Earlier this year, the legendary Public Enemy — Chuck D, Flavor Flav, and DJ Lord — released their critically applauded 15th album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? The album which features guest spots from a who’s who list of just about everyone who’s truly dope — including Nas, YG, Rapsody, DJ Premier, Black Thought, Questlove, Cypress Hill, Run DMC, Ice-T, PMD, Daddy-O, Jahi, The Impossebulls, Mark Jenkins, the S1W’s Pop Diesel and James Bomb and Beastie Boys‘ Mike D and Ad-Rock — marks the act’s return to their longtime label home, Def Jam.
Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout the course of this year, you may recall that I’ve written about two of What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? singles:
- “State of the Union (STFU),” a righteous and much-needed DJ Premier-produced tweeter and woofer rocking boom bap condemnation of the Trump Administration. Naturally, the track continues their long-held reputation for boldly speaking truth to power with teh track urging the listener to get involved and fight systemic racism, injustice and oppression with their voices and through collective action — but most importantly, through their vote. So far about 1 million New Yorkers have voted in early elections, but you still have election day. If you haven’t voted or thinking about not voting because you think that your vote isn’t important, think of it this way: if i’m not mistaken, Trump won a state by less than 100,000 votes. So go out there and vote like your life depends on it — because it does.
- “Fight The Power: Remix 2020.” an updated version of their seminal 1989 anthem “Fight The Power” that features inspired guest verses from Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, YG and JAHI. The original may have been released 31 years ago but it still manages to be relevant and necessary until there’s equity and equality for all.
What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?‘s latest single “Public Enemy Number Won” is a much-needed blast of tweeter and woofer rocking, old-school boom bap goodness featuring guest verses from a Hall of Fame crew of legends: Run DMC and The Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock and Mike D. And for that added blast of nostalgia, the hip-hop legends released a lyric video featuring classic 80s Def Jam footage of all of the artists.
Along with the release of the video, Public Enemy announced their support of Election Super Centers’ Make History Here initiative. The non-partisan group has been working with local election authorities and more than 70 NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL and MLS arenas, stadia and teams, as well as prominent artists and athletes to inform communities that their local arena or stadium is open as a polling location, ensuring safe, socially-distanced voting.