From Wikipedia:
The Bomb Squad listened to various music records and used devices such as the
E-mu SP-1200drum machine and
sampler, the
Akai S900 sampler, and a
Macintosh computer to arrange samples and
sequence tracks.
[25] The sessions, which were recorded by Shocklee for future reference, had the group playing beats and records, while collecting potential sample material.
[16]Chuck D has said that "95 percent of the time it sounded like mess. But there was 5 percent of magic that would happen."
[16] Shocklee compared their production to that of filmmaking, "with different lighting effects, or film speeds, or whatever", while Chuck D found their intention to "blend sound" similar to a
visual artist "tak[ing] yellow and blue and come up with green".
[16] He said of their approach in a 1990 interview for
Keyboard Magazine, "We approach every record like it was a painting. Sometimes, on the sound sheet, we have to have a separate sheet just to list the samples for each track.
We used about 150, maybe 200 samples on Fear of a Black Planet."[26]
Instead of selecting from the numerous, basic backing tracks that Sadler had collected before the sessions, Chuck D wanted for the production team to improvise beats in the studio, leading to much of the album's music being composed on the spot.
[19] Chuck D has said that he spent numerous hours listening to various tapes, music records, and other audio sources in search of samples for the album.
[16] Hank Shocklee said of their search for samples to use, "When you’re talking about the kind of sampling that Public Enemy did, we had to comb through thousands of records to come up with maybe five good pieces. And as we started putting together those pieces, the sound got a lot more dense."
[16]
In order to synchronize the samples, the Bomb Squad used
SMPTE timecodes and arranged and overdubbed particular bits of backing tracks, which had been inspected by the members for snare, bass, and hi-hat sounds.
[25] Chuck D said of their production and sampling, "Our music is all about samples in the right area, layers that pile on each other. We put loops on top of loops on top of loops, but then in the mix we cut things away".
[25] Music journalist
Jeff Chang said of their methodology, "They’re figuring out how to
jam with the samples and to create these layers of sound. I don't think it’s been matched since then."
[16] After the tracks were completed, sequencing began of the seemingly discontinuous album for The Bomb Squad, amid internal disputes among its members.
[27] The final
mixing took place at Greene St. Recording and lasted into February 1990.
[8] Sadler later reflected on the album's post-production, saying "A lot of people were like, 'Wow, it's a brilliant album'. But it really shoulda been much better. If we had more time and we didn't have to deal with the situation of nobody talking".
[27]
The album was conceived during the
golden age of hip hop, a period roughly between 1987 and 1992 when artists took advantage of newly emerging sampling technologies before they were noticed by labels and lawyers.
[16] Accordingly, Public Enemy were not compelled to obtain sample clearance for the album.
[16] This preceded the legal limits and clearance costs later placed on sampling,
[28] which effectively limited hip hop production and the complexity of its musical arrangements.
[16] In an interview with
Stay Free!, Chuck D said of their use of sampling, "Public Enemy's music was affected more than anybody's because we were taking thousands of sounds. If you separated the sounds, they wouldn't have been anything--they were unrecognizable. The sounds were all collaged together to make a sonic wall".
[29] An analysis by law professors Peter DiCola and
Kembrew McLeod estimated that under the sample clearance system that had emerged in the music industry since the album's release, Public Enemy were to lose at least five dollars per copy if they were to clear the album's samples at 2010 rates; McLeod commented, "a loss of five million dollars on a platinum record".
[30]
The album's music features
assemblage compositions that draw on numerous aural sources.
[16] The production's
musique concrète-influenced approach reflects the political and confrontational tones of the group's lyrics, with sound collages that feature varying rhythms,
aliased or scratchy samples, media sound bites, and eccentric
music loops.
[32] Recordings sampled for
Fear of a Black Planetinclude those from
funk,
soul,
rock, and hip hop genres.
[26] Elements such as choruses, guitar sounds, or vocals from sampled recordings are reappropriated as
riffs in songs on the album, while sampled dialogue from speeches are incorporated to support Chuck D's arguments and commentary on certain songs.
[10] The Bomb Squad's Hank Shocklee likened their produced sounds surrounding Chuck D's rhythmic, exhortative baritone voice to putting "the voice of God in a storm".
[33]
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore (2006) writes that
Fear of a Black Planetintroduced a production style that "borrow[ed] elements from
jazz, especially that of
John Coltrane, to craft a soundscape that was more challenging than that of their previous two albums, but still complemented the complex social commentary".
[34] Journalist
Kembrew McLeod calls the album's music "both
agitprop and pop, mixing politics with the live-wire thrill of the
popular music experience", adding that the Bomb Squad "took sampling to the level of
high art while keeping intact hip-hop's
populist heart. They would graft together dozens of fragmentary samples to create a single song collage."
[16] Music writer
Simon Reynolds calls the album "a work of unprecedented density for hip hop, its claustrophobic, backs-against-the-wall feel harking back to
Sly Stone's
There's a Riot Goin' On or even
Miles Davis'
On the Corner".
[35]
Some tracks use elements from Public Enemy's previous material, which Pete Watrous of
The New York Times interprets as "reminding listeners that the group itself is not only part of a tradition, but has a history of its own."
[10] Watrous describes the music as "the sound of urban alienation, where silence doesn't exist and sensory stimulation is oppressive and predatory", and writes that its dense textures "envelop Chuck D's voice and make his rapping sound as if it is under duress, as if he were fighting against a background intent on taking him over. […] Layer after layer of sounds are placed on top of each other until the music becomes nearly tactile".
[10] Chuck D calls
Fear of a Black Planet "completely an album of found sounds … probably the most elaborate smorgasbord of sound that we did."
[16] He said of the layering, "When we put together our music, we try to put together layers that complement each other, and then the voice tries to complement that, and the theme tries to complement that, and then the song itself tries to complement the album as a whole, fitting into the overall context."
[26] In his essay on hip hop
aesthetics, Richard Schur interprets such layering as a motif in hip hop and as "the process by which … new meanings are created and communicated, primarily to an equally knowledgeable audience", concluding that "Public Enemy probably took the ideal of layering to its farthest point".
[31]
Best I've heard from you yet.
