Public Enemy was a pioneering group in many ways. Some of Terminator X's most innovative scratching tricks can be heard on the song "Rebel Without a Pause," and the Bomb Squad offered up a web of innovative samples and beats. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that PE "brought in elements of free jazz, hard funk, even musique concrète, via [its] producing team the Bomb Squad, creating a dense, ferocious sound unlike anything that came before."[16]
Public Enemy revolutionized the hip-hop world with its political, social and cultural consciousness, which infused itself into skilled and poetic rhymes with raucous sound collages as a foundation. Prior to PE, political hip-hop was confined to a few tracks by Ice-T, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and KRS-One, as well as prototypical artists such as Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets. PE was the first hip-hop act to base its entire image around a political stance. With the success of Public Enemy, hip-hop was suddenly flooded with new artists that celebrated Afrocentric themes, such as Kool Moe Dee, Gang Starr, X Clan, Eric B. & Rakim, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers, and A Tribe Called Quest. In the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor (Edward Furlong) wears a Public Enemy t-shirt throughout the entire movie, exhibiting its influence even in mainstream venues.
Public Enemy was the first hip-hop group to make extended world tours, which led to huge popularity and influence in hip-hop communities in Europe and Asia. It also changed the Internet's music distribution capability by being one of the first groups to release MP3-only albums,[17] a format virtually unknown at the time.
Public Enemy helped to create and define "Rap metal" by collaborating with New York Thrash metal outfit Anthrax in 1991. The single "Bring the Noise" was a mix of semi-militant black power lyrics, grinding guitars, and sporadic humor. The two bands, cemented by a mutual respect and the personal friendship between Chuck D and his Anthrax counterpart Scott Ian, introduced a hitherto alien genre to rock fans, and the two seemingly disparate groups even toured together. Flavor Flav's pronouncement on stage that "They said this tour would never happen" (as heard on Anthrax's Live: The Island Years CD) has become something of a legend in both rock and hip-hop circles. Metal guitarists Vernon Reid (of Living Colour) contributed to Public Enemy's recordings, and PE sampled Slayer's "Angel of Death" half-time riff on "She Watch Channel Zero."
One of the only rap groups my dad liked.
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