How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?, Public Enemy

It's Black Music Month!

How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?, Public Enemy, 2007, 1:06

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

These guys just continue to rock harder, stay uncompromising and critical of their peers, and keep on preaching.  But the beats somehow don't sound dated, and they even experiment, as on the children's chorus on "Sex, Drugs and Violence."  I was intrigued by "The Long and Whining Road," which looks back at PE's career, sprinkled liberally with references to their own and Bob Dylan's songs.  I could do without "Flavor Man," or the four-minute, tired, repetitive "Col-Leepin."  Favorite tracks: "Can You Hear Me Now?," "Escapism," "Harder Than You Think."

Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, Public Enemy

Currently doing one album for each year, 1960-2020. Today: 1994.

Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age, Public Enemy, 1994, 1:11

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Cut out a few of the lesser tracks, throw out the extended skits, shorten the choruses a bit, and give Flava Flav a sedative, and you'd have a Public Enemy album easily as strong as their late '80s classics. Basically Chuck D should probably treat Public Enemy as less of an art collective and more as his backing band. He's still fiery and angry here, and the best moments are all him. It takes guts to stay in a game when you're considered 20 years too old, dis the gangsta rap that brings the big bucks, and point fingers at drugs and alcohol as a crisis in black culture. "Rather rap my black ass off / Getcha hooked on phonics / Good enough to know no endo / Throw it out the window / Along with the Super Nintendo." Now that's a rhyme.  And also "Talkin that drive-by shit / Everybody talking that gangsta shit / Slaves to the rhythm of the master." Preach, Chuck. Maybe a four-star album?  Favorite tracks: "So Whatcha Gone Do Now?," "Race Against Time," "What Side You On?"