Public Enemy - Rebirth of a Nation - Music & Performance - CD

While Public Enemy has been quietly and steadily putting out work since the heyday of the late '80s and early '90s, their later work has hardly been the stuff of critical admiration. Their lead stalwart, Chuck D, has found more juice in his radio and producing career and the group's most colorful persona, Flavor Flav, has found a notorious sideline career as a reality show star. It is hardcore star and producer, Paris, who has thrust them back into familiar territory on Rebirth Of A Nation (an obvious play on the title of their first album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back), who finally has our beloved PE sounding like what they truly are -- a hardcore rap act.

What may come as a surprise to many is that premiere lyricist Chuck D did not write most of the lyrics for the album. Paris helmed not only the production, but the vast majority of the songwriting as well. While this is bound to be jarring to fans of the ever eloquent and socially critical Chuck, Paris sticks to subjects that are likely to be familiar, and even predictable, based on the group's past points of contention: the war in Iraq, record high prison numbers for African-American men, 9-11, and post-Katrina New Orleans. As always, this serves as plenty of fodder for the group that practically single-handedly invented socially conscious rap, and Paris knows his audience well enough to stick to territory that fans will recognize.

The album is full of the most serious of serious stuff, and these guys clearly have a lot they want to get off their chests. Sure, they may be preaching to the choir most of the time (except on the album's resident, and welcome, goof off song "They Call Me Flavor"); it's tough to imagine that their audience won't share their palpable rage, for example, on the irrepressibly ardent "Hell No (We Ain't Alright)," a tune about the government's questionable response to hurricane Katrina. While the songs do suffer from a bit of monotony, both rhythmically and lyrically, there are guests aplenty to keep the old school effect sharp, although perhaps not for the album's full 16 tracks. Still, Paris has great friends in Dead Prez, Kam and former P.E. member Professor Griff (whose voice is a great sound for sore ears on the album's bumping title track) who do their part to shake things up, as do the sound bites from group heroes like Malcolm X.

Numbers like "Hard Rhymin'" sets the album's old-school stage, and Chuck D's venom is always a welcome sound. The album's smartest moments come on the one song he penned, "Invisible Man," a weighty narrative about a homeless man that reminds us what a brilliant poet Chuck still is. While the album could have used more of his vision, it isn't lacking in terms of bite, and that is clearly their point. It may not be quite the P.E. that we remember, but this is as close as we've come in a long, long time. Fighting the man album by album is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. As Chuck says, "I rap like I'm possessed by Malcolm X." After some dozen albums, this may be the one thing about rap's most seminal group that will never change.

By Rachel Parker