Great Hall, Cardiff University Students Union
Sun 4 Sept
It’s hard writing about this without getting completely over-excited and losing all objectivity about what is, ostensibly, just another nostalgia exercise by an act whose artistic high point is some way behind them. But this isn’t Ned’s Atomic Dustbin playing God Fodder in its entirety. This is Public Enemy, the single most influential, exciting, visceral, furious and invective-ridden act in the history of hip-hop. Playing Fear Of A Black Planet. An album which, 21 years on, still sounds like nothing made before it or since.
I bought this album from Andy’s in Aberystwyth the week it was released. How ghetto is that? Since PE’s previous album, the equally mindblowing It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, hip-hop had taken the gauntlet thrown down by that sonic melange and run with it. De La Soul’s debut album ushered in a Daisy Age of less angry sampladelia and the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique meant that Public Enemy’s production team, the aptly monikered Bomb Squad had to up their game.
And they did: this album is a bomb going off. Everyone from James Brown to Hall & Oates via the Soup Dragons is sampled on here. Chuck D’s legendary anger was never more forceful, Flavor Flav was never funnier. This is the sound of hip-hop at its most righteous, exciting and awe-inspiring. Go see. Yeahhhh boyeee! Tickets: £25. Info: 029 2078 1458 (PJ)