ABSTRACT
Hank Shocklee convincingly dismisses claims, explaining how the Bomb Squad takes a songwriting approach to Public Enemy’s music. By deliberately highlighting elements of harmonic tension, placing samples slightly out of rhythm, and utilizing the potential of abrasive noise and dissonance, Shocklee’s structures complement the political lyrics of Public Enemy’s main rappers, Chuck D and Flavor Flav, in powerful ways. Public Enemy’s Apocalypse ’91: The Empire Strikes Black credits him as executive producer, which means, Shocklee says, that he’s “in and out, not as much hands-on, but not like a record company guy handling paperwork.” For a particularly compelling musical analysis of Public Enemy’s 1990 single “Fight the Power,” see musicologist Robert Walser’s “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy,” Ethnomusicology 39, no. 2: 193–217. Assembling beats and loops from any number of sources, the Bomb Squad drafts a blueprint which is then used to match the sound with the message.
