A 1988 second album, produced by the Bomb Squad, routinely named the greatest hip-hop record ever made (1988)
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Popular music · Hip hop
Public Enemy
formed 1985 · American
Political hip-hop — Def Jam and the Bomb Squad
Public Enemy, formed on Long Island in 1985, made hip-hop into a vehicle for Black political argument. Chuck D delivered dense, declamatory verses against the sirens and sample collages of the production team known as the Bomb Squad, with Flavor Flav — clock round his neck — as the hype man and comic foil. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet are routinely named among the greatest records ever made in any genre.
How to spot them
- ▸Chuck D's booming baritone against Flavor Flav's yelping interjections and oversized clock
- ▸The Bomb Squad's layered, siren-heavy production; the S1Ws drilling on stage in paramilitary uniform
- ▸The logo: a b-boy silhouette framed in a rifle's sights
- ▸Def Jam, Rick Rubin, and Roosevelt, Long Island
Songs & albums
A 1989 single written for a Spike Lee film, blasting from a boombox through a Brooklyn summer (1989)
"Fight the Power", from Do the Right Thing.
A 1990 album about racial separation, with a single mocking a slow ambulance service (1990)
Fear of a Black Planet, including "911 Is a Joke".
A 1988 single dismissing press hysteria about rap music (1988)
"Don't Believe the Hype".
A 1987 debut album on Def Jam (1987)
Yo! Bum Rush the Show.
A 1991 collaboration with a New York thrash metal band, rewriting one of their own songs (1991)
"Bring the Noise", recorded with Anthrax.
Their emblem: a b-boy silhouette centred in a rifle's crosshairs (1986)
Designed by Chuck D, who had studied graphic design.
Quick-fire facts
- •Formed in 1985 in Roosevelt, Long Island, by Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) and Flavor Flav (William Drayton)
- •Rick Rubin signed them to Def Jam after hearing Chuck D's demo 'Public Enemy No. 1'
- •The Bomb Squad production team was Hank Shocklee, Keith Shocklee, Eric Sadler and Chuck D
- •Professor Griff led the S1Ws — Security of the First World — who drilled on stage with mock Uzis
- •Their original DJ was Terminator X, succeeded by DJ Lord
- •The density of their sampling, and the lawsuits it provoked, helped bring in the strict sample-clearance regime that made such records impossible to repeat
- •They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, in their first year of eligibility, by Spike Lee and Harry Belafonte
- •"Fight the Power" was commissioned by Spike Lee as the theme of Do the Right Thing (1989)
- •Chuck D later co-founded the supergroup Prophets of Rage with members of Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Public Enemy — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee
- Jeff Chang — Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation