Public Enemy

Public Enemy are still at the top of their game on their fourth LP, their last classic album. Frenzied Bomb Squad production backs up lyrical throwdowns from Chuck and Flav. Includes fan favorites like "By The Time I Get To Arizona" and "Get The F--- Outta Dodge."

It's a black thing, you got to understand," declaims Chuck D during the coda that concludes
"Move!" – one of the many exhortatory blasts on the new Public Enemy album, Apocalypse
91: The Enemy Strikes Black. You can believe him. The album, PE's fourth, attempts nothing
short of setting a sociopolitical agenda for the black community in the last decade of the
twentieth century. Toward that ambitious end it doesn't waste many words dec... More >

Hard, hard, hard--hard beats hard news, hard 'tude. Hard on the brother man (African slave traders, black rookies, dead gangstas, malt liquor addicts, Quiet Storm, Jet, and anybody who calls Flav "n*gg*"). Trademark dissonances and quick-witted interactions are sui generis, yet it's so in-your-face spare and sneaky deliberate that it's further from Fear of a Black Planet than Black Planet was from Nation of Millions, which was a lot further than a nation of others noticed. Strong top to bottom, it could peak higher: the closest thing to a "Bring the Noise" or "Terrordome" or even "911" is that n*gg* song. Motto: "Justice evolves only after injustice is defeated." (Grade - A)