Public Enemy is a very special group to me. They were the group that helped me make up my mind once and for all that hip-hop would be the primary music that I would listen to and spend my money on and read about whenever I got the opportunity. The group had a loyal following by the time I had found out about them and got myself familiar with there music and their message. Some of their songs delivered messages in a clever fashion such as "911 is a Joke", "Meet the G that Killed Me" and "Pollywannacracka". Their were some songs I considered prophetic such as "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (1988). That song seem to foreshadow the circumstance of the Persian Gulf War and "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" (1990) which in my opinion foreshadowed the  Million Man March in 1995. I did not start following them until the Fear of a Black Planet album had been released.
    In the off-line world, this group is probably looked upon as a bunch of has-beens but I think in the past couple of years they have done some things that should be brought out into the forefront. For starters, in 1997, Professor Griff reunited with the group. It was nice to hear Griff's voice again on Chuck D's solo album The Autobiography of Mr. Chuck. Griff was featured on the track called "Horizontal Heroin". In 1998, the group did something that no other rap group has never done which is to do a whole movie soundtrack for He Got Game. That is a remarkable accomplishment in the history of hip-hop music. It was for the most part ignored in the mainstream media including hip-hop publications and was treated in a  apathetic fashion. It was one of the few soundtracks that I've heard that has kept on the topic of the movie.  Later that year they launched their own site www.Public-Enemy.com . When their record company at the time Def Jam balked at releasing their Bring The Noise 2000 album, they posted the first three songs using the mp3 music format to their fans for free. When Def Jam got word of this they made a big fuss about it and threatened legal action if the tracks remained posted. The group obliged and pulled the tracks off the site. This whole incident made very little sense to me other than Def Jam owning the masters to those songs. Def Jam didn't want to release the album. Public Enemy went ahead and released some songs anyway to their fans for free and they got mad. I could understand Def Jam getting upset if the group tried to manufacture and distribute the album for a profit but the group didn't do that.  The group also took a shot a mainstream radio by launching a uncensored internet radio site of their own called http://www.bringthenoise.com. Toward the end of that year the group was released from their contractual obligations from Def Jam. Shortly thereafter, the group posted a single on their site called "Swindler's Lust" which visitors could download to their computers at no charge. In early 1999, the group teamed up with an internet based record label called Atomic Pop. In March 1999, the group released their first single for their new album There's A Poison Goin On.... called "Do You Wanna Go Our Way?" in a mp3 format and aired the video to accompany that in the Real Video format. This is the first time that I recall a major hip-hop group releasing a full-length video for their single over the internet first. Two months later the album was released where fans could either download the album or purchase it online from Atomic Pop directly or from Amazon.com. This is the first account in the hip-hop world that a major group released an album via the internet as opposed to using conventional means. The album was later made available to be purchased at record stores even though some retail chains declined to stock it on their shelves.
    If hip-hop is about setting new trends and being on the cutting edge than I think even today Public Enemy embodies that. Being the first rap group to do a complete movie soundtrack, releasing a single, airing a video over the internet first instead of going to MTV or BET, and lasting releasing an album where people have the option of downloading it to their computer instead of relying solely on purchasing it through retail. Taking chances where the status quo decides to play it safe. Isn't that part of what hip-hop is all about?  - gEMSEEKER
 

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