In the 1960s, youthful poets, inspired by radical politics and Woody Guthrie, took up acoustic guitars to deliver topical commentary in a folk music setting. The great protest singers – Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton – located a palatable sound and a lyrical language in which to castigate the government and other despicable institutions. Hit records of explicit radicalism were unthinkable, but a sizable universe of new-leftists – for whom songs attacking war, racism and imperialism were better than meaningless pop ditties – helped launch musical careers that outlasted the political movement.
As even Newsweek's readers now know, discs of poetry with a beat are currently the hottest thing in popular music. Even if half the hip-hop world is busy doing the Humpty Dance, Public Enemy – Chuck D, the irrepressible Flavor Flav and DJ Terminator X – is about to become the biggest political pop group in American history. Through the auspices of Columbia Records, Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy's stupendous third album, brings ‘War at 33 1/3’ home to a potential audience of millions.
Being young no longer guarantees identification with rebel rockers: these are notes from the front in a struggle that is likely to exclude many potential fans. As Spike Lee demonstrated with Do the Right Thing, reality unbalances the aesthetic equation in pop culture. The subjective issue for record buyers is no longer just digging the sounds: the question of agreeing with (or at least tolerating) ideas must be faced. Where does this leave the ignorant and the impressionable? If the modern world is truly a terrordome, then kids who get their nutrition from fast food, culture from cartoons and education from TV might as well get their politics from a record.
Fear of a Black Planet is a masterpiece of art and articulation. Atop the hypnotic audio chaos – a roaring subway train of rhythmically looped sounds in which the constant ebb and flow precludes monotony – is an artfully poetic 100 mph harangue that reels off provocative views in verbal bursts of machine gun fire. Scraps of radio broadcasts and other found bits add verite to this state-of-the-black-nation report; instrumentals, cut-up edits and stylistically varied backing tracks provide depth and texture.
Escalating sharply from the half-baked generalizations of PE's first two albums, Black Planet unveils a powerfully focused and politicized consciousness. Standing on a beat-based soapbox, Chuck D speaks his Africentric mind on assorted cultural and political issues with typical linguistic deftness. ‘Fight the Power’ sets the album's tone, but Black Planet's strength is the specificity of its attacks – on racism in buppie romance (‘Pollywanacraka’), global genetics (‘Fear of a Black Planet’) and the movies (‘Burn Hollywood Burn’); the mistreatment of African-American culture heroes (‘Who Stole the Soul’) and women (‘Revolutionary Generation’); the unreliability of emergency services (Flav's ‘911 Is a Joke’); and, in a divisive dose of homophobia, AIDS (‘Meet the G That Killed Me’). With so many shots being fired, everyone takes a hit. My advice? Just get off the bus when it reaches your stop.
One recurring topic is Public Enemy itself. As ‘Fight the Power’ fades out to close side two, a question is posed about the future of Public Enemy. Chuck D begins to answer, but the record ends. Adding fuel to the flames with its chosen/frozen lyrical landmine, ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’ recapitulates the fallout from Professor Griff's anti-Semitic ignorance without resolving it. (Although credited as a full member on the album, Griff has since left Public Enemy.)
The most telling result of that disgraceful chapter, an orgy of hypocrisy and cowardice that shamed everyone involved, is that Fear of a Black Planet effectively replays Malcolm X's 1964 ideological split with the Nation of Islam, abandoning narrowminded, anti-white black nationalism to struggle for politically-conscious black power. Chuck D makes that crucial distinction in 'Welcome to the Terrordome', observing that "Every brother ain't a brother/Cause a black hand squeezed on Malcolm X the man/The shootin' of Huey Newton from the hand of a Nig who pulled the trig."
Professor Griff avoids such cogent thinking on the corrosive Pawns in the Game, a powerful-sounding heap of religious and racial finger-pointing, crypto-science and warped history that is difficult to perceive as entertainment. Griff sees himself primarily as an educator; his unleavened didacticism reduces music to little more than a vehicle for extremist lectures.
The bizarre assertions peak in ‘The Word of God Griff’, posited as an open letter to the president. "You tried to go to the moon but Allah would not permit it... you've tested your germ warfare on the black people of America... you've developed an anti-Christ mechanism entitled the Universal Product Code... I now know you brought VD, AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea to the ends of the earth and, after all of this, Farrakhan says let my people go and you refused."
Last year's fracas is addressed in ‘The Interview’, a disingenuous and self-serving rap built into a fictional call-in show which offers reasonable questions Griff doesn't answer. (Despite claims to contain the infamous Washington Times interview, only a few barely audible words appear on the LP.) "Remember, they never said I lied," Griff proudly announces. Rather than recant his lies about Jews, this perpetrator of racism paints himself as its victim: "It's freedom of speech but when you're black you're limited/They let Jim Bakker lie from the pulpit/I speak out once you jump – that's bullshit." No, that's pathetic.
Pawns in the Game closes with a mind-boggling recitation of names – from Stevie Wonder and Hank Aaron to the Ayatollah Khomeini and Colonel Qadaffi – offered without comment. While Public Enemy has discovered that fighting the power means recognizing the enemy, Professor Griff is busy looking for hate in all the wrong places.
