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Public Enemy: Tour of a Black Planet

David Browne is EW's music critic and author of ''Dream Brother: The Lives & Music of Jeff & Tim Buckley'' (HarperCollins)

For such a visceral band, Public Enemy have made videos that are as exciting as a TV cooking show. Most of them amount to little more than head rapper Chuck D emoting in front of sets that look like Hollywood backlots, and the videos’ stilted nature zaps the energy from the band’s hypnotically aggressive music. So, much like their first video collection, 1989’s Fight the Power Live , the band has made its second compilation, Tour of a Black Planet , more than just a series of music videos. There are such clips (mostly from last year’s Fear of a Black Planet , including ”911 Is a Joke” and ”Burn Hollywood Burn,” costarring Ice Cube, plus their latest, ”Can’t Truss It,” a heavy-handed Roots tribute), but wedged in between are concert footage, offstage joking, fragments of TV interviews, and anything else the group could cram into an hour.

As Tour shows, however, their politics and image have become much more jumbled since the sloppy but forceful Fight the Power Live . While Chuck D remains an eloquent speaker, his ideas are almost negated by Flavor Flav’s deranged-marionette antics and the humorless harangues of entourage member Sister Souljah. The confusion isn’t helped by the editing. Tour is one long series of dizzying jump cuts, which not only becomes tiresome but also reduces serious issues to sound bites. Public Enemy remain rap’s most riveting stage act, and the live footage captures their manic energy. But Tour is primarily a souvenir for the converted, and PE’s goals have always seemed much loftier than that. B-

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Taking It to the ‘Burbs : Touring with metal heroes Anthrax, Public Enemy will carry its bold message of black unity to white rock audiences

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Public Enemy, the most forceful and acclaimed force in urban rap, will bring the noise to a white audience when it tours with hard-rock compatriots Anthrax later this month. But the message that the group will take to the suburbs is one that, more than ever, is aimed at urban blacks.

Public Enemy’s previous three albums virtually defined militant and political rap, setting the stage for the hard-core likes of N.W.A, Ice Cube and a whole new generation of such Malcolm X-influenced rappers as Brand Nubian and X-Clan.

The group’s second album, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” was named the best album of 1988 in the Village Voice’s annual poll of the nation’s rock critics; 1990’s “Fear of a Black Planet” finished in the Top 10.

Such PE titles as “Don’t Believe the Hype” and “Fight the Power” (the latter featured in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”) became rallying cries for black activists. Along the way, leader Chuck D’s forceful lyrics and delivery got him embroiled in controversy as charges of anti-Semitism and racism came from some quarters. Meantime, admirers proclaimed him the Bob Marley or Bob Dylan of rap.

Now comes the fourth album, “Apocalypse ‘91: The Enemy Strikes Back,” containing the most specific issue-oriented songs Public Enemy has ever done, with a common theme about blacks’ taking control of their own communities and cultural identity.

“This album deals with us ,” Chuck D said while taking a break from shooting a video for the upcoming single, “Can’t Truss It,” at the power generating station in San Pedro. He wore a hard hat bearing the PE logo--a black man’s silhouette in the cross hairs of a gun sight--and shifted a large lug wrench from hand to hand as he spoke.

“It’s like, ‘Wait a minute, I got to go back to my block and tell the brothers, you know, you blame the white man for things . . . (but) you gotta make the system work. . . . The system’s got its faults, and we can attack it. But also we got faults too. Let’s clean up our (problems) before we go in the field and play.”

Among the new songs are “Shut ‘Em Down,” about non-black businesses in the black community, and “One Million Bottlebags,” addressing the urban marketing of potent malt liquor. (The latter is a personal as well as political issue to Chuck D, who is suing the makers of St. Ides malt liquor over a radio commercial that contains a snippet of his voice.)

What really sets this apart from previous PE albums is that the rhetoric and sloganeering have been toned down in favor of reasoned problem-solving. For example, “Shut ‘Em Down” is not a blanket condemnation of non-black businesses, but a call for blacks to build their own businesses.

“The best way to boycott a business is to build your own,” he said. “I don’t agree with standing in front of a business or burning it down. You build your own just like it. You don’t build your own, someone else is gonna come in and do it for you. I mean, our goal is to be self-sufficient. That’s the best way to shut ‘em down.”

The group’s co-headlining tour with hard-rockers and fellow Long Islanders Anthrax--with whom Public Enemy recently collaborated on a metalized remake of the rappers’ 1987 song “Bring the Noise”--begins Sept. 24 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., coinciding with the release of “Apocalypse.” It’s expected to reach Southern California in mid-October, and it puts Public Enemy in virgin territory.

“When we do a major rap tour, I might go to (inner-city) Chicago, but we couldn’t play (suburban) Rosemont, you see what I’m saying?” said D, whose cohorts in the group are the colorful Flavor Flav and turntable manipulator Terminator X. “I’ve been a participant in six major rap tours in the United States, but this is more of an alternative rock crowd. Why not? It was a different thing to do.”

This tour (which also includes art/funk rockers Primus) isn’t the first time Public Enemy will play to largely white crowds. The group recently shared the bill with Gothic English rockers Sisters of Mercy for the first leg of a scheduled national tour that was aborted due to low ticket sales and the high cost of the Sisters’ elaborate staging.

But this will be the first time Public Enemy has toured on a hard-rock package. Still, Chuck isn’t looking to tailor his approach.

“Yo man, you give me any crowd to play for, you give me a piece of toast to perform on, it doesn’t matter,” he said with the no-nonsense swagger that he is known for. “You put us in front of any crowd and we’re gonna do our best to exert our energy and smoke the stage. We’ve done it all, and now we’re trying to do more.”

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Tour of a Black Planet

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Black Planet | When Public Enemy toured with The Sisters of Mercy

• December 28, 2017
• post-punk.com

Some homeboys wander by mistake…

Perhaps ill advised or way ahead of it’s time—given that Death Grips toured with Ministry recently , Sisters of Mercy frontman Andrew Eldritch made his vision thing a reality by enlisting Hip Hop legends Public Enemy to go on tour together, along with post-punk legends Gang Of Four , hard rock band Warrior Soul, and rap group  Young Black Teenagers for 1991’s  “The Tune In, Turn On, Burn Out” tour .

This combination was most likely inspired by the fact that Public Enemy’ s third studio album   Fear of A Black Planet released the previous year   bore a similar name to The Sisters’s 1985 First And Last And Always track Black Planet.

“When’s the last time you went to a concert and were shocked?” says Chuck D of Public Enemy. “Rarely does the crowd get fuckin’ taken aback by a combination.” So get set for the cultural shock of the summer. Sisters of Mercy frontman Andrew Eldritch envisioned a Sisters-P.E. tour and, with reality upon him, insists it’s a harmonious coup: “Any kids that can put up with a snotty english band that plays rock with a drum machine is bound to give Public Enemy a good ear.”  Rolling Stone,  1991.

As our editor Andi Harriman has pointed out in her piece for Lethal Amounts ,  1991 was the same year Lollapalooz a began. The multistage the touring festival in the US was well suited for diverse genres and featured headliners such as Janes Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ice-T’s Body Count and Nine Inch Nails. 

Despite Andrew’s Eldritch’s forward thinking that his tour could be an alternative to the founding Alternative Music festival, the fusion of Hip Hop and Post-Punk under one roof during the genesis of Gangsta Rap, given that the audiences of both genres had drifted apart since the days they both danced together at Danceteria in New York.

Eldritch’s label Elektra was not thrilled with the idea of the tour, and gave virtually no support. Not only that, Eldritch went on to claim that many venues refused to host Public Enemy due to their notorious reputation.

All of this resulted in poor ticket sales that caused six of the remaining west coast dates to be cancelled, which exacerbated the harsh criticisms in the press for the tour.

Chicago Tribune  on  July 14, 1991 :

The Sisters of Mercy wallows in the horror and illogic of the world while Public Enemy tries to make sense of it and shake things up. Gang of Four is alienated by society, while Warrior Soul wants to dismiss it with contempt. The result was a fascinating cultural event and a frustrating concert in which the groups’ disparities became more apparent than any shared bond.

New York Times  on  July 26, 1991 :

Although Sisters of Mercy topped the bill, part of the audience left after Public Enemy finished. “We should be supporting Public Enemy,” Andrew Eldritch, the Sisters’ leader, said from the stage; in England, “supporting” means “opening for.” But it was only lip service. Otherwise, the Sisters of Mercy might have shortened their overlong set and given Public Enemy more time… Each band was blunt and focused, but disappeared after its set. If the musicians really want to suggest a new community, they might consider playing a finale together.

In the end. during the above 1991 interview with MTV , Andrew Eldritch blamed the tour’s failure on America and implied that racial discomfort was a an issue working against a tour like this being successful:

“I thought [the tour] might be interesting… unfortunately, it was too interesting for America. America’s got a big problem with anything that’s too interesting, particularly when it’s black and white… So, it didn’t go as well as it might have done.”

A special thank you to Andi Harriman for her original piece on this bit of music history.

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PUBLIC ENEMY

Public enemy.

“Here it is, BAM! - and you say 'Goddamn, this is the dope jam!'”

Public Enemy rewrote the rules of Hip Hop, becoming the most influential and controversial rap group of the late ’80s and, for many, the definitive rap group of all time. Building from Run-D.M.C.’s street-oriented beats and Boogie Down Productions’ proto-gangsta rhyming, Public Enemy pioneered a variation of hardcore rap that was musically and politically revolutionary. With his powerful, authoritative baritone, lead rapper Chuck D rhymed about all kinds of social problems, particularly those plaguing the black community, often condoning revolutionary tactics and social activism. In the process, he directed Hip Hop toward an explicitly self-aware, pro-black consciousness that became the culture’s signature throughout the next decade. While Public Enemy’s early Def Jam albums, produced with the Bomb Squad, earned them a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they continued to release relevant material up to and beyond their 2013 induction.

LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 18: (L-R) Inductees Flava Flav, Professor Griff and Chuck D accept award on stage at the 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on April 18, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Musically, Public Enemy were just as revolutionary, as their production team, the Bomb Squad, created dense soundscapes that relied on avant-garde cut-and-paste techniques, unrecognizable samples, piercing sirens, relentless beats, and deep funk. It was chaotic and invigorating music, made all the more intoxicating by Chuck D’s forceful vocals and the absurdist raps of his comic foil, Flavor Flav. With his comic sunglasses and an oversized clock hanging from his neck, Flav became the group’s visual focal point, but he never obscured the music. While rap and rock critics embraced the group’s late-’80s and early-’90s records, Public Enemy frequently ran into controversy with their militant stance and lyrics, especially after their 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back made them into celebrities. After all the controversy settled in the early ’90s, once the group entered a hiatus, it became clear that Public Enemy were the most influential and radical band of their time.

Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour, August 1, 1960) formed Public Enemy in 1982, as he was studying graphic design at Adelphi University on Long Island. He had been DJ’ing at the student radio station WBAU, where he met Hank Shocklee and Bill Stephney. All three shared a love of Hip Hop and politics, which made them close friends. Shocklee had been assembling Hip Hop demo tapes, and Ridenhour rapped over one song, “Public Enemy No. 1,” around the same time he began appearing on Stephney’s radio show under the Chuckie D pseudonym. Def Jam co-founder and producer Rick Rubin heard a tape of “Public Enemy No. 1” and immediately courted Ridenhour in hopes of signing him to his fledgling label.

Chuck D initially was reluctant, but he eventually developed a concept for a literally revolutionary Hip Hop group — one that would be driven by sonically extreme productions and socially revolutionary politics. Enlisting Shocklee as his chief producer and Stephney as a publicist, Chuck D formed a crew with DJ Terminator X (born Norman Lee Rogers, August 25, 1966) and fellow Nation of Islam member Professor Griff (born Richard Griffin) as the choreographer of the group’s backup dancers, the Security of the First World, who performed homages to old Stax and Motown dancers with their martial moves and fake Uzis. He also asked his old friend William Drayton (born March 16, 1959) to join as a fellow rapper. Drayton developed an alter ego called Flavor Flav, who functioned as a court jester to Chuck D’s booming voice and somber rhymes in Public Enemy.

Public Enemy’s debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show , was released on Def Jam Records in 1987. Its spare beats and powerful rhetoric were acclaimed by Hip Hop critics and aficionados, but the record was ignored by the rock and R&B mainstream. However, their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back , was impossible to ignore. Under Shocklee’s direction, PE’s production team, the Bomb Squad, developed a dense, chaotic mix that relied as much on found sounds and avant-garde noise as it did on old-school funk. Similarly, Chuck D’s rhetoric gained focus and Flavor Flav’s raps were wilder and funnier. A Nation of Millions was hailed as revolutionary by both rap and rock critics, and it was — Hip Hop had suddenly become a force for social change.

Public Enemy 1987. Photo David Corio / Getty

As Public Enemy’s profile was raised, they opened themselves up to controversy. In a notorious statement, Chuck D claimed that rap was “the black CNN,” relating what was happening in the inner city in a way that mainstream media could not project. Public Enemy’s lyrics were naturally dissected in the wake of such a statement, and many critics were uncomfortable with the positive endorsement of black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan on “Bring the Noise.” “Fight the Power,” Public Enemy’s theme for Spike Lee’s controversial 1989 film Do the Right Thing, also caused an uproar for its attacks on Elvis Presley and John Wayne, but that was considerably overshadowed by an interview Professor Griff gave The Washington Times that summer. Griff had previously said anti-Semitic remarks on-stage, but his quotation that Jews were responsible for “the majority of the wickedness that goes on across the globe” was greeted with shock and outrage, especially by white critics who previously embraced the group. Faced with a major crisis, Chuck D faltered. First he fired Griff, then brought him back, then broke up the group entirely. Griff gave one more interview where he attacked Chuck D and PE, which led to his permanent departure from the group.

Public Enemy spent the remainder of 1989 preparing their third album, releasing “Welcome to the Terrordome” as its first single in early 1990. Again, the hit single caused controversy as its lyrics “still they got me like Jesus” were labeled anti-Semitic by some quarters. Despite all the controversy, Fear of a Black Planet was released to enthusiastic reviews in the spring of 1990, and it shot into the pop Top Ten as the singles “911 Is a Joke,” “Brothers Gonna Work It Out,” and “Can’t Do Nuttin’ for Ya Man” became Top 40 R&B hits. For their next album, 1991’s Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Black , the group re-recorded “Bring the Noise” with thrash metal band Anthrax, the first sign that the group was trying to consolidate its white audience. Apocalypse 91 was greeted with overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its fall release, and it debuted at number four on the pop charts, but Public Enemy began to lose momentum in 1992 as they toured with the second leg of U2’s Zoo TV tour and Flavor Flav was repeatedly in trouble with the law. In the fall of 1992, they released the remix collection Greatest Misses as an attempt to keep their name viable, but it was greeted to nasty reviews.

Public Enemy were on hiatus during 1993, as Flav attempted to wean himself off drugs, returning in the summer of 1994 with Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age . Prior to its release, it was subjected to exceedingly negative reviews in Rolling Stone and The Source, which affected the perception of the album considerably. Muse Sick debuted at number 14, but it quickly fell off the charts as it failed to generate any singles. Chuck D retired Public Enemy from touring in 1995 as he severed ties with Def Jam, developed his own record label and publishing company, and attempted to rethink Public Enemy. In 1996, he released his first debut album, The Autobiography of Mistachuck. As it was released in the fall, he announced that he planned to record a new Public Enemy album the following year.

Before that record was made, Chuck D published an autobiography in the fall of 1997. During 1997, Chuck D reassembled the original Bomb Squad and began work on three albums. In the spring of 1998, Public Enemy kicked off their major comeback with their soundtrack to Spike Lee’s He Got Game , which was played more like a proper album than a soundtrack. Upon its April 1998 release, the record received the strongest reviews of any Public Enemy album since Apocalypse ’91…The Enemy Strikes Black. After Def Jam refused to help Chuck D’s attempts to bring PE’s music straight to the masses via the Internet, he signed the group to the web-savvy independent Atomic Pop. Before the retail release of Public Enemy’s seventh LP, There’s a Poison Goin’ On.. , the label made MP3 files of the album available on the Internet. It finally appeared in stores in July 1999.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN DECEMBER 6: Public Enemy performs on the Hip Hop Gods tour at First Avenue on December 6, 2012 in Minneapolis, Minnesota © Tony Nelson

After a three-year break from recording and a switch to the In the Paint label, Public Enemy released Revolverlution , a mix of new tracks, remixes, and live cuts. The CD/DVD combo It Takes a Nation appeared in 2005. The multimedia package contained an hourlong video of the band live in London in 1987 and a CD with rare remixes. The new album New Whirl Odor also appeared in 2005. The “special projects” album Rebirth of a Nation — an album with all rhymes written by Bay Area rapper Paris — was supposed to be released right along with it, but didn’t appear until early the next year. The odds-and-ends collection Beats and Places appeared before the end of 2006. Featuring the single “Harder Than You Think,” How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? arrived in the summer of 2007. Public Enemy then entered a relatively quiet phase, at least in terms of recording, releasing only the 2011 remix and rarities compilation Beats and Places in the next five years. Then, the group came back in a big way in 2012, releasing two new full-length albums: the summer’s Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp and the fall’s Evil Empire of Everything (both were available digitally before they had a physical release in November). Public Enemy also toured extensively throughout 2012 and into 2013. Their second and third albums were reissued as deluxe editions the following year. In 2015, the group released its 13th studio album, Man Plans God Laughs . ( Artist Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine |  Allmusic.com )

Official Site:   http://www.publicenemy.com

Source: allmusic.com

Discography, public enemy "yo bum rush the show" (1987), public enemy "it takes a nation of millions to hold us back" (1988), public enemy "fear of a black planet" (1990), public enemy "apocalypse 91... the enemy strikes black" (1991), is hip hop rock & roll, record retrospective “fight the power” – public enemy, top 15 public enemy songs.

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The album suffered a huge setback in its early recording stages, but ended up becoming one of the group’s finest records.

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The making of Public Enemy ’s fourth album, Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black , had hit its stride. Recorded primarily at The Music Palace studios in Long Island, the album found Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, the S1Ws, Gary “G-Wiz” Rinaldo, and the Imperial Grand Ministers of Funk lighting the studio on fire with blazing socio-political commentary and heart-thumping production.

Then disaster struck.

Parked outside of a Soho studio, longtime Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee was the victim of a robbery. The thieves made off with the bones of every track they’d been working on, bringing an abrupt halt to any progress they’d made.

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“We never really recovered after that,” Hank Shocklee once said. “We was on a roll – I was on a roll. To lose that material set me back so hard.”

Public Enemy was in the midst of a legendary run: Yo! Bum Rush The Show in 1987, It Takes A Nation of Millions… To Hold Us Back in 1988, and Fear of A Black Planet in 1990. The group was a revolutionary force unafraid to bring injustice to light in the brashest ways possible.

Apocalypse 91 was different. Initially intended to be an EP, Apocalypse 91 morphed into a fully fleshed-out album by the summer of 1991. Anchored by the unexpected hybrid of Anthrax and Public Enemy’s “Bring The Noise” collaboration, the 16-track project marked a change in direction for the group. Following the robbery, what they emerged with was a more minimal album, production-wise, than previous efforts. The Bomb Squad had been relegated to the role of executive producers rather than its principal architects, while G-Wiz – who was just finding his footing as a producer at the time – Stuart Robertz and Cerwin “C-Dawg” Deppe took the helm.

Listen to Public Enemy’s Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black .

Yet some of Public Enemy’s most engaging and commercially successful material emerged from Apocalypse 91 , including “Can’t Truss It,” which peaked at No. 9 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Coupled with its polarizing and shocking video, the song painted a graphic depiction of slavery and the ongoing plight of Black people.

“By The Time I Get To Arizona” further ruffled feathers, with its condemnation of former Arizona governor Evan Mecham, who refused to recognize Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday. The video for “By The Time I Get To Arizona” aired only once on MTV upon its release before it was banned for its controversial themes that included Mecham’s fictional assassination.

Once was enough for Chuck. “We knew it was probably going to be banned and it was,” he says. “All it had to do is be shown once. We said, ‘You know what? If this video just gets seen one time, that’s all it needs.’ And I was on tour at that time, so when I did interviews, we were making a statement that we thought the United States was being derogatory by not acknowledging the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so we decided to get cinematic.”

What many don’t know is “Arizona” was initially meant to go over the “Shut Em Down” beat. “When we found something that was more apropos for ‘Arizona,’ [then] the ‘Shut ‘Em Down’ beat was wide open for me to write the song. I think I was doing the ‘Nightrain’ video, and I kept hearing this guy talking about how [Kool DJ] Red Alert was killing it on the radio, and I was like, ‘Yo, Red Alert is shutting them down, man.’

“So what I happened to write on, we called it the bald beat or the bald experience ‘cause it was just nothing but a stripped down beat, which was a total flip to what we had known. The whole thing about Public Enemy is we wanted to make every album different from another, so you couldn’t tell what the next album would be, because we would totally flip the script.”

Public Enemy fans will never know what Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black would’ve sounded like had Shocklee not been robbed. Chuck says there’s still a debate whether the car was left open or broken into that day on Green Street. But like Chuck says, “If you fall on your face, you gotta get up off that fucking ground and keep moving.”

Despite Shocklee’s misgivings about the album, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in November 1991. Its 52-minutes of innovative production and potent commentary on the socio-political climate, systemic racism, and American media are topics that are, unfortunately, still relevant today.

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• 1994  ( 26 )
• 1993  ( 1 )
• 1992  ( 83 )
• 1991  ( 57 )
• 1990  ( 97 )
• 1989  ( 22 )
• 1988  ( 83 )
• 1987  ( 53 )
• 1982  ( 1 )

Show all tours

• 1987 Def Jam Tour  ( 14 )
• 25 Anniversary Tour  ( 1 )
• Apocalypse '91 - The Enemy Strikes Black  ( 2 )
• Bring the Noise Tour  ( 39 )
• Def Jam European Tour  ( 22 )
• Fear of a Black Planet 20th Anniversary Tour  ( 7 )
• Fight the Power  ( 1 )
• Flavour of Hip Hop  ( 1 )
• Gods of Rap 2019 Tour  ( 1 )
• Greatest Misses  ( 2 )
• Hip Hop Gods Tour Revue  ( 5 )
• It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back  ( 25 )
• Kings of the Mic  ( 25 )
• Sizzling Summer Tour '90  ( 1 )
• Smokin' Grooves 1998  ( 15 )
• The 40th Tour  ( 8 )
• The Art of Rap  ( 5 )
• The Day is my Enemy  ( 1 )
• The Hip Hop Gods Classic Tourfest Revue  ( 3 )
• The Hip Hop Gods Tour Revue  ( 6 )
• Tour Of A Black Planet  ( 63 )
• Tune In - Turn On - Load Out  ( 8 )
• UK FEAR Invasion  ( 1 )
• Avg Setlist

Concert Map

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