The cover to Public Enemy’s new record, Nothing Is Quick in the Desert, features outdated technology ranging from tube TVs and cassettes to an outdated computer and, yes, an iPod classic (like mine). Lit candles circle the items in homage to a time past, which includes some of PE’s classic albums, by the way. The words “Except death” line the bottom of the cover. The desert will reduce you over time, but it will kill you in an instant if you’re unprepared for it. It’s the same with time, and PE are using this record to warn us (again, as we can’t seem to listen) of growing lackadaisical in these tricky times.
The title track has a nice mix of heavy guitar and bass with chimes and piano as Chuck D proclaims “Everybody sellin’, but nobody buyin’” before rolling into “sPEak!” – a slick track encouraging us to use our voices and not let twenty-four hour news cycles and propaganda drown out our concerns (“Speak your mind. Speak. It’s time. Speak your piece. Be free.”).
Flavor Flav throws down a challenge at the beginning of “Yesterday Man” as he proclaims, “You don’t even know who the hell you are.” The song is about those of us who choose to live in (and are thus prisoners of) the past. Chuck D claims many of us want to be a spectacle instead of spectacular. We’d rather be momentarily famous than do something that matters.
“Beat Them All” brings in trance bass as the band sings, “If you can’t join ‘em, you know you gotta beat ‘em.” The song flows well into “Smash the Crowd.” Chuck D puts down some of his best flows on the track (tearing up rappers who’d rather get a quick buck instead of trying to change the world with their art) and I’m sure it’s smashes crowds and clubs live. “So Be It” has Chuck D proclaiming the virtues of “it,” but what is “it?” It’s whatever you believe in, according to him. Only Chuck D could use the word “it” so many times in one song and have it mean a hundred different things. Listen to this track if you’ve forgotten what a master MC sounds like.
“SOC MED Digital Heroin” is heavy on guest stars and warnings about getting “lost in the 1980’s” and becoming lazy thanks to having everything spoon fed to us. Flavor Flav shouts that he’s “shakin’ my damn head” at the proliferation of reality TV (of which, it should be noted, he was a star) and social media. “Terrorwrist” has wicked beats and bass by DJ Lord while Chuck D asks, “How can I make you understand?” – which he’s essentially been asking us since Public Enemy’s first album.
DJ Lord puts down more killer beats and cuts on “Toxic,” while Chuck D asks if MCs can change the world in “this time of 45.” He and Flavor Flav speak about how toxic talk and venomous news cycles have poisoned us. One of the cleverest tracks on the record is “Sells Like Teens Hear It.” It’s a slam on new styles of rap such as mumblecore and trap music. Chuck D likes some of it, but can’t understand why so many teenagers like songs that are essentially empty calories. It also has Flavor Flav’s best rapping on the record. It’s easy to forget that Flav can drop rhymes because he’s the greatest hype man of all time.
The album ends with “Rest in Beats (Parts 1 & 2).” Chuck D laments the losses of so many hip-hop and rap legends from Jam Master Jay to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez. It moves onto the loss of record stores, excellent tours, exquisite rapping, rap teams, “the time when you really had to rhyme,” and having everyone together in one studio instead of e-mailing pieces of tracks back and forth. A lot of what made rap so good is a lost art by now.
Thankfully, we still have records like this.
Keep your mind open.
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