Public Enemy: There's A Poison Goin On...

After suffering through years out of the spotlight, Public Enemy received a good deal of attention following its public split with Def Jam and subsequent decision to release a new album over the Internet in the industry-frightening MP3 format. Whether or not that decision will turn out to be a turning point in the history of music distribution remains to be seen, and for the moment it's not really the issue: Most people who hear There's A Poison Goin On… will do so through more conventional software. Besides, it's important to note that PE's cyber-strategy is motivated largely by a desire to get its music to the people, something the group can no longer look to the radio or MTV to do, if it ever could. PE has been complaining about its lack of airplay since "B Side Wins Again" and "How To Kill A Radio Consultant," and the same grievances surface here, sounding less like bitterness than righteous indignation. A certain amount of egotism goes into viewing the continuing disenfranchisement of black America, the sorry state of hip hop (to PE's eyes at least), and your own lack of airplay as all part of the same problem, but bundling issues together in sometimes contradictory ways has always been part of the group's sometimes frustrating approach. There's also no small amount of chutzpah in evoking a soul classic in the title of your new album, even if the comparison is somewhat apt. Poison cops its name from There's A Riot Going On, the aggressively strange 1971 masterpiece by Sly And The Family Stone which channels the sound of the world collapsing, along with its creator's mind, into washed-out funk. While PE leader Chuck D seems to have his wits very much about him, Poison sounds even more apocalyptic than Apocalypse '91. After the group's good, but not overwhelming, reunion with the legendary Bomb Squad production team on He Got Game, PE has opted for the services of the cryptically monikered (and possibly non-existent) "Tom E. Hawk." Whoever Hawk may be, the beats on Poison—whether the scary sci-fi soundtrack of "First The Sheep Next The Shepherd" or the eerie guitar chords of the single "Do You Wanna Go Our Way"—are both strange and aggressive: not necessarily the sound of a world collapsing, but definitely the sound of a world gone wrong. It would sound that way even without D's rhymes, but the fact that he sounds as indignant as ever, and even more gruff and in control, puts Poison over the top. As usual, D's rhetoric is about 80% enlightened and 20% questionable—the music-industry-bashing "Swindler's Lust," with its "if you don't own the master, the master owns you" chorus, is good, but the title has already stirred up old charges of anti-Semitism—but hardly anyone interested in making music explicitly about politics conveys a message the way he does. "Another brother dies up in Sudan… Who's the real docs of death," D asks on "Kevorkian." Someone had to say it, and no one else seems interested. Musically innovative and politically charged, Poison is a major work from a major act, an album that matters whether coming out of your tape deck or your hard drive, and music that deserves to be heard regardless of musical fashion or means of distribution.