0988. Public Enemy
Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black

I've talked about synchronicity before (and last time it was a hip hop album too), but this time it's on the angered side:
The same day the random page generator pulled this album, an editor in chief of a (minor) Swedish paper defended racist slurs and ditto reasoning by a school principal by claiming that (all) rap promotes rape, is inherently racist, and equating the Black Power movement with White Power racism.

Thus, it's perfect to get Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black thrown into the headphones to rinse away the load of bollocks from Smålandsposten. cause this is arguably Public Enemy at their very best: gone is Professor Griff and with him any antisemitic lines, gone are tracks like Pollywanacraka and She Watch Channel Zero?! (although A Letter to The NY Post trots that same territory) and instead it's a massive dose of politics, large and small.

From the parallels between slavery days and today in Can't Truss It to the massive Shut Em Down - directing it's wrath against different indifferent industries leeching off of the people. And as a near perfect commentary to Jurassic 5's One Of Them, Flavor Flav's I Don't Want To Be Called Yo Nigga lays it out pretty much in plaintext: you can't reclaim a word you've never owned.

Finishing off the album with the remake of Bring Tha Noize, featuring Anthrax at their best, they're laying the foundations of rapmetal, long before it became synonymous with crap.

Also there's By The Time I Get To Arizona, taking on the governor of the state (and actually threatening him) because he refused to recognize Martin Luther King Jr's birthday as a holiday. Along with the video it's possibly the most openly radically militant they've ever been.

I have my doubts about this album, but still: it's another milestone for Public Enemy, as well as for popular music.