I think the importance of Public Enemy is that they raised the consciousness level among many Blacks. I know that I learned a lot about Black history just from listening to their lyrics, especially on the 'Nation of Millions' album. Just by Chuck dropping a name made me want to investigate to learn who and what he was talking about. But I have never looked at them as leaders. And I interpret the term 'public enemy' in a couple of ways. The first is that the Black man is generally viewed by society as 'public enemy number 1' (or at least that was the case pre-9/11). Just looking at the group's symbol - the silhouette of a Black man in the cross-hairs of a rifle - should make that point crystal clear. The second meaning of 'public enemy' is that they are doing something that the government (school systems) have never done — teaching the masses of Black people the truth about their history. In doing so the group could be viewed as 'working against the greater good' by the powers that be.
Then we get this bit of ignorance:
In terms of music, you know, SONGS, PE is a third or fourth tier act. They have a few good songs, but they're no Beatles or Prince. Fear of a Black Planet was a rockin' good album, but that was all they had in 'em. Being highly generous, you might say that PE has ten worthwhile songs, eight or nine of them from Black Planet. On a musical level, their whole career might be the equal of Licensed to Ill.
'Fear of a Black Planet' is all they had in them??? Uh, excuse me, aren't you forgetting the small fact that 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back' is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time? There's no way in hell that 'Licensed to Ill' can compare musically or lyrically with 'Nation'. You've got the incredible musical production of the Bomb Squad combined with Chuck's incomparable lyrics. Not to mention his voice and delivery. I'll put 'Bring the Noise', 'Don't Believe The Hype', 'Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic', 'Louder Than A Bomb', 'Caught, Can We Get A Witness?', 'Night Of The Living Baseheads', 'Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos', 'Rebel Without A Pause', 'Prophets Of Rage' and 'Party For Your Right To Fight' up against any song on 'Licensed'. So there are at least another 10 great tracks just from the 'Nation' album. Al is straight-up trippin' to not consider 'Nation' to be PE's best album. 'Nation' has been critically acclaimed as one of the best albums ever, regardless of genre. And I even rate 'Yo! Bum Rush the Show' above 'Fear of a Black Planet'.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Chris
I don't want to get in the middle of smackdown, I like PE. I think they are more important than Al does, but not quite as important as you seem to think they are. If PE had the influence they had the whole bling-bling hip-hop rap would not have exploded in the mid-90's. Arguably, Dr. Dre is the most important rap artist of all time.
But, One Thing: Chuck D is ignorant if he thinks Elvis really said that. This issue was explored and debunked, more than once, but most recently by Peter Guralnick in his two volume biography of Elvis.
2 - Michael
As I stated in the article, PE is important only in that they got a lot of young people to explore Black history and start to think critically about things going on in the world. Bottom line... they're entertainers. I don't think I have them on some pedestal. And I sure don't look to them for leadership.
There can be no doubt that hip-hop is in a bad place right now. But I can hardly blame that on PE's lack of influence. How can one musical group overcome the influence of America's get-it-now, materialistic way of life? In the end, it's gonna come down to what the public buys, and what the record companies choose to promote. And I think most of that 'bling-bling' and the gansta rap is bought by suburban (white) kids, who've probably never hear PE's music.
As for the Elvis thing. I don't know whether or not Elvis actually said that quote. I only posted it to tell the reason Chuck put that line in the song. It wasn't b/c Elvis did something to Chuck personally as Al stated.
3 - Chris
I have no idea what the African American community thinks about the current state of hip-hop and rap. I would imagine the opinions are diverse. For instance, Arrested Development released a great, positive, social conscious album and where are they now?
But, it is true that white suburban kids buy the majority of output, and this is probably a discussion way out of bounds from the topic of this piece, but it would seem to me that white kids have developed a really bad understanding of African American culture and that the artists themselves are responsible for that.
4 - Michael
Yes, the opinions are diverse -- as are our opinions on everything. There is still plenty of 'conscious' hip-hop being made today, but it doesn't sell nearly as well as the other (less positive) types. You should check out a post I just came across in which: Berkeley Professor John McWhorter blames rap for the black image problem in the media, then he goes on to rip apart most everything wrong with the industry.
5 - Eric Olsen
M, Our thinking is similar here, but even if it wasn't, great job and glad to have you on board. There probably isn't a single greatest rap artist, to me it seems more song-based than artist-based, with some obvious standouts as you mentioned.
Re Elvis P, although no music historian would claim he created the sound of rock 'n' roll, which dates back to the late '40s, he did absorb and encapsulate all of the diverse elements and give them a focal point, thereby culturally "creating" rock 'n' roll.
6 - Chris
Re: Elvis P and "creating" rock and roll. Ditto what Eric said.
Michael,
I didn't mean to imply some sort of group think, only that I don't know what the different opinions might be.
John McWhorter is a good start, but I have seen him on shows with other black leaders and accused of not being black enough.
As a white suburban kid I skipped much of the gangsta stuff, excluding Dr. Dre after leaving NWA.
Hell, I even remember why Kool Moe Dee had a Kango under the tire of a car on the cover of one of his albums.
This is an issue I battle in my house, this perception of black culture through the presentation of guys like AI and some of the hip-hop/rap that makes into our CD player. (I have a 12 year old son so we police his music pretty well.)
7 - Michael
Chris,
It's good to know that you're concerned about the messages your son is receiving through the media. If more parents would be as involved with their children a lot of our country's problems would be solved.
Chris & Eric,
I don't know nearly enough about the history of Rock to really speak on this subject. But I'm really surprised to hear you both say that Elvis created rock, even given the stipulations that Eric stated. Why can't he just have popularized Rock? To say that he created it does a great disservice to the real creator(s). It's no wonder why so many people get upset at all the attention Eminem is given. They fear that one day people will say the he created rap music.
8 - Chris
Micheal,
Ok, maybe I am little hyperinformed about this, but before Elvis, the playlists were fragmented according to region. There was no such thing as the Top 40. In fact, he got his start, interestingly enough, by charting on the country lists for the South, but what he was playing was not readily recognizable as country, just there was no other slot to place him in at the time. He "created" rock and roll in the sense that he managed to nationalize a sound.
If you want to get all rootsy about rock, you have to credit gospel music and the blues.
Of course, Sam Phillips at Sun Records might be properly credited with this "creation."
9 - Chris
Whoops, apologize for switching the vowels, didn't catch it till just now.
10 - Michael
"hyperinformed"... LOL... I like that, I'll have to use that word some time.
11 - ClubhouseCancer
RE: "Creating" rock.
Such diverse folks as Bob Wills, Robert Johnson, Louis Jordan, the Carters, Hank Williams, Jay McShann, and literally hundreds of others have been given credit for "creating" rock. Were they alive today, none of them would recognize the music of, say, Yo La Tengo, or the Hives, or Stereolab as having anything to do with them.
It would all be a totally empty exercise, except that mentioning them as "forerunners" inevitably ends up sending some curious rock fans rushing to listen to the Carters, Wills, Johnson, et al. And this is good, listening to the music.
So I hereby declare that Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Ellington, Sinatra, Ella, Mingus, the Bee Gees and Calexico are the true forerunners of rock.
To the CD players!
And Elvis didn't say that, but if anyone is still under the impression that white acts have never co-opted black styles to appeal to white kids, they're not paying attention. And like Pat Boone before him, my guess is that Eminem will be a mocked footnote 30 years hence. Or perhaps Senator Shady (Dem., Mich.)
And Chuck D's verse that starts "I got a letter from the government" is at least as good as "Blowin in the Wind" as an anti-war anthem.
Fight the power!
PS: "All music is rehash. There's only 7 notes, fer chrissakes" " John Lennon
12 - Eric Olsen
Excellent points all - Chris makes the cultural creation of rock 'n' roll argument very well. But Elvis wasn't just a popularizer, he was a genuine creator, mashing together R&B and rockabilly into something genuinely new, as can be heard "live" on the Sun Sessions. Not that others weren't doing it, and Bill Haley was about to have the first over the top smash with it, but Elvis did it better, with more force and conviction, and made the world take notice.
This takes nothing away from the R&B and rockabilly greats who preceded him, nor from his contemporaries like Chuck B, Little Richard, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, but without Elvis it would have all remained fragmented and diffuse.
And it wasn't just because he was white.
13 - Al Barger
Monsieur Seneadza- Welcome to the Blogcritics party!! Glad to have you onboard. I will of course heartily refute all the wrong thinking evinced in this post shortly:)
14 - Michael
Thanks Al. I've been waiting since Saturday for you to respond to me. :-)
15 - Will
Here my .02:
1. The Beastie Boys are great, but when the term "greatest rap group of all time", I'd never consider them as a contender for that title. Never.
2. I think Chuck D's recently "gotten over" the Elvis thing. I briefly looked for quotes about this in my copy of Chuck D's book, Fight The Power, but couldn't find any. Check Google.
3. I don't believe Elvis was a racist. Lisa Marie, however...
4. If you can look beyond the use of a provocative term like "signifying monkey", there might be some truth to Al's words about Chuck D. I'm a PE fan and give the Chuckster credit for enlightening me on a number of issues, but I can also detect the BS. And isn't Al behaving like a signifying monkey by writing an article exalting the Beastie Boys and downplaying Public Enemy? Look at the reaction it has received!
16 - Eric Olsen
Ooooh, Will finds the elusive "third way," grasshopper.
17 - Will
Oops ... I left out a couple of words in my first point (above)
1. The Beastie Boys are great, but when thinking of the term "greatest rap group of all time", I'd never consider them as a contender for that title. Never.
18 - Will
Coming from you, Eric, that's a compliment. I'm all about finding "the middle way".
19 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Will!
20 - Al Barger
I find Natalie over at Michael's digs accusing me of, at best, ignorant racial insensitivity because of the word "monkey."
Note my fairly obvious answer.
21 - Al Barger
Then in the next breath, Natalie adds her voice to those calling Elvis Presley a racist with absolutely no basis. Y'all are playa hatas. His only crimes were being white and successful.
Note how anxious Michael is to go along with the scurrilous charges of "racism" against Elvis based on one half-assed apocryphal private quote that probably isn't even true.
Yet it fits what a bunch of jackasses want to believe, so they'll run with it against any elementary idea of fairness.
Yet the wicked racist crap purposely publicly spewed by PE and their representatives ["Jews are responsible for the majority of wickedness in the world"] does not merit condemnation, and ol' Al is the bad guy for calling them out.
How figure?
22 - Michael
I'm anxious to go along with the charges of racism? I don't think so. All I did was state the reason Chuck put those lines in the song. It wasn't b/c Elvis did something to Chuck personally, as you implied in your original article. Let's not rewrite HIS-story. :-) Did Elvis actually make that statement? I have no idea. But that's not the point. The point is what was Chuck thinking when he wrote the song. And b/c of what happened with Professor Griff that summer Chuck never really got a chance to discuss those lines.
23 - cjones
Michael you have a phenomenal memory for history. Most people dont remember the whole Professor Griff Jewish thing. A lot of good points going back and forth in this Blog.
24 - Natalie
I certainly remember the Prof. Griff incident. Anyone with a brain knows that those sentiments are hateful and deserving of condemnation.
As far as Elvis goes, if that quote is untrue, it certainly has a long shelf life. I've been familiar with it for most of my life and do believe in its veracity. At this point, someone would have to disprove it to me. And that still would not change the reality of the situation that if Elvis were melanin-challenged, he would not be regarded as the "king" of anything. The only reason Michael Jackson is the "king" of something is because that KOP nonsense was a creation of his PR squad.
25 - Chris
Natalie,
I have mentioned this before, but Peter Gularnick's 2 Volume Biography addressed and debunked this issue of the comment, but here is a pretty good newpaper story that does it and goes on to a pretty good discussion of Elvis and Race.