Fun loving Bug will be back next week. Today, you got serious Bug with some serious lyrics on her mind. Today's throwback doesn't get any heavier than that of Long Island's own Public Enemy. Their catalog speaks for itself but this song and video always held firm with me. Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, to me has always been the crowning jewel of their 1988 release, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It almost sounds like the title of a poignant book. Chuck D tells a cliffhanger of a story beginning with being drafted to war he refuses to support. Of course, this defiant move lands him in jail where he describes the system that put there while planning his escape. His commentary is gritty. From the perspective of a militant Black man in America- he injects truth into this fictional story with the expertise of a doctor with a syringe. Well, it went to straight to my vein in '88- I'll say that much. This Bug's favorite line? "And I'm serious. Call me delirious. But I'm still a captive. I gotta rap this.." The song has a trajectory all its own. What I always found interesting was PE's choice to have an ending to the video ironic to the lyrics. It's as if they understood that his true fate would be at the hands of the warden if all didn't go as planned and still decided to illustrate that reality; despite the triumphant prison break in the song itself. Pure genius.
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