8. Public EnemyFear Of A Black Planet

Probably Nation Of Millions is the better album but Fear Of A Black Planet is the one I remember playing throughout my first year at college. Before that stage I’d been listening to music made almost entirely by white people, without putting too finer point on it, and I remember being taken by how great it was to listen to.

I’ve never owned a Public Enemy t-shirt, I’m not really a band t-shirt person, but I really enjoyed being in my first year of college and watching how scared the canteen staff were at people wearing Public Enemy and/or Death Row t-shirts. It was funny to watch that interaction of cultures. When I say "interaction of cultures" I mean white people trying to intimidate other white people, that level at which culture interacted.

I have a distinct memory of playing [the title track] ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’. That sample, I’m not sure where it’s from, the whole "white man, white woman, white baby / black man, white woman, black baby" thing, the potential birth apocalypse for white people. The first time I heard it I was in Newcastle and I’m looking around going, "What are black people?" I was in a school of 2000 people and there was one black kid for one year so moving to another city like Cardiff was a huge culture shock at first. Maybe Public Enemy was my way of overcompensating because that monolithically represents all black culture, obviously.