Filed under: Black Music Month
Public Enemy changed hip-hop with its blend of politically aware lyrics, dissonant beats and an inventive group dynamic. Chuck D's booming voice and complex lyrics touted black nationalism and critiqued societal inequity. Flavor Flav played the trickster/court jester. Terminator X, the DJ, spoke only with his hands. And Professor Griff and the S1Ws claimed a proto-militaristic stance. The mix made for some of rap's most exciting music.
Hailing from Roosevelt, a small town in Long Island's South Shore, Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) got his start in hip-hop as a radio DJ at Adelphi University's WBAU. When Def Jam records co-founder Rick Rubin heard a song called 'Public Enemy Number One' that Chuck made with friend Hank Shocklee, Rubin immediately tried to sign him to the burgeoning label.
Though Chuck was skeptical at first, he soon relented, enlisting Shocklee and his Spectrum City cohorts Keith Shocklee and Eric "Vietnam' Sadler to do production as the Bomb Squad. Chuck's idea was to create the ultimate political hip-hop group. Flavor Flav (William Drayton), Griff, Terminator X and the S1Ws soon joined the fold in what was once high-minded theater, Black Panther-inspired aethetics, edgy beats and fiercely political lyrics.
The raw beats and rhymes from the group's 1988 debut, 'Yo Bum Rush the Show,' did little to prepare rap fans for their masterpiece sophomore release, 'It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.' The album was powerful, cohesive and like nothing rap had produced before.
The Bomb Squad constructed walls of noise and intricate sample pastiches that were the perfect backdrop for Chuck D's forceful delivery and Flav's hyped ab-libs. 'Fight the Power,' which is on the soundtrack of Spike Lee's 1989 film 'Do the Right Thing,' stands as one of the genre's best examples of hip-hop's rebellious spirit.
Adam Yauch (MCA from the Beastie Boys) recalled the group's significance in 'Rolling Stone' magazine's 2004 feature about the 100 greatest artists of all time. (The group came in at number 44.)
"PE completely changed the game musically. No one was just putting straight-out noise and atonal synthesizers into hip-hop, mixing elements of James Brown and Miles Davis; no one in hip-hop had ever been this hard, and perhaps no one has since. They made everything else sound clean and happy, and the power of the music perfectly matched the intention of the lyrics. They were also the first rap group to really focus on making albums - you can listen to 'Nation of Millions' or 'Fear of a Black Planet' from beginning to end. They aren't just random songs tossed together."
Though the group was hailed for their music, they also endured a fair bit of controversy when critics accused some of the lyrics of 'Welcome to the Terrordome' as being anti-Semitic. (Griff was eventually asked to leave the group over statements he made.)
Still, the group endured, releasing a series of albums through '90s, two of which ('Fear of a Black Planet' and 'Apocalypse 91...The Empire Strikes Black') can be considered rap's most accomplished efforts.
Recently, Chuck D has hosted political talk radio shows and Flav has become a reality TV icon. He has also released his memoir, 'Flavor Flav: The Icon, The Memoir.'
The group was recognized at the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors in 2009.
Influenced...Paris, KRS-One, Ice Cube, X-Clan, dead prez, Immortal Technique, Ice-T, among others.