Engaging with the enemy

There is a theory in the music industry that the best American records are made during times of Republican government. Certainly, even a casual perusal of the history books would appear to lend credence to this observation; The Doors, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Daydream Nation and Nevermind were all made whilst a GOP president resided in the White House. However, perhaps the most compelling evidence to support the claim is not to be found in rock, but hip-hop.

The albums made by NWA and Public Enemy in the late eighties/early nineties were incendiary dispatches from, respectively, LA and New York. Mixing harsh industrial noise and abrasive guitar samples with dirty funk grooves, both groups offered chaotic snapshots of everyday life in inner-city ghettos. In the process, they managed to enrage almost as many people as they inspired – white liberals didn’t want to be confronted with the awful truth, whilst right-wingers simply called for them to be banned from the airwaves altogether.

Now, with another Bush in the White House and another war raging in the Gulf, it would appear to be the perfect moment for an anti-establishment hip-hop crew or vandalistic rock outfit to seize the moment and issue a state of the nation address. However, that isn’t how things have panned out. In 2003, Kurt Cobain is the still the main reference point for rebellion to many teenagers, and, incredibly, Chuck D and co. are still fulfilling the role of “CNN for black people”.

“Rap music might still be CNN for black people, but I’m wondering where the hell the reporters are these days,” states Professor Griff, designated Public Enemy spokesman. “Hip-hop right now is on a spiral downwards. I think our most recent album, Revolverlution, is a good record, but when you compare it to some of the stuff that’s around, it stands out even more. You look at what people like Nelly, Jay-Z and Eminem are doing and you think, ‘Are they just making music for kids?’.”

Public Enemy themselves, of course, made their name with two of the all-time great albums, Fear Of A Black Planet and It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back Whilst the production on those records was sufficiently innovative for both to still sound like a sonic apocalypse even in the current age of hi-tech digital trickery, it has to be noted that – dealing as the albums do with oppressive government, social breakdown and media lies – they’re just as relevant thematically.

“It’s amazing that you should point that out,” replies Griff. “It’s really sad to say this, but if you listen back to what we were laying down lyrically on those tracks 15 years ago, it definitely still holds up. I mean, we’ve even been checking out some of the stuff that didn’t make those records, and it’s almost like a road map – you could probably place it over what’s going on right now. And, like you were saying, when you consider the texture of the albums sonically, and how they actually sound like they were recorded today, it all makes me think that not a lot of progress has been made.”

Given the overtly political content of Public Enemy’s work, I inevitably enquire about Griff’s views over on the war on Iraq. Incredibly, it would appear that Public Enemy have chosen this of all moments to avoid any potentially inflammatory comments, a dramatic reversal from the days when the group gleefully assaulted mainstream American sensibilities.

“As much as I would like to speak on the war at this particular moment, I don’t want to use my words to inflame the situation,” offers Griff. “I kinda figured that people would want to know what Public Enemy had to say, but there’s a song on Revolverlution called ‘Son Of A Bush’, and I think that track kind of speaks for itself. Basically, we just got together and said, “Look, we’re coming here (Griff is speaking from England – PN) from a country that’s at war, to perform in a country that’s also at war. We definitely don’t want to say anything that’s gonna fan the flames at all.

We’re grateful to be allowed play here and we wanna finish our tour. The last thing I’d wanna do is say something which adds to the tension, as a result of which someone gets hurt. Then you and I get held responsible for something negative. That’s not what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Griff recently said that in all the years Public Enemy have been releasing records, what they’ve managed to accomplish is to, “raise the level of consciousness, so that people at least think about what direction society is headed.” Will that remain the PE goal?

“Well, my hope was always that people would do a self-analytical thing,” Griff reflects. “That they would look at themselves and say, ‘This is a gigantic world, there’s a lot of things going on. So where do I fit? What’s my contribution to taking things to the next level?’ I may be doing it in music, you might be doing it in journalism, but the important thing is that we do it. I hope people internalised the message of Public Enemy and used it to move us all forward, not just themselves as individuals. Because, to a certain degree, we are all responsible for one another.”