Yo! Bum Rush The Show

About

In 1987, Public Enemy emerged from the chaos of the Reagan era as hip-hop’s answer to The Clash, staging what producer Hank Shocklee called “an organized coup” from this fearle, defiantly political, confrontationally noisy Long Island collective. The group’s debut album introduced listeners to the P.E. sound that would excite (and inflame) listeners in the years ahead: There’s the Black Panther-inspired fire-starting of Chuck D, who’d perfected his delivery over years of party-rocking; the off-the-wall moral support from human exclamation point Flavor Flav; and the methodical chaos of the production crew Bomb Squad. It’s all there on <i>Yo! Bum Rush the Show</i>, packaged underneath the greatest hip-hop logo of the 1980. Still, despite its immediacy, <i>Yo! Bum Rush the Show</i> was a tough sell in the US, where many mainstream mid-’80s rappers were boasting about car, clique, and rhyme technique. By contrast, Public Enemy’s tracks sounded as if they were being beamed in from a different planet altogether. On <i>Yo! Bum Rush the Show</i>, the group is quick to scratch the screech of car tires (“You’re Gonna Get Yours”), team up with Living Colour’s Vernon Reid for an early piece of rap-rock (“Sophisticated Bitch”), or coat a track in grinding industrial noise (“M.P.E.”). Dubbing himself the “one-man riot,” Chuck D would provide the earliest version of the rebel without a pause, shooting lyrical bullets on “Miuzi Weighs a Ton” and “Timebomb.” (“I’m a MC protector, US defector/South African government wrecker,” he raps on the latter. “Panther power, you can feel it in my arm/Look out, y’all, I’m a timebomb.”) .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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