Public Enemy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 Public Enemy in concert in 2006
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| Background information | ||
| Origin | Long Island, New York | |
| Genre(s) | Political rap Hardcore rap East coast rap |
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| Years active | 1982 – Present | |
| Label(s) | Def Jam Island Columbia Atomic Pop |
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| Associated acts |
Paris Anthrax |
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| Website | Official site | |
| Members | ||
| Chuck D Flavor Flav Professor Griff DJ Lord |
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| Former members | ||
| Terminator X | ||
Public Enemy, also known as PE, is a seminal hip hop group from Long Island, New York, known for their politically charged lyrics, criticism of the media, and active interest in the concerns of the African American community. Their latest LP, "Rebirth of A Nation," was released in March of 2006.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Public Enemy[1] #44 on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[2]. They will be inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.[3]
Contents |
[edit] History
Public Enemy (PE) formed in Roosevelt, Long Island, New York, in 1982, as an outgrowth of the group "Spectrum", the mobile DJ arm of the Roosevelt Youth Center's radio training program formulated in 1978 by Hank Shocklee, Krandel Newton and Eddie Murphy's first manager Ujima. Though originally the designer of the group's flyers, Chuck became the group's MC when Hank heard him rapping and was impressed with his skills. Around 1982, the group hosted a popular radio program over WBAU, Adelphi University's radio station in which they developed to compete with the newly-formed KISS-FM and to give exposure to local and popular rap artists. Hosted by Chuck D and Butch Cassidy, who would go on to head the Public Enemy sub-group "5ive-O", and deejayed by Hank's brother Keith, he was introduced to Flavor Flav when he accompanied "T.A." from the group "Townhouse Three" (later "Sons of Bazerk") to the studio to do a tape, which eventually led to a camaraderie between the two. Developing his talents as an MC with Flavor while delivering furniture for his father's business, Chuck and "Spectrum City", as they were called, released the record "Check Out The Radio", backed by "Lies", a social commentary - both of which would influence RUSH Productions' Run D.M.C. and Beastie Boys. They were signed to the still developing Def Jam record label after co-founder Rick Rubin heard Chuck D freestyling on a demo. Around 1986, Bill Stephney, the former Program Director at WBAU, was approached by Rubin and offered a position with the label. Stephney accepted, and his first assignment was to help Rubin sign Chuck D, whose song "Public Enemy Number One" he had heard from Doctor Dre. According to the book, The History of Rap Music by Cookie Lommel: "Stephney thought it was time to mesh the hard-hitting style of Run DMC with politics that addressed black youth. Chuck recruited Spectrum City, which included Hank Shocklee, his brother Keith Shocklee and Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, collectively known as 'The Bomb Squad,' to be his production team and added another Spectrum City partner, Professor Griff, to become the group's Minister of Information. With the addition of Flavor Flav and another local mobile DJ named Terminator X, the group Public Enemy was born."
It then took roughly five years before their debut, Yo! Bum Rush The Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. They went on to release the revolutionary It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype" in addition to "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," chronicling a daring prison break. Epic samplers, Public Enemy saw Madonna and Lenny Kravitz, lift the beat for Madonna's hit "Justify My Love" from PE's instrumental "Security of the First World." The album was voted Album of the Year by the The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll, the first rap album to be ranked number one by predominantly rock critics.
They also went on to release Fear of a Black Planet, which was considered to be just as militant and controversial as their first two releases. It was also the most successful of any of their albums to date and in 2005 was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "911 (is a Joke)", which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power", which is considered by many to be the group's anthem. The song is regarded as among the most popular and influential in Hip Hop history and was the theme song for Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. Their next release, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, continued this trend, with songs like "Can't Truss It" and "# I Don't Wanna Be Called Yo Niga". The album's influence could be seen and heard in the controversial song and video "By the Time I Get To Arizona" which chronicled the black community's frustration that some states did not recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The video featured members of Public Enemy taking out their frustrations on politicians in the states not recognizing the holiday.
[edit] Legacy
- "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (1989) (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- Problems playing the files? See media help.
Public Enemy were pioneers in many ways. Some of Terminator X's most innovative scratching tricks can be heard on the song "Rebel Without a Pause". The Bomb Squad offered up a web of innovative samples and beats; Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine declares that PE "brought in elements of free jazz, hard funk, even musique concrète, via their producing team, the Bomb Squad, creating a dense, ferocious sound unlike anything that came before." [1]
PE revolutionized the rap world with their political, social and cultural consciousness, which infused itself into skilled and poetic rhymes with raucous sound collages as a foundation. Prior to PE, political rap was confined to a few tracks by Ice-T and KRS-One; PE were the first hiphop act to base their entire image around a political stance. With the success of Public Enemy, hip-hop was suddenly flooded with new artists that celebrated Afrocentric themes, such as Kool Moe Dee, Gang Starr, X Clan, Eric B & Rakim, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest.[citation needed]
They were the first rap-group to make extended world tours, which led to huge popularity and influence in Hip-Hop communities in Europe and Asia. They also changed the Internet's music distribution capability by being one of the first groups to release MP3 albums,[4] a format virtually unknown at the time.
Public Enemy helped to form and define the so-called "Rap-Rock", correctly known as "Rapcore", genre of music (heavy rock music spliced with hip hop) by collaborating with New York thrash metal outfit Anthrax in 1991. The single "Bring Tha Noize" was a mix of semi-militant "black power" lyrics, grinding guitars and sporadic humor. The two bands, cemented by a mutual respect and the personal friendship between Chuck D and his Anthrax counterpart Scott Ian, introduced a hitherto alien genre to rock fans, and the two seemingly disparate groups even toured together. Flavor Flav's pronouncement on stage that "They said this tour would never happen" (as heard on Anthrax's Live: The Island Years CD) has become something of a legend in both rock and rap circles.
Members of the "Bomb Squad" produced or remixed works for other acts such as Bell Biv DeVoe, Ice Cube, Vanessa Williams, Sinéad O'Connor, Blue Magic, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, Paula Abdul, Jasmine Guy, Jody Watley, Eric B & Rakim, Third Bass, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD and Chaka Khan. According to Chuck, "We had tight dealings with MCA and were talking about taking three guys that were left over from New Edition and coming up with an album for them. The three happened to be Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe, later to become "Bell Biv DeVoe." Ralph Tresvant had been slated to do a solo album for years. Bobby Brown had left New Edition and "blew up" in 1988 and Johnny Gill had just been recruited to come in, but Johnny Gill had come off a solo career and could always go back to that. At MCA, Hiram Hicks, who was their manager, and Lowell Silas, who was running the show, were like, "Yo, these kids were left out in the cold, can y'all come up with something for them." It was a task that Hank, Keith, Eric and I took on to try to put some kind of Hip-Hop flavored R&B sh-t down for them. Subsequently, what happened in the four weeks of December (1989) was that the bomb Squad knocked out a large piece of the production and arrangement on Bell Biv DeVoe's three million selling album, Poison. In January (1990), we knocked out Fear of A Black Planet in four weeks, and we knocked out Ice Cube's album AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted in four to five weeks in February."[5] They have also produced local talent such as Son of Bazerk, Young Black Teenagers, Kings of Pressure and True Mathematics and gave producer Kip Collins his start in the business.
[edit] Origin of name
Chuck D had put out a tape to promote WBAU (the radio station he was working at the time) and to fend off a local rapper who wanted to battle him. He called the tape Public Enemy #1 because he felt like he was being persecuted by people in the local scene. This was the first reference to the notion of a "Public Enemy" in any of Chuck D's songs. The single was created by Chuck D with a contribution by Flavor Flav, though this was before the group Public Enemy was officially assembled.
Public Enemy is also the name of one of the first film noir gangster movies, a 1931 classic starring James Cagney.
According to Chuck, The S1W, which stands for "Security of the First World", "represents that the Black man can be just as intelligent as he is strong. It stands for the fact that we're not Third World people, we're First World people; we're the original people (of the earth)."[6]
On the track "Louder Than a Bomb", from It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Chuck D reveals that the D in his nickname stands for "dangerous".
[edit] Controversy
- Several members of P.E. were also infamous for their alignment with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, whose remarks and speeches they have sampled along with Malcolm X's on several of their recordings. Professor Griff, after reading the book "The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews", published by the Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam, which elaborates on the Jewish role in the slave trade, Griff made what many perceived to be anti-Semitic remarks in an interview he had with David Mills of The Washington Times. However, according to Chuck D's book Fight The Power, after Griff cited several Jewish sources verifying his claim in a follow-up interview, Mills regretted writing the story and apologized to Griff. By then, however, it was too late. The story had resurfaced in a Village Voice article and got out of control. It resulted in Griff leaving Public Enemy and founding his own group, Last Asiatic Disciples, whose lyrics were even more politically and racially charged than Public Enemy's.[7][8]
- Chuck has stated in the songs "Bring the Noise" and "Don't Believe the Hype" that you should not judge people who you hear on the news in sound-bites like Farrakhan "until you hear the man."
- One of their singles was named "Swindler's Lust", twisting the title of Schindler's List. Upon release of the single, the group was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League,[2] though the group and many of their fans defended themselves, saying that they were not trying to diminish the events of the Holocaust, but, rather draw a comparison between the events of the Holocaust and slavery.
- A verse of "Fight the Power" accuses Elvis Presley and John Wayne of being racists (Compare to MDC's "John Wayne Was A Nazi"). The remarks about Elvis aroused some controversy in both the white and black communities. Many black commentators used the controversy to bring up the racial issues raised by Elvis's career as a white superstar who was heavily influenced by black musical styles.
- Sister Souljah, a then little-known rapper and writer who had made guest appearances on several Public Enemy tracks, surprisingly became an issue in the 1992 Presidential campaign when Bill Clinton denounced her racial views during a debate.
[edit] Members
| Name | Birthdate | Real name | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chuck D | August 1, 1960 | Carlton Douglas Ridenhour | Group leader, Producer, lyricist, main vocalist, and artwork |
| Flavor Flav | March 16, 1959 | William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. | Lyricist, vocalist, producer, instrumentalist, hype man, and comic relief |
| Professor Griff | August 1, 1960 | Richard Griffin | Head of S1W, liaison between PE and S1W, road manager. Ensured that the chaotic Flavor Flav was available when needed. Occasional vocalist and/or producer, plays drums at live shows |
| Terminator X (former) |
August 25, 1966 | Norman Rogers | DJ, Producer |
| DJ Lord | Lord Aswod | DJ, Producer |
The following are a part of The Bomb Squad, the revolutionary production group which is closely associated with (sometimes considered a part of) Public Enemy:
- Hank Shocklee (Hank Boxley)
- Keith Shocklee (Keith Boxley)
- Eric "Vietnam" Sadler
- Gary G-Wiz
Chuck D is often listed as a member of the Bomb Squad under the pseudonym "Carl Ryder", a shortened form of his real name.
The S1W, which stands for "Security of the First World" are sometimes considered a part of Public Enemy, as well. The members constantly rotate and have included (among others):
- James Norman
- James Allen
- Roger Chillous
- John (Butch) "Pop" Oliver
- Mike Williams
- Andrew Williams
- Dwayne Cousar
- Ronald Lincoln
- Jacob "Jake" Shankle
- Many of the future members of Professor Griff's Last Asiatic Disciples
- Butch Cassidy (Aaron Allen) & his group "5ive-O" a/k/a "the Interrogators."
[edit] Discography
[edit] Main albums
| Album cover | Album information |
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Yo! Bum Rush the Show
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It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
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Fear of a Black Planet
Status: 6x Platinum U.S. |
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Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black |
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Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age |
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There's a Poison Goin' On |
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Revolverlution |
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New Whirl Odor
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Rebirth of a Nation |
[edit] Compilations/Soundtracks/Live albums
- Fight the Power...Live! (1989)
- Greatest Misses 1986-1992 (1992) Gold U.S.
- He Got Game (soundtrack) (1998)
- Power to the People and the Beats: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits (2005) #69 US
- Beats and Places (2006): Unreleased songs from the current decade.
- In 2004 Rebel Without A Pause appeared on popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, playing on the classic hip hop radio station Playback FM, which is deejayed by Chuck D. as Forth Right MC.
- Bring tha Noize was on the videogame Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
- Bring the Noise was on the 2004 videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
[edit] Internet albums
- BTN 2000 (online released mega-mix which initialized PE's leaving Def Jam records) (1999)
- There's a Poison Goin' On (originally sold as MP3 downloads through Atomic Pop) (1999)
[edit] Books
- Chuch D with Yusuf Jah, Chuck D: Lyrics of a Rap Revolutionary, Off Da Books, 2007 ISBN 0-974-94841-1
- Chuck D with Yusuf Jah, Fight the Power, Delacorte Press, 1997 ISBN 0-385-31868-5
- Professor Griff, Atlanta Musick Bizness Resource Information Publication (R.I.P.), 2005
- Fuck You Heroes, Glen E. Friedman photographs 1976-1991, Burning Flags Press, 1994, ISBN 0-9641916-0-1
[edit] References
- ^ Public Enemy. Adam Yauch. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- ^ The Immortals: The First Fifty. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- ^ "Long Island Music Hall of Fame"
- ^ Dubois, Keir. "Public Enemy and MP3". Transcriptions Project, December, 1999. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Fight The Power, pp. 236-237
- ^ Fight The Power by Chuck D and Yusuf Jah, pg. 82)
- ^ "Professor Griff's 1990 Album". V.R.M.. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Davey D . "Professor Griff Returns". Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
[edit] External links
- Public Enemy's official website
- Public Enemy's Official video site
- Slam Jamz, Chuck D's online record label
- In-Depth Tribute Site to Public Enemy
[edit] Interviews
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- Chuck D's best story ever about Flavor Flav this is from the TV show The Hour.
- Chuck D Interview with Guitar Player
- Chuck D Interview with Halftimeonline.com
- Paris discusses the making of Public Enemy's Rebirth of a Nation with Innerviews
- Hardgroove (Public Enemy bandleader, bass player) interview with Bass Player
- Khari Wynn (Public Enemy guitarist) interview in Guitar Player
