In the late 80s I was watching Rap City on MuchMusic when I first saw the video for Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos". My ears instantly liked what they were hearing and my mind was immediately stimulated by the weight of Chuck D's words. Here was a hard core sound blended perfectly with intelligent, political rhymes. Soon after I was off to Yonge street to pick up "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back".
Hot damn that's a killer disc. It was by far the greatest rap album I had ever heard. When Public Enemy released "Fear Of A Black Planet" in 1990, it was another amazing collection of tremendously heavy tracks. For months in 1990 I didn't take the "Fear Of A Black Planet" cassette out of my Sony Walkman.
These tunes from Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Professor Griff and Terminator X sound as fresh today as they did then. A glance at my Audioscrobbler page shows I only listened to four artists more often on my PC this year. These awesome, thought provoking songs stand the test of time.
This is hype you can believe.
