Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio
Radio Armageddon
Def Jam
Now, I’ll get something out of the way first before this review: I am a guy who has a Public Enemy tattoo on his arm. This means I’m not only a lifelong fan but I have very high standards when it comes to Public Enemy related releases and how they stand up to their eighties into nineties golden era. This is not a Public Enemy album as such. As the title suggests, this is a Chuck D and Friends album that’s laid out to play like you’ve just tuned into a pirate radio station. Now, here’s the kicker: it just happens to be the most banging pirate radio station ever! This genius move means this album moves as quickly as The S1Ws back in the day and bounces around the genres with guest producers and MCs taking their cameos, but incredibly, it all sounds like the legendary magpie-eyed Bomb Squad production that hooked me back in 1985. Chuck D and Public Enemy changed the way I, and a lot of my heavy metal-orientated friends, listened to music forever, not least when they sampled Slayer, collaborated with Anthrax and more recently when Chuck D unleashed Prophets Of Rage with members of Rage Against The Machine and Cypress Hill. The Hall Of Fame inductee Chuck D has possibly got a more authoritative voice than most presidents, let alone rappers; it’s a voice that demands you listen, backed up by a truly revolutionary mind and on this album, it hits you from all sides with pinpoint accuracy. There are many stand-out moments on this album, ‘Is God She’, ‘What Rock Is’ and ‘Here We Are Heard’ featuring the amazing Impossibulls being some of them. This isn’t an album of individual tracks, though this is to be experienced in one go, hit play and let go; this is Radio Enemy, this is Radio Armageddon, and I definitely recommend you tune in because this revolution will not be televised!
Review by George Miller