Public Enemy’s Rap Sheet

[Editor's Note: Public Enemy Month strikes black! Peep out the music in the sidebar and go through PE's discography below. Yo, Nuv! Run a power move on 'em...]

Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987)
As a kid, once I stopped giggling at the title, I popped this in the ol’ boombox and became an instant (and lifelong) fan of Public Enemy. As an adult, I learned that “bum rush” means to “crash the gates,” and, backed by Rick Rubin and Def Jam, that’s precisely what PE did. Armed with 12 tracks that each rang out like a shot and hit bullseye – fitting for a group with crosshairs for a logo. Essentially the bridge between The Message and Fuck Tha Police. Though there was a little bit of (awesome) boasting/battle rap, like the song that gave them their name, Public Enemy No. 1, PE’s prime directive was to stand up for Black America and, with the thunderous boom of Chuck D’s voice, speak out against social injustices. By no means preachy, their aggressive nature, in fact, made them more “By Any Means Necessary.” It also blew my mind and made me spend the next several years’ allowance on PE paraphernalia. A habit, to this day, that I have yet to break. Fear of a Black Jacket, bitches!

It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
Widely considered their best album, on my list it places third, just behind the next two on the list. Part of the impact it had was coming out of nowhere. People could tell PE was a classic group on the first album, but it was on ‘Nation’ that they realized they were an important one. Here they perfected their formula, leaving behind what few scraps of hip-hop-feel-good they had stuck to them from the previous release and, upon sounding the air horn in the appropriately-named intro, Countdown To Armageddon, letting the world know they were on the offensive. Coupled with snippets from famous speeches and audio from a live performance in London, this powderkeg album took on the feeling of a protest that could explode into a riot any second. Exploring themes like civil rights, black power, freedom of speech, the crack epidemic, war, the draft, flawed prison systems, corrupt governments, the sensationalism of the media…I’ll stop there. Let’s just say, they had a lot to say. They also cranked the far-from-slow average of 98 BPM (Beats Per Minute) of ‘Yo! Bum Rush…’ to an unheard of 109 (!) on this album. Faster, stronger and smarter than any rap that came before, ‘Nation’ left its peers eating dust, and me drinking the kool-aid, for years to come.

Fear of a Black Planet (1990)
Their biggest and best album. Every song is a black fist made up of five middle fingers, simultaneously smashing you in the mouth and flipping you a flock of birds. Fuck. Honestly, I don’t have the words to do this historic album justice. Good thing Chuck D does…
“Elvis was a hero to most/ but he never meant shit to me, you see/ Straight up racist, the sucker was simple and plain/ Motherfuck him and John Wayne/’Cause I’m Black and I’m proud, I’m ready and hyped plus I’m amped/Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp…” – Fight The Power [Beginning of Verse Three]
The “Fuck You” heard round the world. (I had trouble choosing a quote. I almost went with Welcome To The Terrordome, but I would’ve ended up typing out the entire song)

AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted (1990)
“Wha? Nuv, you self-righteous asshole! Isn’t that an Ice Cube album?!” Yep. It’s an Ice Cube album that happened to be produced by Public Enemy’s production team, The Bomb Squad, and shepherded by, you guessed it, Chuck D. This synthesis of East and West proved furious anger knows nothing of geography. Though Chuck is only on one track, his fingerprints are all over this album. So are mine. This album was the soundtrack to me breaking school windows, slangin’ quiz answers on the ave, and flushing the band teacher’s school/house/car keys down the toilet, promptly getting snitched on by the same dink that dared me to do it in the first place. Shit was trife in South Central Victoria, British Columbia yo!
[Bonus Material: XXL celebrates the 20th anniversary of this classic album by having Ice Cube run down exactly how he hooked up with Bomb Squad.]

Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black (1991)
In the shadow of it’s older brother from two paragraphs ago, this album is equally as angry, amazing and important. While the Beasties and Run DMC were the true parents of mixing rap with rock, the direct blueprint for stuff like Rage Against The Machine was this album’s Bring Tha Noize remix with Anthrax. Unfortunately losers like Fred Durst heard this album and came away equally inspired. ‘Apocalypse’ marks the end of PE’s golden age, where every album was a critical and commercial success.

Terminator X & The Valley of Jeep Beats (1991)
A showcase for the PE members that “Speak With Their Hands”, we got to see/hear what Bomb Squad beats sound like before Chuck absolutely obliterates them, and here the sunglasses-grafted-to-his-face musical backbone of the group, Terminator X gets a bigger space to cut them to shreds. Decidedly lighter and more ‘hip hop’ than the true PE albums, partly due to the varied guests and party atmosphere that comes with a DJ album.

Greatest Misses (1992)
Consisting of six new songs, six remixes and a live track, this album is best considered an EP with some bonus material. That said, don’t let the title mislead you. The highpoints hit their intended mark with the motherfuckin’ fury. I’ve always thought live recordings are kinda stupid though. Without the visual aspect of the performance, they generally come across as covers of the original version, but with poorer sound quality. Like Maestro is to Big Daddy Kane.

Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994)
This album is like that Kevin Costner movie, ‘Waterworld.’ Not on level with their previous efforts, and it doesn’t quite live up to the hype we all built around it (guess we forgot what Chuck taught us a few years back) but it’s also not the monumental disaster everyone remembers it as. While ‘Waterworld’ was undone by it’s own budget, the 22 track ‘Muse Sick’s’ demise was it’s length. I guess the bigger they are, blahblahwhatever. Actually, if you cut all of the skits/Flav solo songs, you’re left with 14 solid tracks. It was never going to be PE’s ‘Field of Dreams’ or ‘JFK,’ but if it dropped that dead weight, it could’ve been their ‘Bull Durham.’

Autobiography Of Mistachuck (1996)
Let’s be honest. Public Enemy is Chuck D. Yeah, yeah. I’m aware there are 437 other members that technically comprise Public Enemy, but really, most of them are garnish. Public Enemy can, and has, continued without any combination of them. It could not function without the heart, soul, and black fist of Chuck D. As such, I consider this a Public Enemy album in everything but name. And a criminally slept-on one at that. No was the most well known song on here, but Mistachuck and Free Big Willie are also incredible/uncannable. It may catch you off guard, as Chuck lays back a little over the funked-out beats and merely maims the mic rather than outright slaughtering it on each of the 12 songs. A hidden jewel for all but the most die-hard PE fans, you’d be doing yourself 12 favors hunting this down.

He Got Game (1998)
The soundtrack to a Spike Lee joint of the same name, most people only know the Buffalo Springfield-sampling single. The rest of this lean album is pretty awesome too. A highlight for me at the time was hearing Chuck team-up with Pre-Dementia KRS-One to form MegaPreachLectureRapTron on Unstoppable. KRS calls himself “The Public Enema.” Heh.

This is where their discography essentially ends for me. Though they went on to do more albums, they are all a jumble to me. A lot more misses than hits, though – even when Chuck misses, you’re gonna feel it in the morning. That said, the following are for completists only: ‘There’s A Poison Goin’ On’ (1999); ‘Revolverlution’ (2002); ‘New Whirl Odor’ (2005); ‘Rebirth of a Nation’ [featuring Paris] (2006);’How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?’ (2007);

Last week I introduced you to each member of the PE posse. Today, I took you through their discography. Public Enemy Month concludes late next week at the Commodore Ballroom in ‘Yo! Bum Rush The Show’. The SOLD-OUT show. So if you didn’t get tickets, I guess you get the bozack.

Time for me to exit, Terminator X-it…

– Nuv