Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Elvis was a hero to most...
I stole this little item from Peter (the other): What song was #1 (in the U.S.) on the day you were born?
On my b’day, it was “Stuck on You” by Elvis the Pelvis. This factoid inspired me to post the following excerpt from 50AR:
“Elvis was a hero to most/But he never meant shit to me
A straight up racist, that sucker was/Simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne”
—“Fight the Power,” Public Enemy, 1989
“Although it never cracked the Top 40, Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ became the soundtrack to 1989’s summer of rage” writes Johnny Black in the Blender. “That year, director Spike Lee released Do the Right Thing, a movie he wrote to portray the violence of the time — particularly the often fatal clashes between African-Americans and the New York Police Department.”
The opening credits rolled, Rosie Perez danced, blared, and political hip-hop was now in everyone’s face. “I didn’t want to rap about ‘I’m this or I’m that’ all the time,” explains PE’s Chuck D. “My focus was not on boasting about myself or battling brothers on the microphone. I wanted to rap about battling institutions, and bringing the condition of black people worldwide to a respectable level.”
(To read the complete excerpt, click on “more” below)
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Public Enemy fights the power
“Elvis was a hero to most/But he never meant shit to me
A straight up racist, that sucker was/Simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne”
—“Fight the Power,” Public Enemy (PE), 1989
“Although it never cracked the Top 40, Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ became the soundtrack to 1989’s summer of rage” writes Johnny Black in the Blender. “That year, director Spike Lee released Do the Right Thing, a movie he wrote to portray the violence of the time — particularly the often fatal clashes between African-Americans and the New York Police Department.”
The opening credits rolled, Rosie Perez danced, “Fight the Power” blared, and political hip-hop was now in everyone’s face. “I didn’t want to rap about ‘I’m this or I’m that’ all the time,” explains PE’s Chuck D. “My focus was not on boasting about myself or battling brothers on the microphone. I wanted to rap about battling institutions, and bringing the condition of black people worldwide to a respectable level.”
“Unabashedly political, ‘Fight the Power’ was confrontational in the way great rock has always been,” Laura K. Warrell wrote in Salon. “It had the kind of irreverence that puts bands on FBI lists. ‘Fight’ demanded action and, as the band’s most accessible hit, acted as the perfect summation of its ideology and sound. Every kid in America, white, black or brown, could connect to the song’s uncompromising cultural critique, its invigoratingly danceable sound and its rallying call…By 1989, Public Enemy was more than a rap act, it was a social movement.”
“Today’s artists don’t seem to know what real provocateurs like Public Enemy know: Shock is a short-lived effect that wears off quickly and has no real consequences” says Warrell. “Art can be relevant without being overtly political, but if there are no real motives or ideas behind shock, its images too often fall flat…When Public Enemy called us to battle, it revived the notion that it just might be possible to fight the system. At the very least, we knew it was necessary.”
The release of “Fight the Power,” says hip hop historian Nelson George, is one of the genre’s top ten moments.
“As I’ve moved forward,” Chuck D says, “I’ve come to respect that record for what it meant. When you’re doing it, you don’t know what it’s going to take on, and it came to mean a lot. If somebody keeps you from being as equal as everybody else or from having the freedom to contribute what you can to the world, you have to fight those powers as much as possible.”
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
