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Public Enemy, also known as PE, is a seminal hip hop group from Long Island, New York known for their politically charged lyrics, criticism of the media and active interest in the concerns of the African American community. They will be inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame * in 2007. They are ranked
Members The following are a part of The Bomb Squad, the revolutionary production group which is closely associated with (sometimes considered a part of) Public Enemy: The S1W, which stands for "Security of the First World" are sometimes considered a part of Public Enemy, as well. The members constantly rotate and have included (among others): History PE formed in Roosevelt, Long Island, New York, in 1982, as an outgrowth of the group "Spectrum," the mobile DJ arm of the Roosevelt Youth Center's radio training program formulated in 1978 by Hank Shocklee, Krandel Newton and Eddie Murphy's first manager Ujima. Though originally the designer of the group's flyers, Chuck became the group's MC when Hank heard him rapping and was impressed with his skills. Around 1982, the group hosted a popular radio program over WBAU, Adelphi University's radio station in which they developed to compete with the newly-formed KISS-FM and to give exposure to local and popular rap artists. Hosted by Chuck D and Butch Cassidy, who would go on to head the Public Enemy sub-group "5ive-O," and deejayed by Hank's brother Keith, he was introduced to Flavor Flav when he accompanied "T.A." from the group "Townhouse Three" (later "Sons of Bazerk") to the studio to do a tape, which eventually led to a camaraderie between the two. Developing his talents as an MC with Flavor while delivering furniture for his father's business, Chuck and "Spectrum City," as they were called, released the record "Check Out The Radio," backed by "Lies," a social commentary - both of which would influence RUSH Productions' Run D.M.C. and Beastie Boys. They were signed to the still developing Def Jam record label after co-founder Rick Rubin heard Chuck D freestyling on a demo. Around 1986, Bill Stephney, the former Program Director at WBAU, was approached by Rubin and offered a position with the label. Stephney accepted, and his first assignment was to help Rubin sign Chuck D, whose song "Public Enemy Number One" he had heard from Doctor Dre. According to the book, The History of Rap Music by Cookie Lommel: "Stephney thought it was time to mesh the hard-hitting style of Run DMC with politics that addressed black youth. Chuck recruited Spectrum City, which included Hank Shocklee, his brother Keith Shocklee and Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, collectively known as 'The Bomb Squad,' to be his production team and added another Spectrum City partner, Professor Griff, to become the group's Minister of Information. With the addition of Flavor Flav and another local mobile DJ named Terminator X, the group Public Enemy was born." It then took roughly five years before their debut, Yo! Bum Rush The Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. They went on to release the revolutionary It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype." The album was voted Album of the Year by the The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll, the first rap album to be ranked number one by predominantly rock critics. They also went on to release Fear of a Black Planet, which was just as militant and controversial as their first two releases. It was also the most successful of any of their albums to date and in 2005 was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "911 is a Joke," which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power", which is considered by many to be the group's anthem. The song is among the most popular and influential in Hip Hop history and was the theme song for Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. Legacy Public Enemy were pioneers in many ways. Some of Terminator X's most innovative scratching tricks can be heard on the song "Rebel Without A Pause". The Bomb Squad offered up a web of innovative samples and beats; Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine declares that PE "brought in elements of free jazz, hard funk, even musique concrète, via their producing team, the Bomb Squad, creating a dense, ferocious sound unlike anything that came before." * PE revolutionized the rap world with their political, social and cultural consciousness, which infused itself into skilled and poetic rhymes with jazzy backbeats. With the success of Public Enemy, hip-hop was suddenly flooded with new artists that celebrated Afrocentric themes, such as Kool Moe Dee, Gang Starr, X Clan, Eric B & Rakim, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest. They also influenced KRS-One, who upon the death of his partner, Scott LaRock, changed from writing gangster-oriented raps to politically and socially-consious material. They were the first rap-group to make extended world tours, which led to huge popularity and influence in Hip-Hop communities in Europe and Asia. They also changed the Internet's music distribution capability by being one of the first groups to release MP3 albums, a format virtually unknown at the time. Public Enemy helped to form and define the so-called "Rap-Rock" genre of music (heavy rock music spliced with hip hop) by collaborating with New York thrash metal outfit Anthrax in 1991. The single "Bring Tha Noize" was a mix of semi-militant "black power" lyrics, grinding guitars and sporadic humour. The two bands, cemented by a mutual respect and the personal friendship between Chuck D and his Anthrax counterpart Scott Ian, introduced a hitherto alien genre to rock fans, and the two seemingly disparate groups even toured together. Flavor Flav's pronouncement onstage that "They said this tour would never happen" (as heard on Anthrax's Live: The Island Years CD) has become something of a legend in both rock and rap circles. Members of the "Bomb Squad" produced or remixed works for other acts such as Bell Biv DeVoe, Ice Cube, Vanessa Williams, Sinead O'Connor, Blue Magic, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, Paula Abdul, Jasmine Guy, Jody Watley, Eric B & Rakim, Third Bass, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD and Chaka Khan. According to Chuck, "We had tight dealings with MCA and were talking about taking three guys that were left over from New Edition and coming up with an album for them. The three happened to be Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe, later to become "Bell Biv DeVoe." Ralph Tresvant had been slated to do a solo album for years. Bobby Brown had left New Edition and "blew up" in 1988 and Johnny Gill had just been recruited to come in, but Johnny Gill had come off a solo career and could always go back to that. At MCA, Hiram Hicks, who was their manager, and Lowell Silas, who was running the show, were like, "Yo, these kids were left out in the cold, can y'all come up with something for them." It was a task that Hank, Keith, Eric and I took on to try to put some kind of Hip-Hop flavored R&B sh-t down for them. Subsequently, what happened in the four weeks of December (1989) was that the bomb Squad knocked out a large piece of the production and arrangement on Bell Biv DeVoe's three million selling album, Poison. In January (1990), we knocked out Fear of A Black Planet in four weeks, and we knocked out Ice Cube's album AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted in four to five weeks in February." They have also produced local talent such as Son of Bazerk, Young Black Teenagers, Kings of Pressure and True Mathematics and gave producer Kip Collins his start in the business. Origin of name Chuck D had put out a tape to promote WBAU (the radio station he was working at the time) and to fend off a local rapper who wanted to battle him. He called the tape Public Enemy Public Enemy is also the name of one of the first film noir gangster movies, a 1931 classic starring James Cagney. According to Chuck, The S1W, which stands for "Security of the First World," "represents that the Black man can be just as intelligent as he is strong. It stands for the fact that we're not Third World people, we're First World people; we're the original people (of the earth)." On the track "Louder Than A Bomb", from It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Chuck D reveals that the D in his nickname stands for "dangerous". Controversy Presently PE still continues to perform and write, though with some attrition. Terminator X took early retirement and was replaced by Atlanta native Dj Lord as the group's main DJ. Chuck D and Griff are also members of a band named Confrontation Camp, a funk/rock band. Chuck D's lecture series on "Rap, Race, Reality & Technology" has been used as the basis for his lyrics on "We Are Gathered Here", an album by the group Fine Arts Militia, of which he is a member. In 2004, Flav appeared on the VH1 reality shows The Surreal Life and Strange Love, where he engaged in an incongruous on-camera romance with statuesque former action movie star Brigitte Nielsen (who in addition to being even more eccentric than he was, was about twice his size.) She referred to him affectionately as "My Little Foofie." Flavor also recently appeared on UK reality TV show "The Farm". Chuck D was a character in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. He played a comical DJ for Playback FM, a fictional radio station in the game. George Clinton also starred as a DJ. Perhaps to refresh their once successful fusion with heavy metal, PE was scheduled to perform the cancelled hardcore and metal festival Hellfest '05 and would have shared the stage with heavy bands including Converge, Cryptopsy, Hatebreed, Sick of it All, Pig Destroyer, and Terror. In an attempt to present a more positive image of the rap industry and influence current rappers, Chuck D has been a spokesman for the rap industry. In addition, he has started an organization called REACH (Rappers Educating All Curriculum Through Hip-Hop), to further combat the negative image currently attached to Hip-Hop. He has also set up a recording studio in his former Long Island home, where he led an effort to establish a media and community center. In September of 2005, Flavor Flav reunited with Public Enemy to record a rap protest song, Hell No We Ain't All Right!, criticizing policy issues surrounding the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the George W. Bush administration in particular. Early 2006 saw the release of Rebirth of a Nation, which included this protest song and 15 more tracks produced and written by Paris. Books Main Albums Compilations/Soundtracks/Live Albums Internet Albums | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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