Why didn’t I hear this two years ago when it came out?

If this flags me as an old man, pass the Metamucil– I love this jam.

“Spell it backwards, I’ma leave it at that.” LOL. Chuck D! It’s kinda hard these days to remember/understand how incredible Public Enemy were “back in the day.” Jay-Z and Kanye and blah blah are all great and famous, whatever, but they’re fundamentally conservative: Cars, jewelry, power– they might as well be interns at National Review. They’re not really dangerous. Same with the best MC going: MF Doom. I love Doom, but he’s like the Wes Anderson of MC’s. Nobody’s scared of him. Public Enemy, though? They were insane. Totally angry, totally political, totally FAMOUS … with the longest song titles this side of Morrissey.

Also, whose voice commands more respect than Chuck D? Maybe Biggie, maybe Rakim, KRS-One … but who else? Jay-Z? Please. Listen to how awesome Chuck D sounds on this track. It literally made me LOL when I ran this youtube video through my stereo, he sounded so bad-ass.

My friends and I were recently reminiscing about a Public Enemy show we saw in Chapel Hill back in 1990. It was at the Cat’s Cradle (tiny rock club); they were touring in support of Fear of a Black Planet. It was a Sunday afternoon. Umm … did they set it off very hard? Gee, I can’t remember. Was it pretty quiet? Hmm … yeah, it was quiet. Really quiet. There were like fifty-nine S1W’s lock-stepping on stage while Flava Flav crowd-surfed through the packed club and Chuck D ripped the mic so so so so so hard. Basically, my friends and I were reminiscing about how it was one of the weakest shows we’ve ever seen … LOL … things got pretty sane when they dropped “Fight the Power” … club was quiet … we were sad …

I even remember the first time I ever heard Public Enemy. (Someday I’ll post a list of all the musicians so mind-blowing to me that I literally remember the first time I heard them.) It was on WXYC’s (UNC radio station) show “Inside Track” when they played Yo! Bum Rush the Show in its entirety. At first I thought it was Schoolly-D. So mesmerizing with the broken alarm-clock beats and political lyrics.

Okay, so that’s it for this blog post! Basically, the main thesis is: Thank God for Public Enemy.