Public Enemy: Classic or Dud?

the "performing Fear Of A Black Planet in full" tour contains at least as many Nation Of Millions songs as Black Planet songs

I take this back: counting Contract On The World Love Jam as play-on music, they did nine out of the 20 songs on Fear, and only seven off Nation Of Millions. At least the latter included Cold Lampin' WIth Flavor, since he wasn't in the country in time for the actual Nation Of Millions In Full show two years ago.

um, that's not exactly "playing "Fear" in full is it, 9 out of 20...

yeah, my point

at least they didn't do Meet The G That Killed Me 3 or 4 times in a row like when I actually saw them on the Tour Of A Black Planet

(they did do it though)

ick (still like that album but damn that track is a dealbreaker)

What the fuck? Why are they even doing that song? I saw them in late 1990, and they didn't do it...but then, given the 90 minute delay after openers Sonic Youth, and the 40-minute Flav solo section in the middle (because Chuck had the flu), they didn't do much of anything.

apparently griff is holding a roundtable discussion tonight at the bar down the block from me

Did you go? Was there exciting news about the Illuminati and Jewish money power?

the new Mojo (brian jones cover) has a little oral history thing with Public Enemy, most of the interesting stuff is the very early days of the WBAU shows and the Spectrum City mobile DJ unit they were before they were a proper group...

aaanyway, not often you hear a genuinely new tidbit about a band like this, but Hank or Keith drops one in a quote in the article...in the early days, before Chuck had really evolved into the groups MC...he said that Eddie Murphy used to get onstage at their shows and do kinda jokes/rapping/MCing/etc!

CRAZY! :)

"Brothers Gonna Work It Out" ended up being my favorite single of theirs, kind of to my surprise because I was such a "Bring The Noise"/"Fight The Power" head

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/public-enemys-private-photographer/

^^ The RUN-DMC pic in that set is nuts. I'd like to hear an album from them in those clothes.

PE = classic.

Are people buying and digesting the albums they make now? I always wonder.

Fassfood is a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0eOkWEAheE

I have never seen an authoritative account of what happened to the Bomb Squad and why they basically stopped working around '94. For such a groundbreaking production crew, this has always befuddled me.

BOOM, BASS IN YOUR FACE:
Here is that Chuck D & Hank Shocklee Interview

also I think you can still find the Tape Op interview with Shocklee mentioned in there for free, all you have to do is reg for the site. It's pretty eye opening.

I knew that the legalities of sampling probably had something to do with it, but I always suspected there must have been some personal stuff going on as well...? There are plenty of producers who kept working as styles shifted, just seems weird to me that they basically gave up.

https://twitter.com/MrChuckD/status/495741143918071809/photo/1

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuE58ZfIIAA025Q.jpg

Not so corny anymore huh?

Wow, I just saw that on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Monday.

Hearing whispers of a secret (short) gig at Rough Trade East tomorrow at 6:30

weird & cool: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/329701271.html

That's insane!

Time for me to exit, Terminator Brex-it.

KEXP in Seattle is playing every (discernible) recording sampled on Nation of Millions right now:

https://www.kexp.org/

That album is at least 80% the soundtrack to Wattstax don't @ me

rebel without @ pause

death row, what @ brother know

I watched this BBC documentary yesterday : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCvWeWnsJw
It's pretty cool and reminded me how much I loved that band when I was a teenager (the release of "Fear Of A Black Planet" remains one of the great musical moments in my life !).
I had never thought about the fact that they never went the "bitches, Hos, bling" route and watching Griff talking about their project, it appears obvious.
Also the Griff/Flav relationship was pretty wild and you wonder how they managed to make it work for such a long time...

Is there a good book about them ?

I’ve read two books and neither came close to the Wax Poetics cover story (#17, 2006) on the Bomb Squad

Thanks, I will check it out !

The Whiney book about Nation is good.

Yeah, I have just ordered it !

"Fear of a Black Planet" still rules - relistening right now. I'm not gonna pretend it fully sustains for its hour-plus, but tracks 1-5 remain one of the most thrillingly paced/sequenced runs on any record, and track for track it keeps up the pace at least through the title track.

Talk to me about the future of Public Enemy


https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/public-enemy-flavor-flav-bernie-sanders-960272/

I'm kind of bummed about this. Like of course Flavor Flav has some weird ass political views that don't line up with the rest of the group. You have to let him be who he is.

future of Public Enemy Radio got a

He's left/been fired/not bothered to turn up before, he'll be back

"Like of course Flavor Flav has some weird ass political views that don't line up with the rest of the group."

Chuck D's remarks suggest this doesn't have anything to do with Flavor Flav's political zeal, but rather lack thereof.

I suppose after all this time and his many antics, they're pretty used to handle him...
He'll be back after the elections !

Also that Flav’s substance abuse has once again made him a difficult employee.

xpost

I think Mario’s post “Flavor Flav has some weird ass political views that don't line up with the rest of the group” must have been confusing Flavor Flav with Professor Griff.

nah, he said a bunch of pro-Trump nonsense during the 2016 campaign. but it's from being an a) apolitical b) idiot, not ideology.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/89254744_555480721988677_325032658125979648_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=vK9C_rPzHZQAX-58sML&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=f7edf2f55c3c3e3e233fe9731c0fdba7&oe=5EFB08C4

I'll throw my support behind "Muse-Sick-In-Our-Mess-Age" too. It's no groundbreaking landmark, but I have to disagree with anyone putting down the fine and funky production. It's like a B+ album.

I always have a soft spot for Muse-Sick, it came out right as I was starting my freshman year in college and it was one of the few cassettes I had with me for the first few months before I upgraded to a Discman.

hahaha xxp