Charles Hughes writes:

Thirty years after hip-hop’s national emergence, the question of how the culture is going to grow old is gaining increasing relevance. Founded so firmly on notions of youthful exuberance and individuality, hip-hop has always possessed a tense relationship with the elders, simultaneously honoring those who came before while also asserting the uniquely valid voices, beats and rhymes of the new generation. Like rock-and-roll, which faced similar moments of transition, the people who made up rap’s first and second waves are now staring down the expectations and limitations of middle age, both the culture’s and their own, and—again like rock-and-roll—some are faring better than others.

Some have desperately tried to recapture their former glory, in the context of current sounds. For example, Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Melle Mel released an ill-advised (and mostly terrible) “comeback” album last year, on which the voice of “The Message” tried to sound like Lil Jon, Lil Wayne and Lil Scrappy, with unsurprisingly lil success.  Then there are those who have essentially become hip-hop evangelists, like Afrika Bambaataa, who abandoned the recording world to focus exclusively on the gigs and parties that first built the Zulu Nation, or KRS-One, who rages against the machine with admirable, if didactic, zeal. Queen Latifah and Ice Cube conquered mainstream movies, Ice-T and Reverend Run became TV stars, and LL Cool J did the most remarkable thing of all: He remained a relevant hit-maker, staging at least three transformations to stay in the ears and hearts of younger listeners.  Don’t call it a comeback, he’s been here for years.

And then there’s Public Enemy, who seem to exist in between all of the strains mentioned above.  Thanks to Flavor Flav, the group now carries shockingly kitschy cultural baggage, even though—again thanks to Flav—their profile hasn’t been higher in fifteen years.  Chuck D is still a prophet of rage, but he also serves as hip-hop’s most eloquent, historically-aware teacher. The group itself is still one of the best live acts in hip-hop (check out the recent live album Fight The Power if you don’t believe me), and they’ve never stopped putting out records, the last few of which have been on their own, independent SlamJamz Records.  While each PE release contains a few remarkable moments, songs which mix righteous indignation and funk-driven musical chaos, no release since the He Got Game soundtrack from 1997 has come even close to equaling the apocalyptic trilogy (It Takes A Nation Of Millions…, Fear Of A Black Planet, and Apocalypse 91) that ensured their place in American musical history.

Public Enemy released a new record a few weeks ago, bluntly titled How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul???.  As the somewhat awkward name suggests, Chuck, Flav and company haven’t dulled their critique of American society (and fellow citizens of the hip-hop nation) a single bit.  It’s their best album since He Got Game, but there are too many unremarkable cuts on How You Sell Soul… to make it truly worthwhile. Some of the lessons become screeds, some of the tracks seem undercooked, and—in perhaps the greatest sin—Flavor Flav’s cuts (usually a highlight of any PE album) are swiped from his solo record, and they aren’t even the few good tracks from that uninspired affair.  Still, a few songs stand out, and one in particular stands up to the best of the group’s catalog.

“Harder Than You Think” is the kind of epic statement that few have ever done better than Public Enemy, a blast of sound and lyric that links the chains of tradition into an unstoppably powerful force.  The track also consciously asserts P.E.’s continuing, though changing, importance in the larger conversation: That “Harder Than You Think” opens with Flav’s reprise of his signature introduction to the group’s early single “Public Enemy #1” is only the most obvious moment of recall.  The guitars which guide this spare beginning gives way to the deep swell of a full R&B horn section, whose triumphant herald provides perfect support for one of Chuck D’s most intense recent performances. Unlike many of his “conscious” contemporaries and followers, Chuck’s always understood that the most intellectually or politically aware lyrics will mean nothing if they’re not accompanied by an accordingly memorable backing track, and—while he hasn’t always succeeded in this regard—“Harder Than You Think” sounds like it can move mountains.

Despite Chuck’s thunderous, relentless flow, the song’s chorus contains nothing but the horns and Flavor Flav’s stabbing repetitions of “just like that,” a piecing combination that—if only temporarily—washes away every memory of Flav’s ignominious reality-TV career: The Greatest Hype Man In The World once again frees himself from the Tar Baby, and summons the spirits.

The lyric itself is certainly of a piece with the glut of admonitions that P.E. and others have made a staple element of their recorded output, but it accomplishes something slightly different, and more valuable: Chuck’s verses primarily criticize rap and rappers for not being willing or able to grow up, instead staying bound to the styles and symbols that the genre’s been selling (and white folks have been buying) for two decades. While we could certainly debate the degree to which this accusation is simplistic, the arrested cultural development observed by Chuck D has been on the minds of plenty of folks, young and old, throughout the hip-hop nation in the past few years: Nas, whose debut album came out after Public Enemy’s great period was over, even declared hip-hop “dead” in his compelling 2006 single, but the older, wiser Chuck D isn’t willing to give up the ghost just yet.  Instead, he argues that the strength which hip-hop always possessed, and must continue to exhibit, comes through mature recognition, a quality which (like PE, and hip-hop itself) remains “harder than you think,” the double meaning of which, Chuck points out, “is a beautiful thing.”

It is a truly remarkable recording, the best Public Enemy track since the golden era. It captures their musical scope and lyrical precision in a way that some have forgotten, and many more have sadly never experienced.  (While I’m not gonna pretend that it’ll be a hit, I know that I can slip “Harder Than You Think” into the mix with Kanye West, Lil Wayne or the other true-funk soldiers who currently populate the charts much more easily than I could 99% of the current crop of “conscious” rap.)  This is a work of immense proportions, in many ways a corollary to Johnny Cash’s stunning reading of “Hurt,” in which PE similarly confronts the weight of continuing, complicated struggle.  Unlike Cash’s existential gravity, though, Chuck D, Flavor Flav and comrades tap into still-deep reservoirs of (Black) power to ready themselves, and their spiritual sons and daughters, for the coming fight.  Many in hip-hop’s first generation try to stay young, and wind up looking older than they ever should have feared.  Public Enemy, rather, is celebrating their maturity, and manages to sound younger than they have in years.

Public Enemy “Harder Than You Think” from How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? (Slam Jamz ,2007)

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