Rating:
  Release Date: November 1, 2005
  Website: Public Enemy Website
  Label: Slam Jamz

Public Enemy “New Whirl Odor” Album Review
A lot of people, especially the ignorant closed-minded cats who run this country, try to deny the connection between hip-hop culture and national or world politics. Like one has nothing to do with the other. Carrying on our society’s current tradition of ignoring its youth, the elders of this country refuse to believe that those born within the hip-hop generation, based on their own experiences in life, could possibly have important insights or relevant opinions about the state of our nation and world.

And what’s worse, their consistency in ignoring the youth has only made many of us believe that they’re right. That no one will listen to us; that we can’t make a difference. So much, in fact, that anyone from the older generation who actually supports the plight of American youth, or attempts to further its cause, seems to be disrespected or laughed at by the same youth they are attempting to support. Example? Public Enemy.

The kids nowadays hate on PE. Reviewers call their beats weak, their topics outdated, and Chuck’s rhymes and flow wack. And with some justice. PE’s production is not as banging or club-friendly as, say, the Neptunes, Kanye or Timbaland. Chuck can’t flow like, say, Jay-Z, Ludacris or Eminem. And yeah, PE’s been pushing a similar string of topics for years now. But what’s ironic about it all is that PE’s latest effort, “New Whirl Odor,” is still better than anything they’re playing on the radio these days.

So what do politics have to do with this? Well, I’d have to say one word . lies. I’ve been into politics for some time now. And as much as our elders try to tell us that the hip-hop worldview doesn’t apply to national and world affairs, that’s a lie. In reality, it was actually hip-hop music and culture that fueled my interest in politics. And Chuck D and PE played a huge role in that.

THAT’S A LIE!!!!!
I remember first listening to Public Enemy when I was young, just an elementary school kid. While everyone was “fighting for their right to party” with the Beastie Boys and “walking this way” with Run DMC, I found some strange connection to the philosophy that spoke of “power to the people, not the government.”

I must admit that, at first, it was more of a rebellious thing. I had been told that PE was a bunch of unpatriotic and violent racists; rappers who were angry and made up lies about our great nation and its fair and just government. Similar probably to reasons behind the soon-to-come NWA obsession, I bought their tape and showed it off around school so that I might be seen as a rebel too.

However, as I listened to their music more and more, I realized that everything parents and schoolteachers were saying about them was lies. They weren’t racists; they wanted equality for all people. They weren’t violent; they wanted peace. They weren’t unpatriotic; they just weren’t willing to trade humanity for patriotism. So why were all these lies going around about Public Enemy?

I started to think about all the lies I had started to come to grips with in my young life. After all, I had just recently learned that there was no Santa Claus. My older brother had recently explained to me that my uncle’s tendency to duck and cover whenever a train or large truck rolled by was due to the loud noises flashing him back to Vietnam experiences. And I was starting to figure out that my parents’ recent early morning conversations, fighting and crying was actually a sign of their failing marriage. And the only thing that made each of these lies similar was the fact that people maintained them to save me from the truth . the horrible, God awful truth.

It was at this moment, as just a young boy, that I came to the realization that you can’t believe everything you hear. That people make up lies to hide the truth because, as they say, reality is a bitch. Perhaps the reason all my elders were labeling Public Enemy as racists, communists and violent anarchists was because they were exposing real truths about our country, revealing things we weren’t supposed to know.

OPEN YOUR EYES!
All of a sudden, it was my goal to learn the truth for myself. I read every book I could about history, religion, government and politics. I watched the news with a different perspective. I started to question everything I heard or read in somewhat of a Socratic way. I would no longer believe everything I heard. It was a major changing point in my life. And in part, I have Chuck D, Public Enemy, and ultimately, hip-hop to thank for that. WORD.

So for all you young cats who follow the rest of this blind nation in the lies and hypocrisies of our society and government, OPEN YOUR EYES! Turn off the TV and read something. And definitely don’t believe a damn thing you read in the newspaper or see on the fake-ass corporate-driven news. As a journalist, I can attest to the fact that the media can spin a story in any way they want to, or perhaps in any way they are told to.

And just because a group doesn’t have club-banging beats or high priced videos or flashy material possessions, that doesn’t mean their music isn’t dope, real, or authoritative within the culture of hip-hop. Now that would be a lie for real. PE is one of the pioneers of our great culture, and one of the very few factions of the older generation that understands our plight, so show some respect. Read some of my favorite lyrics from “New Whirl Odor” below. Who knows, you might come a little bit closer to learning the truth. Power to the people!

For more information and truthful insight, check out Chuck’s Terrordome editorials and listen to his American Air radio show, On The Real, which airs Sundays from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST.

New Whirl Odor
On the outside peaking in
End your free ride
No way you can win
Cause it’s the beginning of the end
Of your liberal friends
Who sometimes pretend
Everything’s changed
While nothing’s changed much Uh!

Now every rhyme
Be for the future of mankind
Crazy heads
They be cutting off they dreds
Ruining health
With little knowledge of self
Income taxes
Breaking off the backs off of blacks
Who done 400 years in this abyss
So I’m pissed

Some things in the air
When the smoke clears
Will their only be white folks
And nothing but black jokes
How many be gone if they bomb
Barbershops and hair saloons
It’s time to dot com
Time to dot com
Before they rub out clubs where you get your drink on
Mother, father, sister, bro love is a message
But war be the front page
In this messed age
Ghetto celebs spread by the hundreds
Macked by the same tactics
With us in a Tundra
Going under
Avoiding cries from sodomized society
It’s scary getting screwed without a dictionary
The world is a ball of confusion

Bring That Beat Back
See I played in Cincinnati
With my whole head nappy
Made a rally in the street
With nothing but a beat
Got a grudge against a judge, kick him out that seat
You are what you eat, yes
So what you eating?
Same message to your mind be self defeating
Sick and tired of being sick and tired of being beaten
So I drop it like it was way too hot and too fast
For hip-hop, doo wop, or rock or pop
I ain’t here to hurt you
I don’t hang in them circles
The government ain’t got me yet
So ya’ll don’t stop me
See a stampede of fake cats running from Bill Cosby
What does he got to do with you doing you?

Feedback from truly freed blacks
Gotta think outside this box of hard knocks
Lined them up at Fort Knox
To die in Iraq
What you don’t know I rock?
What you under a rock?
What you under a rock?
Old cats be begging us to bring that beat back
Each generation be thinking that the next one is wack
Jumpstarted in the days of crack
R&B, Reagan, daddy Bush way the hell on back

They say the youth don’t matter and the old don’t mind
It takes a lot of spine to build all them young minds
Some of us get ghetto at the wrong damn time
Album what? We just making one at a time
To save another brother who’s life on the line
A big shot to claim some rocks and some shine
Signs of a soul gone solo robbed blind
A very small part of half the world’s crime
Runaway child blown up by an old land mine
Little ones still working in them diamond mines
So cats can say what’s hers and what’s mine
Diamonds is a girl’s best friend, so why he crying?

When ya’ll here it, get near it, and you recognize the lyrics
You trained to refrain, then you start to fear it
Escapism, yeah like today there ain’t no racism
Obviously ya’ll ain’t seen black folks on TV
Judgment calls made up of on behalf of you and me
Or you and I, do or die, I say an eye for an eye
Dividing line got the poor people paying for crime
Corporations getting paid off our jail time
Now ya’ll can tell Russell, yes, I knocked the hustle
Cause 2 million in lockdown under federal muscle

MKLVFKWR
Rather be sitting just a getting it
Power to the people not the governments
Capitalist, communist, terrorist
Swear to god I don’t know the difference
Making new slaves out of immigrants
Wanna know where all the money went
Another trillion spent by the government
Here the bomb go, sent by the president
Power to the people cause the people want peace

Tell the leaders they gotta feed us
Grand theft oil gonna bleed us
New whirl odor doesn’t need us
Call for peace, better heed us
Dictators, human haters
Hand on the bomb masturbators
Finger on the button infiltrators
Make love not war, peace will save us

What a Fool Believes
Who the government?
Who the terrorists?
Where the hit list?
Pump the raised fist
Make ‘em spread the wealth
Long as you got your health
I can’t get no help
So I jump back and kiss myself

Makes You Blind
A third of the world at war, wait a minute
Gotta take care of the rock if ya’ll wanna live in it
Medicine and Medicaid cuts, they don’t care
Your favorite millionaire is in the air
See ‘em everywhere, but they ain’t there
So rally and protest cause the world in fear
Now people, people, can we take it to the square?

And the TV issues and views
Shaped by one-sided news
Got us like planet of the apes
Under CDs and tapes
Preacy Young cats asking old heads teach me
Over beats that reach me
Radiation of a radio TV movie nation on your God damn mind
Makes you blind

Ya’ll keep bouncing to what I said
Cause these be the facts that’s gonna blow your head
Ya’ll know what I said when I say no to thugs
Thug life runs at the top
And ya’ll thought it was Pac
These government gangsters making robots who forgot
Hypnotic in a 2000 by 3000 mile box
35 years old, lost in an X-box
PlayStation and videos, so that’s how it goes
The world begins and ends at the tip of they nose
It ain’t Eminem, it’s M & M & M
McDonalds, MTV and Microsoft
Can’t you see they got the young strung at a cost
Yes that treacherous three go off, go off
Now you don’t matter, and they don’t mind
Cause these be the things that make you blind

Cutbacks, look out, I can’t get no help
Throw your hands in the air
Bush and Blair don’t care
While the unaware, they just stare
This nation says screw the organization of United Nations
Yeah, across them TV stations
They said to the masses they consider them asses
Take a look at the world, another son of a Bush disaster
Do the math, cause the loudest they coming after
These are the same cats that wiped out half of Africa
And you don’t know the half, the have nots robbed by the haves
Signing new money like signing autographs
McDonalds billions sold, America billions told
Houston we got a problem, isn’t this a bitch?
When I wanna hear blues I be turning on the news
See the rich get richer, and the poor keep bitchin’
Buckle down, knuckle up, when times is rough

Preachin’ To the Quiet
Celebrity the new drug and America gotta have it
Gotta be it so the young ones can see it
Watch out now, looka here now
In these rich or die trying times
Ya’ll see the greed I see?
Got these cats whipped by TV
Three generations of fatherless women
We drowning instead of swimming
This ain’t what ya’ll asked for
That’s what they locked your ass up for
Then they closed the door
Beyond these streets these kids is always watching
See it ain’t been the same
Since Teen Summitt left the game
Off the air, who cares, now the kids get programmed
Ask their peoples, who buy them almost everything the stars wear
People see, people do
Ya’ll see the new pied pipers, they got a hold on you

You see I’m talking advanced but going back at the same time
Rewind, so what, some of this song don’t rhyme
Like I said, most of us get ghetto at the wrong time
Fear, so leave a little room for God up in here
Back in the day even real pimps, hustlers, players
Told young cats, come on, get your lives on track
These raps you hear today is a bad ass act
I’m here to tell it like it ought to be
It ain’t no kids fault to me
35 years old acting 16, nah mean?
You don’t work, mean you don’t eat
Need more than a ball and some bomb ass beats
New kicks on your feet
You need your mind in these times to compete
Make your world complete
Sweet, not sour
That’s what I call fighting the power

Here it is, no fable, I put in all on the table
Spending my time identifying who’s behind some of these labels
Who profit off the spit some of the same way same cats
That own them ships, yes it’s a business
Well slavery was too, prison industrial complex
New slavery looking to own you
Owning the labels, stations, jails and cemeteries
Thug life, turning hip hop into a one stop shop
Somebody behind making up your own damn mind
Signed, sealed, delivered in a little package, so dumb
You can’t hear the ignorance projected by the backpacker
Who co-signed the say so
Claiming they dig the flow
Filled with Jim Crow, return of the old Negro
How you gonna say no to drugs if you don’t say no to thugs
See the government sweep it deeper under the rug

Revolution
Now I’m pissed
Easy to rhyme on tracks like this
The more things change, the more they remain the same
These games them idiots playing on the brink of insane
Must be a hockey rink lost in their drink
In pursuit of plain jane
I think they think a revolution be pretty in pink
Now in these new tracks
Some of these cats don’t know how to act
All them criminal acts ain’t got nothing to do with rap
One had cuffed behind them backs in black
Quiet riot, y’all can’t hear one hand clap
Revolution is more than what you hear and what you see
The mass reintroduction of society to society
Together we got 100 years of sobriety

Check What You’re Listening To
Can’t shake this, the God damn matrix
Got actors winning politics, the tricks
Got hot chicks in the back of wack ass rap flicks
Called videos
Turn off the God damn radio
Cause they don’t show ya’ll what ya’ll need to know

Homeless sitting outside smelling shitty
Thanks for not giving a God damn thing pretty
So called land of plenty, can’t spare a penny
It’s the have nots against the haves, is you with me?

As Long As The People Got Something To Say
Now we don’t control shit
No education enforcement
Economics depending on the governments
Now we forever in a plantation state
Damn, yeah you know what, this is why I hate hate
Ya’ll oughta do something for the people
To make us equal
Instead of creatures who got human features
Let the whole world reach you
Things classrooms can’t teach you
Now can you dig it?
Sing the song till we all get along
Feed the poor, damn the law

At this critical junction
The administration can’t function
Taking our civil liberties over high price luncheons
It’s nothing when your considered a sheep hole
As long as the people got something to say . We the people
They need a war to justify the taking of lives
They manage the lie behind the lie behind the lie
Now you can’t run and hide, it’s high tech genocide
They never taught you the truth or how to survive
The clone doctors to put a spin on it
Hip hop heads to shook to pull the cover off it
It may effect their sales to tip the scale
The way it looks they’ll end up dead or in jail
You must be pre-sistance in mass resistance
Love thy enemy and make this commitment
To engage in struggle with a clench fist, lift it
Be true to self before the G-O-D end this

Ya’ll Don’t Know
According to the world on the streets
The votes were bought to insure the presidency, let’s see
The election was privatized
Corporations controlled the votes and they lied
Right before you very eyes
Reinforce the lie on CNN, Fox, 9 live at 5 at 5
As far as the public domain
National elections have been taken out of the public brain
The public’s insane
The facts still remain the same
The Bushes are dumb and dumber
7 take away 1 in the brain, number and number
They capitalize off the fear of the people
Hip hop in the head of the people - lethal

Superman’s Back in the Building
Platinum, gold, a house and a car
But poverty all around you by far
People living under bridges or in a car
Heaven for the superrich who call it modern living
But the man from the east calls it a wilderness
Cause heaven for whites is hell for blacks in America
Heaven and hell are two conditions of life
Not a place up there or a place down there
It’s a condition of life on earth, so value life
Heaven is not things
It’s a higher level of thinking
And at the moment, one may change the conditions of life
Our people think a job, partying and endless flow of women and Moet, Krystal and how much sex you have is heaven
Sometimes you got to think that it may not be heaven all the time
But being able to meet life’s struggles head on, head on, head on
Without compromising your soul
In this world’s life
Not life after death
Life on earth
Life
Not worrying about how you are gonna eat or put clothes on your children
Sit yourself in heaven at once
A woman is a very important part of heaven
She produces heaven with you
And if she is connected to the source of life
So heaven is a condition of life
And you can have it on Earth
So value life
Value life
Who in the hell told ya’ll you were in heaven?