"Music hittin' your heart"

"Music hittin' your heart" is just one well-known line from the song "Fight the Power" but Public Enemy.  Public Enemy is a hip-hop group recognized mainly for its songs expressing political criticism and issues within the African American community.  This group originated in 1982 in Long Island, New York and is still together today, although the members in the group have varied over the years.  Current members are Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Professor Griff, and DJ Lord.

This group is praised for having stayed together for so long AND for the subject matter they write about.  "Fight the Power" really emphasizes the need for African Americans to really speak out and fight the whites because  more than a century after being freed, blacks are still looked down upon by racist whites.  They even refer to Elvis Presley in the song- "Elvis was a hero to most, But he never meant shit to me you see, Straight up racist that sucker was;" they are saying he is racist and that basically the white community as a whole is racist also.  A few other really famous songs about social and political issues by Public Enemy are "Don't Believe the Hype," "Bring the Noise," and "Harder than You Think."

Public Enemy broke into the scene with their first album entitled "Yo! Bum Rush the Show" and instantly had a decent number of fans.  However, the next few albums that followed did even better on the charts and they slowly became a very famous and highly successful group.

In addition to being at the top of the charts for many of their albums, Public Enemy received numerous awards, some of the greatest being the group's induction into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007 and its ranking as 44th in Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Greatest Artists."  This group has been together for 30 years, and is still going strong.  Let's see what Public Enemy has in store for the next 30 years!

The video below is the music video of Public Enemy's hit song, "Don't Believe the Hype."


SOURCES:
http://www.publicenemy.com/
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/public-enemy/biography
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/public-enemy/fight-the-power.html
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0195982/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0281318/
http://www.pgriff.info/
http://www.djlord.co/
http://www.allmusic.com/album/yo!-bum-rush-the-show-mw0000194784
http://www.limusichalloffame.org/
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQaVIoEjOM (Video)
http://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/11/7/time-magazine-profiles-public-enemy-at-25.html (Picture)