Remix of a Nation

Public Enemy

In the late 1980s, Public Enemy connected the dots between politics, soul music, hard rock, marketing, turntablism, and rhyme, and turned hip-hop into an urban global youth movement. PE's pioneering albums are heralded as avant-garde artworks whose disparate sample sources combine into a gloriously chaotic mosaic of polyphony and African-American unrest. Powered by Chuck D.'s political fury, enlivened by Flavor Flav's antics, and made controversial by Professor Griff's ethnocentrism, Public Enemy influenced virtually every rapper who followed in their wake.