Fear of a Black Planet Public Enemy Def Jam/Columbia Has there ever been a more direct, immediate and even threatening mission statement in the title and cover art of any record than that of Public Enemy's third album? On the rear cover of Fear of a Black Planet, band members Chuck D and Flavor Flav are portrayed at an apparent military command meeting poring over a map of the world, surrounded by "ministers" Terminator X and Professor Griff, and consulting their beats and samples maestros, the Bomb Squad, on what looks like plans for a world takeover. The message is clear: prepare for domination. Public Enemy shook the foundations of popular music when they first appeared in hip hop's second generation of acts: they were loud, their beats were hard, they incorporated militarist imagery in their act, and their lyrics appeared to threaten the white-led establishment. But it was among the incendiary tracks of Fear of a Black Planet , in numbers such as the street-wise call to arms Fight the Power, that Public Enemy laid out an intelligently formulated political manifesto. Fear of a Black Planet gave hip hop political legitimacy and forced the music industry to accept the nascent genre as more than a mere fad. While the New York outfit's first two albums had established them as erudite rabble rousers, it was their third release that showed their rage was more than just bluster: Fear of a Black Planet had purpose and belief. Track by track, the album is laid out like a nationalist pamphlet. There's the future hope ("We gonna work it out one day, til we get paid", Brothers Gonna Work It Out ) arising from a historical struggle ("They disrespected mama, and treated her like dirt, America took her, reshaped her, raped her", Revolutionary Generation ) that's fuelled by oppression ("The bigger the black kid, the bigger the Feds want a piece of him", Who Stole the Soul? ) which engenders a seething anger ("My mama raised me mad, so what I got is hot", Anti-Nigger Machine ) and generates a call to arms ("Let's get together make a nation, you can bet on it", Power to the People ) around an emotive rallying cry ("Our freedom of speech is freedom or death, we gotta fight the powers that be", Fight the Power , the theme tune for director Spike Lee's 1989 treatise on racial struggle in Do the Right Thing ). Such powerful sentiments needed hard-hitting backing tracks and Fear of a Black Planet provided just that in a pile-driving masterclass of beats and dense sampling. So many samples were used, in fact, that Chuck D said the band had been "sued for everything". While the "black planet" Public Enemy envisaged may be a while off yet, the band's prophecy was fulfilled in another way, with no small thanks to this album: rap and hip hop culture took over the world. Charlie Carter
