Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Brothers Gonna Work It Out
I grew up a fan of rock music. Although I listened to a lot of pop and R&B as a kid, it wasn't until I was around 12 and listening to rock radio that I started to really become serious about music, especially guitar-based music. I remember hearing "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang around 1980 and thinking it was cool, but my attention quickly turned to the likes of Zeppelin, Rush and Black Sabbath. In the mid-'80s as the likes of Run DMC and Beastie Boys emerged, I enjoyed them but I held off from buying any of their albums. I watched a lot of MTV and hip hop was getting more and more exposure, but I still resisted.
By 1990, CDs had become the music format of choice. I still had a ton of vinyl, but it was obvious by the summer of '89 that CDs were taking over. For a lot of people, that meant buying music on CD that they already owned on vinyl or cassette. My dad gave me my first CD player (and a pair of huge-ass speakers) as a present when I graduated from college in May 1989, so I started buying CDs. But I didn't want to repeat myself, so for the most part, I bought CDs of albums I didn't previously own.
As CDs started to dominate, the prices for pre-recorded cassettes dropped. My thing had always been to buy music on vinyl (and later CD) and then record it on blank cassette for listening in the car or on my Walkman. But when I noticed tapes were cheaper, sometimes I would buy cassettes of artists I wasn't entirely sure about. These were the days when you couldn't just go online and listen to an entire album before you bought it. You maybe heard a song or two and based the purchase on that. In the spring of 1990, Lechmere was a popular department store in Massachusetts. I would go regularly to the Lechmere at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers and get cheap CDs and sometimes tapes.
Public Enemy had stoked a fair amount of controversy the previous summer with the kickass "Fight the Power" off the soundtrack to Spike Lee's even more controversial film Do the Right Thing. I didn't see the movie in the theaters but rented it on VHS not long after and in addition to enjoying the hell out of it, the movie made me want to check out more PE music. I knew "Don't Believe the Hype" from their previous album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, but that was about it. So I went down to Lechmere and got three tapes for $20: PE's new album Fear of a Black Planet, De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising and Digital Underground's Sex Packets ("The Humpty Dance" was a total banger, of course). All three albums were great, but it was PE that really opened my eyes and ears.
Public Enemy's third album, Fear of a Black Planet was unapologetically Afrocentric and in your face, both lyrically and sonically. The counterpoint of Chuck D, with his booming stentorian raps, and rapper/hype man Flavor Flav, with a much more flamboyant rap style and demeanor, was striking. What really stood out to me was DJ Terminator X and the Bomb Squad (Chuck D, Eric Sadler, and Keith and Hank Shocklee), who produced the album and provided impressive musical backing: turning samples, sound effects and beats into a wall of noise that could rival any rock band. This was before hip hop artists were forced to pay for samples, so there were literally hundreds of them on this album; much like De La Soul and the Beasties, this would have to be settled in court later.
PE's second single off the album, "911 is a Joke," became an unexpected hit on MTV, criticizing the late emergency response services in black neighborhoods. Flav was the main vocalist on it and was featured in the video as an accident victim waiting for an ambulance crew to arrive. The album is full of bangers: "Welcome to the Terrordome," "Burn Hollywood Burn," "Fight the Power," "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man," the title track, but for me, "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" is the standout. Chuck and Flav trading verses, a killer guitar sample from Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" and Bobby Byrd from James Brown's "Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved," all backed by a monster groove. The song features Chuck and Flav exhorting the African-American community to work together to fight injustice. Just a beast of a song, through and through.
Fear of a Black Planet was PE's peak. Chuck and Flav teamed with Anthrax to redo PE's 1988 song "Bring the Noise" and it became an MTV hit and inspired a lot more rap-rock teamups in the years to come. PE released another strong album the following year, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, but a few years later, Terminator X broke his leg in a motorcycle accident and eventually left the group. PE have continued making albums throughout the last 25 years, but to me, they haven't touched the earlier material. Although by all accounts, PE still brings it live. Chuck and Flav still have a strong media presence. Chuck toured with the Prophets of Rage, which featured members of Rage Against the Machine as well as B-Real of Cypress Hill, and Flav became a reality TV star on various shows and lately has been popping up everywhere, from Taylor Swift concerts to singing the national anthem at ballgames.
But if you want PE at the peak of their powers, it's Fear of a Black Planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment