island and went to Five Towns College.

He hooked up with the principal members of Public Enemy --

rapper Chuck D., Hank and Keith Shocklee, and mega-trickster

Flava Flav -- through hanging out at parties at neighboring

Adelphi and C. …