‘Fight The Power’ Too Smart & Defiant For Today’s Listeners

Laura K. Warrell of Salon.com profiled Public Enemy’s explosive 1989 hit single ‘Fight The Power’ and how hip-hop has changed since then. Warrell writes, “Sadly, there will probably never be another ‘Fight the Power.’ A song so rich with meaning, so smart and defiant, couldn’t reach today’s listeners, their senses numbed by too many years of schlock. Arguably, hip-hop itself is dead. Perhaps there have been worse deaths in popular culture: the death of jazz, the novel, God. But hip-hop’s demise will mark the greater death of rock music and everything it allowed: snarling rebellion, sensual abandon, flipping the bird to the establishment.” Read more.