Public Enemy - Live From The House Of Blues DVD

This 2001 video documents a Public Enemy gig at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. While it catches the band in their mature years, with rap sidekick Flavor Flav the wrong side of 40 and Chuck D looking somewhat tubby, they've lost little of the energy of their late-80s heyday, with Flav screeching an extraordinarily elongated "Yeeeah boyzzzzzz!" into the microphone as proof of their enduring stamina. Professor Griff, temporarily dismissed from the band, is back in the fold here, while the Security of the First World continue to go through their stiff onstage manoeuvres.... Much of this is a greatest hits parade, with "911 is a Joke", "Public Enemy No 1", "Rebel Without a Pause" (voted by Uncut magazine the best single of 1975-2000) and "Fight the Power" among others. The nuclear hip-hop backbeats of these hip-hop milestone killers are a little subdued in the live mix, while a predominantly white audience here suggests the extent to which PE had, in spite of their voluble media renegade stance, been subsumed into mainstream taste by the end of the 20th century. Sadly, their militancy was superseded by the more desperate sounds of gangsta rap--but if they're banging on a familiar drum here, there are moments of sheer showmanship to break up the monotony. DJ Lord's scratching interlude is dazzling: hip-hop's equivalent of the lengthy drum solo, only vastly more entertaining. --David Stubbs [show more]

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