10. Public EnemyFear Of A Black Planet
I remember when I first heard Fear Of A Black Planet it was, again, one of those moments when you thought ‘this is something’. It was still at the relatively early stages of rap, but Chuck D was really onto something. The sound of the tracks – the rhythm units they were using with those tiny percussion sounds – was unlike anything I’d heard. That’s why I chose it. Jay-Z has made some great records, as has Dr. Dre but Fear Of A Black Planet changed things.
We covered ‘911 Is A Joke’, which we got an enormous amount of flak for. Middle class white boys covering Public Enemy – what were they thinking? I can tell you the irony wasn’t lost on us. In fact, Flavor Flav loved our version, which was a huge thrill.
Public Enemy were pioneers who went out on a limb and started something which has become the biggest paradigm shift in music that we have had in the last 25 years. You look at some of those songs and think about how many samples they contain – the list is enormous. But that sampling technology is something we’ve all used since. Public Enemy were inventors, as were others with the albums I’ve chosen. They moved music to a new place and that’s what turns me on.
