You Say 'What Is This?'

Someone somewhere recently opined that they had just heard Public Enemy's Fight The Power again and that it contained the same thrill, shock of the new and sheer urgency that it did when they had first heard it in 1989, that it's power to move was undiminished by the thirty five years gap in between its release and 2024. I played it- loud-  to see if it had the same effect on me and am happy to report it has lost nothing at all since '89, it remains one of the great moments in popular music, a perfect, righteous collision of hip hop, sampling, loops, noise, funk, Black Nationalism and Spike Lee. 

Fight The Power

From the opening sample, the voice of civil rights activist Thomas TNT Todd declaring, 'Yet if our best trained, best educated best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight...', to the crescendo of noise and samples that follow and then Chuck D's ever- memorable, ever quotable opening lyrics- '1898/ Another summer/ Sound of the Funky Drummer/ Music hitting hard/ Cause I know you got soul', it's a powerhouse of a song. 

In 1988 Spike Lee had approached the group and told them he needed a theme song for a film he was making, a film about racial tensions in Brooklyn. He wanted something 'defiant... angry... rhythmic... anthemic' and thought of Public Enemy straight away. Chuck, Flavor Flav, Terminator X and The Bomb Squad delivered on every level. The Bomb Squad constructed the music out of a bunch of loops including Trouble Funk, Brandon Marsalis, Sly and the Family Stone, The Dramatics, James Brown, Bobby Byrd, Afrika Bambaataa plus scratching from Terminator X. Meanwhile Chuck D wrote his all time best words, the chorus of, 'Fight the power/ Fight the powers that be', matched by the verses, a up to the minute, state- of- the- nation address. In the third verse Chuck went to go full throttle and penned one of the finest lyrics ever written, one guaranteed to further enrage white rock 'n' roll purists...

'Elvis was a hero to most/ But he never meant shit to me/ You see straight out racist that sucker was simple and plain/ Motherfuck him and John Wayne'

Even if Elvis wasn't actually racist (and the jury's out with various people defending him/ accusing him), Chuck is surely covered here by the appropriation of black music by white singers and the crowning of Elvis 'King' while ignoring the work of earlier black musicians. John Wayne is less defendable- 'I believe in white supremacy until the point the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility' he said in 1971. Regardless, it's a brilliant piece of songwriting provocative, powerful, and with perfect flow and scan. He follows it, without pause, with...

'Cause I'm black and I'm proud/ I'm hyped and I'm amped/ Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps'.

The video is a blast as well, filmed on the streets of Brooklyn, Chuck and Flavor in their absolute pomp. Flav knows what time it is- he's wearing multiple clocks.The SW1s strut and dance. The crowd jump. Malcolm X is everywhere along with Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis and Paul Robeson. 

Fight The Power came out as a single on Motown, released in summer 1989 to promote Spike Lee's incendiary film Do The Right Thing. The film's opening sequence is as memorable as the song's video, a four minute highly stylised sequence with Rosie Perez dancing and shadow boxing, a scene that took eight hours to film

One of the things about late 80s dance floors (or at least the best of them) was that for a period there was a genuine sense of anything goes as long as you can dance to it. Fight The Power could be heard alongside house music, acid house, indie guitar bands and nascent indie dance tracks- and was equally rapturously received. The walls that divided one type of music from another were briefly blown down and Fight The Power was a big part of that. 

You Say What Is This?

Yet another thirty year old record for your ears, this one first released in June 1989, almost thirty years to the day- Public Enemy's Fight The Power. The first line of Chuck D's explosive vocal states the year, as if you had any doubt, '1989, the number, another summer, sound of the funky drummer'. Before that though there is a sample from a speech by civil rights activist Thomas Todd describing African American men and their attitude towards the war in Vietnam- 'Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. Matter of fact, it's safe to say that they would rather switch than fight". 

From there The Bomb Squad take over, bringing the rhythm and the noise, riding in on several James Brown samples- loops layered over loops layered over loops- plus parts borrowed from the lineage of black American music including Sly Stone, The J.B.s, Bobby Byrd, The Dramatics, The Isley Brothers, Rick James, Afrika Bambaataa, Trouble Funk and Kurtis Blow, plus Bob Marley, and for good measure sampling themselves. It's a production tour de force, both furious and made to be danced to, seething with anger and righteousness but funky as you like. Chuck D's voice is an instrument in itself, the tone and timbre of his voice and the rhythm and flow of the words, with Flav cutting in. The only 'live' instrument is Branford Marsalis' saxophone, further cut up and dropped in by Hank Shocklee. It's a 1989 peak, a Public Enemy peak, an anyone ever peak.

Chuck's lyrics for the third verse are are among his best and most provocative. The group always said that the song was about fighting the abuse of power. In the third verse he takes it to another level, aiming squarely at white America and the entire music industry, stealing from black artists to sell white performers to white consumers- 'Elvis' he rasps, his vocal chords igniting, 'was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me, straight up racist that sucker was simple and plain', 'yeah' comes in Flavor Flav, 'motherfuck him and John Wayne'. Chuck D later said he wasn't attacking Elvis personally but that Elvis represented the theft of black music, the lack of acknowledgement that there was black music before Elvis. John Wayne's racist views, on the other hand, were widely known. It's a powerful, incendiary line and followed by one almost as good 'cause I'm black and I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped, most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps'.

Fight The Power's release in 1989 came with the film Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee's exploration of racial tensions in the summer in Brooklyn, simmering disputes between Italian Americans and African Americans and Korean Americans, white cops and black residents and ends with an explosion of violence by the end of day and the film, partly caused by a pair of scuffed Nikes. The film opens with Rosie Perez dancing to the song. Radio Raheem  blasts it out throughout the film from his boombox. Spike Lee commissioned Pubic Enemy to write the song, something 'defiant... angry... rhythmic' It's fair to say they delivered.

There are two versions of the song- this one, the soundtrack version, worth posting it with the video which is a definitive and dramatic piece of work in itself, filmed in Brooklyn.



The following year a slightly shorter version of Fight The Power closed Public Enemy's album Fear Of A Black Planet, the third of their three classic lps.

Fight The Power 

1989 Another Summer, Sound Of The Funky Drummer

Here's today's post which didn't publish this morning for some unknown reason.

The ultimate extension of Keith LeBlanc's 1983 Malcolm X record was this, the motherlode of righteous hip hop, the pinnacle of Public Enemy's career, the greatest protest record of them all- Fight The Power. One record pulling together the history of the civil rights movement, the upsurge in interest in Malcolm X, Spike Lee's film making, The Bomb Squad's screaming, pummeling production and Chuck D's angriest, most on-point lyrics (the verse that goes 'Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me, straight out racist that sucker was simple and plain, motherfuck him and John Wayne, people get ready 'cos I'm black and I'm proud, I'm hyped and I'm amped, most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps' is as good as it gets). Again, not on the hard drive but do you want the full seven minute version of the video? Yeah, boyeee!



There are some technical gremlins loose in the machine- yesterday's video won't un-embed.