In the entry on Chuck D in his 2003 book There's a God on the Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs, Kool Moe Dee writes: "He never talked about being the best, and he never criticized another emcee. He never even compared himself to another emcee. This only enhanced his image as a true lyrical leader, and he never even professed to be that." I was reminded of this quote when listening to Fear of a Black Planet & reflecting on just how incomparable Public Enemy is. For a group that changed the face of rap music (as the first predominantly political hiphop group, their success made it cool to be conscious in the '90s), it's curious to realize how few imitators they spawned. Sure, you can hear bits of their style in everybody from X Clan & Paris to Rage Against the Machine & Immortal Technique, but almost nobody attempted to imitate them sonically. (The only full-on Public Enemy ripoff I can think of is Michael Franti's Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.)
Part of the unique sonic signature is Chuck himself. His booming voice is instantly identifiable, but his lyrical approach is even more singular. He is not a pocket flower. He doesn't always put rhymes at the end of lines; he puts them anywhere he damn well pleases. He starts & stops & modulates up & down, tilts & leans & charges. Some concepts he beats you over the head with, others he drops oblique poetic imagery that demands more interpretation than identification--& he seems to know exactly the right place to use each approach. (For instance, "Who Stole the Soul?" never flat-out declares "Black people shouldn't have to pay taxes," but "Burn Hollywood Burn" bluntly proclaims...well, "burn Hollywood burn.")
Speaking of "Burn Hollywood Burn," it just so happens to be one of my favorite songs of all time, & also one of the first major feature tracks in history: 3 emcees from different crews getting together on a record hadn't really been done before. All respect due to Chuck & Cube, but Kane dominates this song with a top-10-all-time rap verse. Another item that ties this with It Takes a Nation... as my favorite P.E. album is the presence of the iconic "Fight the Power," reused here from its original appearance on the Do the Right Thing soundtrack & later as a single. (One of my most prized possessions was the cassingle, but it got destroyed when my buddy Nick flipped his car.)
Another major element that contributes to the inimitable P.E. sound is the Bomb Squad's production. Even the work they did with artists ranging from Ice Cube to Bell Biv DeVoe never quite captured the frenzied, chaotic feeling of the first few P.E. albums. The production mindset here takes hiphop's sample collage principle to the extremes, approaching avant-garde or musique concréte. Layers upon layers of samples adorn each track: wordless vocals, instruments, dialogue snippets, sound effects, lurching or writhing or exploding or imploding in & out of the mix, making the whole record feel like it's just short of careening completely out of control. It's an even more bruising listen than It Takes a Nation..., which had a few more sedate songs where you could catch your breath. This one is righteous mayhem from top to bottom.
One bruise on this album is the almost-throwaway micro-song "Meet the G that Killed Me," a brief demonstration of how the HIV epidemic proliferated, particularly in the Black community. P.E. got in hot water for the first lines of the song, "Man to man, I don't know if they can, from what I know the parts don't fit"--which is, first of all, a pretty stupid line (don't play coy, Chuck, you know exactly how they can). On the one hand, this is one of the only times P.E. said something homophobic. On the other, it does seem to blame gay men for proliferating HIV, which plays into a common witch-hunting narrative of the time. I did, and do, expect better from Chuck & co.
Public Enemy's 3-album run from 1988-1991 was a wild moment where songs about Black Power, reparations, the Panthers, police brutality, etc. were sitting right near the top of the pop charts, & white teenagers were buying the records & sporting the t-shirts just to piss their parents off. The '92-'99 RATM had a similar feel, but P.E. was even more significant because they were BLACKITY-BLACK & made rap music through & through. That moment will never be duplicated--not by Public Enemy or anybody else--& as it turns out, nobody else even really tried.
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