Public Enemy

Chicago's Bloody July Fourth Weekend: Who Is Counting the Dead? Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend in Chicago, 82 people were shot in an 84-hour window, according to the Chicago…slate.com If I were a black minister on the West Side or South Side of Chicago, I’d be preaching de facto secession for my neighborhoods. Because it has become patently clear that the city’s white establishment does not give a damn about black lives. How else does one explain the side-stepping…

The Music that Made Us Series by D.Dub Bass! How low can you go?” If not the line that started it all, it most certainly was the line that boosted the trajectory of rap & hip hop and our love of a deep thumping bass. It was a huge detour…

Live your life — TI +Rihanna I heard this song for the first time in the karaoke video game Rapstar. It was around the time that I was getting really in to video games. I hadn’t heard anything about this one. The game itself wasn’t that great. I never felt…

As a small-town black kid, I was used to skateboarding, bicycle tricks, drawing cartoons, hiking, camping, and watching sci-fi & horror flicks. As for musical chops, my pop was strictly gospel and occasional jazz tunes, and my mom was disco joints and Elton John. …

An Occasional Series Highlighting the Best of Frank Owen’s Writing (I was just talking to a BBC producer about a planned documentary series on politics and hip-hop hosted by Chuck D and I remembered this interview I conducted with the Public Enemy rapper for the March 1990 issue of Spin magazine. New York was a racial tinderbox at the time. …

#176: Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy It’s Flavor Flav! And Chuck D! But mostly Flav! We haven’t seen these boys since Review #15, and how I’ve missed them. The RS blurb mentions that this album title comes directly from psychologist and racial theorist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, who…

Album #35 : Public Enemy — Fear of A Black Planet — Ok, Here’s the deal — because these albums are chosen completely at random, the theme doesn’t always exactly match what I am doing that particular week. For example, this week I am on a family holiday in a large Manor House type place in rural Wiltshire. So, how do we…