| "Fight the Power" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Public Enemy | ||||
| from the album Fear of a Black Planet | ||||
| Released | September 17, 1989 | |||
| Format | Vinyl record (12") | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Length | 4:42 | |||
| Label | Tamla | |||
| Writer(s) | Chuck D, Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, Hank Shocklee, Keith Shocklee | |||
| Producer | The Bomb Squad | |||
| Public Enemy singles chronology | ||||
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"Fight the Power" is a single by American hip hop group Public Enemy. First released on the soundtrack for the film 1989 Do the Right Thing, a different version was released on the group's third studio album, Fear of a Black Planet (1990). The single reached number one on Hot Rap Singles and number 20 on the Hot R&B Singles. It was named the best single of 1989 by The Village Voice in their Pazz & Jop critics' poll.
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The Bomb Squad, Public Enemy's production team, constructed the music of "Fight the Power" using numerous samples by looping, layering, and transfiguring them.[1] The track utilizes only two actual instrumentalists, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and Terminator X, the group's DJ and turntabilist, who provides the scratches.[1] The group's Brian Hardgroove said, "Law enforcement is necessary. As a species we haven’t evolved past needing that. Fight the Power is not about fighting authority—it’s not that at all. It’s about fighting abuse of power."[2] Although it samples many different works, the total length of each sample fragment is fairly short, as most span less than a second, and the primary technique used to construct them into the track was looping by Bomb Squad-producers Hank and Keith Shocklee.[3]
In looping, a recorded passage—typically an instrumental solo or break—could be repeated by switching back and forth between two turntables playing the same record. The looping in "Fight the Power", and hip hop music in general, directly arose from the hip hop DJs of the 1970s, and both Shocklees began their careers as DJs.[3] Although the looping for "Fight the Power" was not created on turntables, it has a central connection to DJing. Author Mark Katz writes in his Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, "Many hip-hop producers were once DJs, and skill in selecting and assembling beats is required of both. [...] Moreover, the DJ is a central, founding figure in hip-hop music and a constant point of reference in its discourse; producers who stray too far from the practices and aesthetics of DJing may risk compromising their hip-hop credentials".[3]
Public Enemy's lead MC and Bomb Squad-member Chuck D later said of the track's extravagant looping and production, "We put loops on top of loops on top of loops".[3] Katz comments in an analysis of the track, "The effect created by Public Enemy's production team is dizzying, exhilarating, and tantalizing—clearly one cannot take it all in at once".[3] He continues by discussing the connection of the production to the work as a whole, stating:
When Public Enemy's rapper and spokesman Chuck D. explains, 'Our music is all about samples,' he reveals the centrality of recording technology to the group's work. Simply put, 'Fight the Power,' and likely Public Enemy itself, could not exist without it. 'Fight the Power' is a complex and subtle testament to the influence and possibilities of sound recording; but at the same time, it reveals how the aesthetic, cultural, and political priorities of musicians shape how the technology is understood and used. A look at Public Enemy's use of looping and performative quotation in 'Fight the Power' illuminates the mutual influences between musician and machine.[3]—Mark Katz
"Fight the Power" begins with a vocal sample of civil rights attorney and activist Thomas "TNT" Todd, speechifying in a resonant, agitated voice, "Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. Matter of fact, it's safe to say that they would rather switch than fight".[1] This 16-second passage is the longest of the numerous samples incorporated to the track.[1] It is followed by a brief three-measure section (0:17–0:24) that is carried by the dotted rhythm of a vocal sample repeated six times; the line "pump me up" from Trouble Funk's 1982 song of the same name played backwards indistinctly.[1] The rhythmic measure-section also features a melodic line, Branford Marsalis' saxophone playing in triplets, buried in the mix, eight snare drum hits in the second measure, and vocal exclamations in the third measure. One of the exclamations, a nonsemantic "chuck chuck" taken from the 1972 song "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get" by The Dramatics, serves as a reference to Chuck D.[1]
The track's following section (0:24–0:44) leads to the entrance of the rappers and features more complex production. In the first four seconds of the section, no less than 10 distinct samples are looped into a whole texture, which is then repeated four more times as a meta-loop.[3] The whole section contains samples of guitar, synthesizer, bass, including that of James Brown's 1971 recording "Hot Pants", four fragmented vocal samples, including those of Brown's famous grunts in his recordings, and various percussion samples.[3] Although it is obscured by the other samples, Clyde Stubblefield's drum break from James Brown's 1970 song "Funky Drummer", one of the most frequently sampled rhythmic breaks in hip hop,[4] makes an appearance, with only the break's first two eighth notes in the bass drum and the snare hit in clarity.[3]
The samples incorporated to "Fight the Power" largely draw from African-American culture, and their original recording artists are mostly important figues in the development of late 20th-century African-American popular music.[5] Vocal elements characteristic of this are various exhortations common in African-American music and church services, including the lines "Let me hear you say", "Come on and get down", and "Brothers and sisters", as well as James Brown's grunts and Afrika Bambaataa's electronically processed exclamations, taken from his 1982 song "Planet Rock".[5] The samples are reinforced by textual allusions to such music, quoted by Chuck D in his lyrics, including "sound of the funky drummer" (James Brown and Clyde Stubblefield), "I know you got soul" (Bobby Byrd and Eric B. & Rakim), "freedom or death" (Stetsasonic), "people, people" (Brown's "Funky President"), and "I'm black and I'm proud" (Brown's "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud").[5] The track's title itself invokes the Isley Brothers' song of the same name.[5]
"Fight the Power" was voted "Best Single" by the The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll of 1989.[6]Planet Rock It was ranked number one on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop.[7] It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll,[8] number 322 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, number 40 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs,[9] and number 288 on Songs of the Century.[10] Time included the song on its list of the All-TIME 100 Songs.[11]
In April 1996, the song was used in the police drama television series New York Undercover, featured prominently in the opening scene of the episode "Andre's Choice".[12]
Spike Lee produced and directed two music videos for this song. The first featured clips of various scenes from Do the Right Thing. In the second video, Lee used hundreds of extras to simulate a massive political rally in Brooklyn. The extras carry signs featuring Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, Chuck Berry and Martin Luther King, Jr. Tawana Brawley made a cameo appearance. Brawley gained national notoriety in 1987 when, at the age of 15, she accused several police officers and public officials from Wappingers Falls, New York of raping her. The charge was rejected in court, and she instead was sued for supposedly fabricating her story. Jermaine Dupri also made a cameo.