Throughout the next two months and leading into the 30th anniversary of Public Enemy’s landmark album, Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black, UMe will be releasing a mix of music videos that have previously never been available digitally and classic videos remastered in HD formats for the first time on Public Enemy’s official YouTube channel, CHANNEL ZERO.
The first of the videos, the Top 10 hit “911 Is a Joke,” from the Top 10 album, Fear Of A Black Planet, will make its global debut on Public Enemy’s official YouTube channel, CHANNEL ZERO on August 30.
Additional Public Enemy videos will follow on CHANNEL ZERO with the debut of the videos for “Can’t Do Nuttin’ For Ya Man,” “Brothers Gonna Work It Out,” the uncensored version of “Anti-N Machine,” “Burn Hollywood Burn,” featuring Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane, and their Grammy-nominated anthem “Fight The Power,” all from Fear Of A Black Planet.
Additional HD Public Enemy videos coming to the channel include “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos” and “Louder Than A Bomb” from their landmark release It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, “Hazy Shade Of Criminal,” “Welcome To The Terrordome (Instrumental)” and “He Got Game.” October 1 marks the anniversary of a seminal moment in the group’s history as the forefathers of a musical, cultural, political, and visual revolution that started over 30 years. And for the October 1 anniversary of their 1991 Grammy-nominated release, Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black, the videos for “By The Time I Get To Arizona,” “Nighttrain” and “Shut Em Down,” will once again make their debut and make history in HD.
Last year, the group released the critically acclaimed album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down, reuniting them with their original record label, Def Jam, and featuring “Fight The Power: Remix 2020” with Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG and Questlove. The album included guest appearances by Mike D and Ad-Rock of Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Run-DMC, Ice-T, PMD, George Clinton, and more.
Their classic albums are the soundtrack to hip-hop’s rise as a form of social and political commentary. 1988’s It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back was, and still is, one of the most important records ever made, with Rolling Stone recently naming it the No. 15 Greatest Album of All Time and The New York Times added it to their list of “25 Most Significant Albums of the Last Century.”
Fear of a Black Planet – also named on the Rolling Stone list- features PE anthems including the original version of “Fight The Power,” “911 Is a Joke” and “Welcome To The Terrordome.” Most recently, SPIN Magazine named them to the #9 position on their “Most Influential Artists of the Last 35 Years” list. PE was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and received The Recording Academy’s “Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award” in 2020.
Listen to the best of Public Enemy on Apple Music and Spotify.
