RE Vanella and I had a little discussion on one of yesterday’s threads about the greatest rapper of all time. RE touted Biggie Smalls as the GOAT, which is a not-uncommon opinion. I lobbied for Public Enemy, the group that raised rap from what Chuck D called “infantilism” into a political force. But it’s not just their lyrical content that broke barriers. The Bomb Squad production layered short samples on top of each other to create a dense backdrop of sound that ratcheted up the tension level on almost all their tracks.
The album this appeared on was released in 1990, when white America was shitting its collective pants over angry black people taking to the streets. Skip ahead 30 years, and things have only gotten worse — we’re living through a worldwide outbreak of fascism based on fear of refugees and immigrants, we have a gun-nut culture in America convinced that only dozens of weapons can protect them from marauding black men, we lock refugees in cages. Can anyone doubt that fear of a black planet has driven white people, collectively, insane?
