There is no group more dedicated to providing knowledge and power to the people in their hip-hop career than Public Enemy. Today’s #DefJam30 mix is in honor of the strongest group to ever speak the truth to masses. All 30 minutes are slammed by DJ Mister Cee, the wax master of NYC’s Hot 97 FM and the original DJ for Big Daddy Kane. He’s also one of the main reasons you enjoy Notorious B.I.G’s rhymes, as he was the one that passed his demo on to the powers that got Big in the game.

The fact that Public Enemy can command their own singular mix is enough to praise the musical accomplishments and influence they’ve had on the culture. Not only uplifting and bringing light to political themes, Chuck D personified the strength of a hardcore rhymer that could flip his aggression into a rally cry for justice. He is the voice of Def Jam. Period. Flavor Flav cut the tension with wit, humor and unchained style. Plus he is just dope. Terminator X on the cuts, no one could see him on the tables. The production team The Bomb Squad are as much of PE as the group members. Public Enemy also hold the title of greatest remix in hip-hop with “Shut ‘Em Down” produced by Pete Rock. No debate.

Get into the mix as Mister Cee grabs select cuts from PE’s glorious Def Jam history.

In partnership with iHeartRadio, check the previous six mixes featuring DJ Tony Touch, DJ Scratch, DJ Big Jeff, DJ Jay Cee, DJ Boogie Blind and DJ Daddy Rich at www.defjam.com/30mixes/

The post #DEFJAM30 MIX 7 OF 30: All Public Enemy by DJ MISTER CEE OF HOT 97 FM appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

On his latest single, “Nobody’s Perfect,” J. Cole raps to an undergraduate biddie, “Take the weekend off and come home soon; I graduated way too long ago to be sneakin all in your dorm room…But baby where your roommates? Did you make sure the door’s locked?” Against the backdrop of abrasive dance beats and constant chatter surrounding hoes and money—or hoes looking like a bag of money—any Billboard Hot 100 single that offers something remotely different feels refreshing and worthy of some admiration. J. Cole’s ease spitting collegiate culture, writing on tropes that appeal to neither the rage of America’s most deprived nor the excesses of America’s most privileged, alludes to something American hip-hop music and its critics have often overlooked: the bourgeois rapper’s voice.

Attending college—the proverbial entrée into the middle-class—has never really been foreign to American hip-hop music. From Public Enemy’s Chuck D & Flavor Flav, who met while at Adelphi University, to Talib Kweli, who studied experimental theatre at New York University, to David Banner, who acted as the student government president at Southern University, countless rappers have sent Frisbees across the quad. But Public Enemy’s raps were more or less focused on mobilizing the downtrodden residents of America’s slums. Talib Kweli’s sorts of intellectual hip-hop certainly give a nod to the Black bourgie sensibility, but don’t really speak to the Black middle-class experience itself. As for David Banner, his half-naked, “work them hips” ladies can speak for themselves. The main point being that although rappers have come from that diploma-totting class, it wasn’t too audible in their raps.

Of course, Kanye West’s scholastic trilogy—College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation—was probably the most obvious display of collegiate culture in the history of American hip-hop music. And it deserves recognition for boldly confronting the complex economic, social and cultural issues facing Black, university-aspiring youth, while warping the empty promises (read: employment) of a college education. But as much as the album titles may suggest a neat narrative, honestly the trilogy was only sprinkled with these moments, in songs here and there, mostly in skits. West largely mocked the University institution, as well as the Black adolescents who, as he seems to suggest, make a misguided choice to participate in it. College, for all intents and purposes, was the butt of West’s joke.

But in “Nobody’s Perfect,” J. Cole, who graduated magna cum laude from St. John’s University, willfully demonstrates his easy navigation of the coed life—the playful avoidance of dorm security, the open-door policy of on-campus undergrads—without any further comment. Nurtured by the college experience, J. Cole’s verse articulates it in earnest. Drake less directly displays his exceedingly middle-class upbringing on “Crew Love.” Rejecting the college route, he blithely raps, “I guess we’ll never know what Harvard gets us. But seeing my family have it all took the place of that desire for diplomas on the wall.” Drake basically trades his middle-class upbringing for the rises-from-the-ashes-of-the-ghetto story all too familiar to American hip-hop music, ironically putting a spotlight on his supremely bourgeois experience.

It is enticing to conclude that we are witnessing a more honest hip-hop milieu, one in which rappers need not bottle up their identities in order to fit the industry’s mold. But such censure would not be so fair to those who, like Chuck D, may not have bottled up anything at all, artists who chose simply to rap from more of a soapbox than a diary. Instead, the quad’s renewed presence in hip-hop verse may indicate a shift towards a more confessional hip-hop, one in which the artist him or herself becomes more visible. As dorms across the country are once-again trampled by hoards of the young, the horny, and the cerebral—all hopeful contenders for that coveted membership in the bourgeoisie—the day-to-day realities of American college life, and middle-class life at large, are finding a somewhat unexpected home in the rhymes of American hip-hop music. Who knows, we may even soon hear the woes of the young, the graduated, and the debt-ridden unemployed.

Benjamin Ratskoff is a contributing writer for respect-mag.com

The post Opinion: Back to School With Your Favorite Rapper appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Their latest project is Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamp, which came out today. “I Shall Not Be Moved” is one of the singles. Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamp is set to be followed by The Evil Empire of Everything sometime later this year. If you’re feeling the new PE (Progressive Era) rather than the old one, that’s understandable. Just remember, it’s hard being in the game for 25 years. Get the album here or try imagining Odd Future 20 years from now.

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