![]() Musical DNA from James Brown, Sly and The Family Stone, and even Guy’s Aaron Hall were stitched together in the Bomb Squad’s signature style, forming a sonic collage designed to motivate and inspire. “Fight The Power” opens with an incendiary quote from Chicago lawyer and activist Thomas ‘TNT’ Todd about Vietnam deserters who would rather “switch than fight.” It’s an apt way to launch what is essentially a sonic protest rally attended by some of the biggest names in Black music past and present. (At 26 years old when the group started, Chuck and Flav were also literal elders.) Public Enemy elevated the social discourse in rap with Chuck’s radio announcer-trained baritone, Flavor Flav’s colorful, pithy ad-libs, and The Bomb Squad’s layered and unconventional production, which brought a sonic urgency to match the heft of their message. Thanks to the heavy-hitting content of their 1987 debut, Yo! Bum Rush The Show and its follow up, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy had already established themselves as elder statesmen during rap’s most defiant and radical era. Listen to the best of Public Enemy on Apple Music and Spotify. With atrocities like the 1986 murder of Michael Griffith still hanging in the arid air of the NYC pressure cooker, Chuck felt it was way past time for a song to address “all the bullshit goin’ down.” ![]() Their protest-era song “Fight The Power” was the first time he’d heard a curse word in music. Instead, Chuck D, lead MC of the revolutionary rap group from Long Island, drew upon his days as a youth listening to the Isley Brothers in the 1970s. The anthem that anchored Spike Lee’s seminal Do The Right Thing, a film dedicated to racial animus on the hottest day in a Brooklyn summer, was originally supposed to be a Public Enemy-led jazz revamp of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Lee had composer Terrence Blanchard on deck, but Bomb Squad producer Hank Shocklee pushed back, insisting that it wouldn’t resonate with fans of songs like “Bring The Noise” and “Night Of The Living Baseheads.” Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” may be the greatest second draft in the history of music.
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