Once again back is the incredible rhyme animal...

Before jigginess, before fourth-sign-of-the-apocalypse "Flavor Of Love", there was Public Enemy. You want to explore American Culture through music? You simply can't without PE. Rap music, and beyond that pop music, will not be the same without the contribution of this group. Love 'em, hate 'em, be totally scared shit-less of them, PE changed music and its construction just as importantly as Miles did in the fifties and James Brown did in the sixties.
Chuck D is simply the best rapper so far. Ever. Period. However, the state of compiling the works of PE has been, well, a piece of crap. A odds-n-ends collection, Greatest Misses, had a couple reworked and live singles on it, but did zilch to capture the spirit of the group. Nine years later, a volume in Universal's Millenium Collection attempted to distill PE's legacy to 10 songs, with an extra version of "Bring The Noise" with Anthrax. So finally in 2005 comes Power To The People And The Beats, an expanded look at the group. Does it do justice? Allllllmost.

Thankfully, the CD works in chronological order, which compliments the evolution of the sound and message of the group. Beginning with 2 cuts from their first album, Yo Bum Rush The Show, you an see PE came out of the chute fully realized. With "You Gonna Get Yours" and "Public Enemy #1", there's a passion and anger that has not been seen on a wide basis (KRS brought it originally from the underground) in the fledgling world of rap. It's hard to fathom how much of a happy show it was till then. The samples are sparse, yet effective, usually using the instrumental break of a song with some scratching. Even Flav seems in-your-face. These two snippets, though in the rap-battle theme, don't even sound like it. Heck, nothing sounded like that at the time.

However Bum Rush was only a taste of what was coming. Power To The People... contains five songs from their masterpiece, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, and that's even one song too few. The structure of pop music was completely turned on its head with this album. Listening to it now seems almost like listening more to jazz than to soul, with it's reliance more on beat than melody, and multilevel themes based on either raps or samples skewed in any direction but the original. Tracks like "Rebel Without A Pause", "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos", and "Prophets Of Rage" build upon sample after sample to a collage not unlike a "ghetto" Wall-of-Sound. No happy singing choruses, no retread hooks. This fact, coupled with a rap style that's more a call to arms than a call to party, PE's ability to combine the machine-gun style of Chuck D's rap to the funky asides of Flavor Flav, brought not only an freshness to the game, but also a shelf life decades beyond the norm in the more "popular" hip-hop genre. What makes it different is the growing prominence of a more focused political message. With "Prophets" and "Black Steel", PE start pushing the boundary of rap to reveal the ugly underbelly of urban life, paving the way for the street-sense hip-hop of N.W.A. and Jay-Z in the future. Unfortunately the only glaring omission in this best-of collection is the classic track "Night Of The Living Baseheads", which is mind-boggling considering not only is it the most powerful track on the album, but it was included on the earlier Millenium Collection.

After It Takes A Million..., PE became heroes in the R&B world, but not exactly pop superstars. But instead of going to please the masses, PE brought the masses to them with their next album, Fear of a Black Planet. Power To The People... has 5 more songs from this album, including the group's first major MTV exposure, "Fight The Power", as well as Flavor Flav's greatest lead moment, "911 Is A Joke". The political ante was raised bigtime with urban-decay tracks like "Welcome To The Terrordome" and "Brothers Gonna Work It Out". Even the throwaway Flav novelty "Can't Do Nothin' For You Man" doesn't distract too much.

After this, Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Back seems almost like a throwback, with the samples more subtle and the form less free-flow. However the message is even more fine-tuned, with Chuck D using their newfound fame to further the PE "agenda" in the prescient anti-outsourcing creed of "Shut 'Em Down" as well as the anti-rascist "By The Time I Get To Arizona". Both are included here, as well as the hit "Can't Truss It", PE's first foray in the top half of the pop singles chart.

After Apocalypse, all hell did break loose, though not in the way they had probably planned. With attention being diverted by the pathologic anti-semitism and homophobia of former member "Professor Griff", as well the continuing spiral of crazy that was Flavor Flav, PE's output became more spotty as well as unnoticed. Power to the People... gives room to one track from each of their final three albums on Def Jam. "Hazy Shade Of Criminal" is a competent if not only saving grace from Greatest Misses. "Give It Up" was the Enemy's last great gasp, a great summer groove unlike much of what they've done before, and surprisingly their one Top-40 hit. Finally, "He Got Game", from the Spike Lee movie, bring PE up to the usual rap cliche', the song-hook-rip-off, cribbing Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth", though I can excuse it for #1) bringing in Stephen Stills, and #2) being kinda good.

After the scope of this collection, PE subjugated to a myriad of independent labels and varying lineups, none of which would really help this collection, and gladly this set leaves that chapter out. On a whole the album does not disappoint for listening experience, with not a true "dud" in here. Some missing songs aren't missed too much, like the incongruous Anthrax "duet" of "Bring The Noize", and the minor single "Nighttrain". However, the exclusion of "Night Of The Living Baseheads", an anti-drug screed which doesn't sugar-coat or preach, and the best example of scratch-and-sample ever, is totally without excuse. With that, it would be the perfect rap compilation. As it is, I can handle almost perfect quite well. Besides after hearing this collection you should stop next to hear the whole It Takes A Million... album. Flavor Flaaaav!

(P.S. I don't wanna even mention Mr. "Flav"s VH1 career since. it makes me major sad.)

Grade: A
Best Cuts: "Bring The Noise", "Don't Believe The Hype", "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos", "Fight The Power"
Weakest Link: "Can't Do Nothin' For You Man"

Power To The People And The Beats... made #69 Billboard 200 Albums, #26 R&B albums.
"Bring The Noise" hit #56 R&B, and #32 in the UK.
"Rebel Without A Pause" made #37 in the UK.
"Don't Believe The Hype" hit #18 R&B, #21 Dance Club Play, and #18 in the UK.
"Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos" made #86 R&B, #11 Rap.
"Fight The Power" hit #20 R&B, #1 Rap, and #29 in the UK.
"Welcome To The Terrordome" made #15 R&B, #49 Dance Club Play, #3 Rap, and #18 in England.
"911 Is A Joke" hit #15 R&B, #1 Rap.
"Brother's Gonna Work It Out" made #20 R&B, #31 Dance Club, #22 Rap.
"Can't Do Nuthin' For You Man" hit #11 Rap.
"Can't Truss It" made #50 Pop, #11 R&B, #1 Rap, #5 Dance Club, and #22 in the UK.
"Shut 'Em Down" hit #26 R&B, #16 Dance Club, #1 Rap, and #21 in England.
"Hazy Shade Of Criminal" hit #58 R&B, #12 Rap.
"Give It Up" made #33 Pop, #30 R&B, #5 Rap, #18 in the UK.
"He Got Game" hit #105 Pop, #78 R&B, and #16 in the UK.

It's quite notable how well Public Enemy did in Great Britain, which proves their trancendence of boundaries and audiences.

Listen to "Give It Up" by clicking here.

Buy Power to The People And The Beats: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits here or here.