Song Analysis: Fight The Power

Fight the Power “Fight the Power” is one of the most controversial songs from the late 80’s hip hop generation. This song is written and sang by the group called Public Enemy. Public enemy was known to be very influential through their controversial lyrics. Their music is very much pro black power; Although this song is focused more towards the African American community, it can be used to influence any type of social class being affected by social injustice. The civil rights movement from the 1950’s to 1960’s brought lots of victory to the African American community in the United States. Although segregation in ways has still existed since then, major desegregating happened during this time. Despite this, there was still much tension between
This act primarily affected the African American community due to the idea that it was used to disrupt and validify them on the news daily. This continued to grow and get bigger through-out the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, where it hit its climax of expansion. Many during this time were incarcerated during this time. African Americans were the major community to be affected by this. From 1980 to 1997 the number of people incarcerated went from 50,000 to over 400,000 (). All these factors led up to the division of power that came between the economically poor and high rates of unemployed African Americans and the majority white American higher up working class and business owners. This led to a movie that was very controversial and directed by Spike
They were started at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York by a rapper with the name Chuck D. He got together two others, Flavor Flav another rapper and Professor Griff who choreographed and managed their backup dancers. They were one of the first groups to begin coming out with protest music. They were also one of the few groups that primarily did only that type of music and ended up being very successful with it. Their very first song recorded was “Public Enemy Number 1”. This song is what got them noticed by Def Jam and soon after signed. They released their first album in 1987, and they mostly made their image out to be like black power groups such as the Black Panthers. During this time Griff made a statement to the Washington Post that stated, “Jews are responsible for the majority of wickedness in the world.” Soon after Griff was fired, and the rest of the group denied any part of the statement, but it still brought controversy to the group as people began to believe them as anti-Jewish. Despite all this, Public Enemy kept on making very popular music including the song “Fight the Power”