Review of PUBLIC ENEMY London gig last week

Wideo

**PUBLIC ENEMY play Vicar St Dublin this Saturday 12th April.Doors 7pm**



“The only major act to attack the war musically are veteran campaigners Public Enemy, whose furious ‘Son of a Bush’ opens this show. The track has given Public Enemy a contemporaneity they have missed for a decade… Tonight, the message behind a 15-year-old track such as Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos sounds surprisingly pertinent, and the music still astonishes. ”

The Guardian review of Public Enemy live in London last Friday 4th April (see more at bottom)

****

“Public Enemy’s live shows are monstrously good, and anyone who was at the Redbox in 2000 was blown clean away by it. Sometimes playing for over three hours; their value-for-money is almost unique at a time when live hiphop is getting a rep for rip offs.”


The Slate, April 2003

****

“Public Enemy were one of the most innovative acts of the 1980s – hiphop or otherwise – mixing urban political rage, seismic beats and incisive rhymes… their agitprop instincts have never been sharper, by passing the music industry with internet releases and staging marathon live shows, with Chuck D still a compelling rapper.”

The Sunday Times. Last Sunday 6th April 2003.

****
“Chuck D’s basic political philosophy is simple; it is the dedication to its dissemination and the ferocious eloquence of his delivery in seminal tracks like ‘Fight The Power’ that makes him remarkable. ‘The power’; Chuck says, is those things that don’t allow you to suffice as human being and enjoy your rights as a human being by the arrogance of governments. It seems like we are in more of a fight than ever’.”

The Sunday Tribune. Last Sunday 6th April 2003

*****************************************************************************
PUBLIC ENEMY
Kentish Town Forum, London
Friday April 4, 2003
4/5

One of the biggest surprises about rock's response to the Iraq war is the silence from the rap community. Hip-hop is regularly held up as an attack upon every principle that America holds dear. However, its stars' protests have been low-key: Donald Rumsfeld is unlikely to lose much sleep over the news that Missy "Misdemeanour" Elliot and Jay-Z have signed an online petition.

The only major act to attack the war musically are veteran campaigners Public Enemy, whose furious ‘Son of a Bush’ opens this show. The track has given Public Enemy a contemporaneity they have missed for a decade. A year after their definitive 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, NWA emerged, shifting hip-hop's focus away from radical politics to trigger-happy nihilism. It has stayed there ever since. No one can deny Public Enemy's historical importance - It Takes a Nation's explosion of livid rhetoric and ear-ringing noise remains the genre's towering artistic achievement - but gangsta rap's success rendered them commercially obsolete.

The rise of George Bush, however, seems to have re-energised them. Tonight, the message behind a 15-year-old track such as Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos sounds surprisingly pertinent, and the music still astonishes.

Not everything about Public Enemy has aged well. Once hailed as a fearsome embodiment of black power, truncheon-wielding dance duo, the Security of the First World now seem strangely chi-chi. You would think twice about saying it to their faces - they are big blokes - but their synchronized routines could look no more camp if they performed them in glittery sailor suits to S Club 7's Reach for the Stars.

It scarcely matters when so much sense is set to music so shocking. Public Enemy remain one institution from hip-hop's golden age for whom nostalgia is not an option.

Alexis Petridis
The Guardian
Sat 5th April

****