Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet [HIP-O]

Why you'll love it

This Def Jam reissue comes with a printed lyric inner sleeve. Fear of a Black Planet sold two million copies in the US, and in 2004 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.

This edition

• Printed lyric inner sleeve

About the album

Public Enemy came off It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back with nothing left to prove, so Chuck D set out to make something even deeper and more complex. Fear of a Black Planet, out in April 1990 on Def Jam, is the result: a dense, restless album about empowerment, community and race relations in America.

The Bomb Squad (Hank and Keith Shocklee, Eric Sadler and Chuck D as Carl Ryder) built it from layer upon layer of samples, sound bites and loops, made in a golden era before sample clearance changed the rules. "Fight the Power," first heard in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, is the anthem; "Welcome to the Terrordome" is a blistering, breathless rush; "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" grooves hard; and Flavor Flav takes the spotlight on "911 Is a Joke." Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane join in on "Burn Hollywood Burn."

Critics named it one of the best albums of 1990, it pushed Afrocentric and political themes into hip hop's mainstream, and Rolling Stone placed it at No. 176 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. Clearing every sample on it today would take a legal department roughly the size of a small town, so we're glad it got made when it did.

Also at Kops: more Public Enemy on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Def Jam / Hip-O (cat# B0021703-01), a reissue of the 1990 album.