Rap or Hip-Hop. Not my favourite form of music. Yet when I was reading the music magazines in the early 90s (see post https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/05/26/all-of-these-and-seven-more-wonders-i-will-find/) there were thoughtful reviews and features on the groups. NWA were the bad boys out of the West Coast but the Kings of East Coast) and this was years before the Tupac/ Biggie feud) were Public Enemy.
Public Enemy were not focused on gang violence, drugs or sex like NWA. Their leader likened them to CNN for the black community. They were provocative and aggressive but they were also crusading.
I bought Fear of A Black Planet from Compact Music in Ipswich when it came out – to the surprise of the owner, Stuart. Probably the worst place someone could ever start listening to Public Enemy, it is their Metal Music Machine, stripped down and very much just focusing on Chuck D rapping.
I was not beaten, their second album was the one listed in the 100 Most Important Albums ever – so I bought It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back. It is that important.
Their fourth album was Apocalypse 91 – The Enemy Strikes Black is their most accessible. Stand out tracks are the reworked Bring Tha Noise with heavy metal band Anthrax (like Run DMC and Aerosmith a couple of years earlier the Metal/ Rap team up seemed odd at the time – but both were outlaw music, incredibly popular with nerdy white boys) and By The Time I Get To Arizona about two states not making Martin Luther King’s birthday a public holiday. This featured a striking call to arms introduction by newest member of the group, Sister Souljah.
(The imposing cover of the fourth album with The Security of the First World in the back row, Griff, D and Flavor Flav in the front).
(1992 at Club 69, trying to look street with my PE shirt – failing)
Line-up changes were forced due to controversial comment in the media by Griff and Souljah. Flavor Flav was eventually booted for supporting Trump, but Flav was PE’s Bez before there was a Bez in the Happy Mondays. Most of them come back. The one certainty is Chuck D – an eloquent and intelligent man (who is a lot funnier than his image suggests).
I saw them in Greenwich in the period between it being home to the Millennium Dome and the O2 Arena. They were playing in the afternoon on a sunny day, but they had over 100,000 people in the palm of their hand -most of whom had just come to the festival, not specifically to see them.
This is from that classic second album. On the album they use a sample from thrash metal band Slayer – the video has Public Enemy actually performing with Slayer.
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