"Which Side You On?"

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

It hardly seems possible, but some rappers are getting on in years. Just as the Rolling Stones and The Who had to adjust to the arrival of younger generations of rock performers, so have certain rap groups had to face the problem of becoming superannuated. When Public Enemy came along in the mid- 1980s, rap was mostly party music, but the band helped change all that. Their songs were dense and aggressive and carried militant political messages. Public Enemy made rap serious, and sold millions of records in the process. But it has taken the band three years to release a new album. Rap has changed in that time, and members of the band have reached their early 30s -- advanced middle age by hip-hop standards. The result is that while Public Enemy is still angry, it has a new target to attack: the gangsta rappers who have come after it -- and who have also sold millions of records.

Muse Sick N Hour Mess Age isn't Public Enemy's best CD, but it is lyrically provocative and musically rich. The songs are relentless, pummeling, chaotic -- something like a house party crossed with a race riot. As lead rapper Chuck D told Time: "We wanted to borrow from soul, blues, gospel and rock 'n' roll elements and blend them into something we can call our own. And make it faster."

This band sees the world in polarities. The answers to life's big questions are always true or false, yes or no -- "all of the above" is not an option. At the start of the album, a booming voice declares, "Right versus wrong, good versus evil, God versus the Devil. Which side you on?" In fact, the listener, swept up in the band's passion and sound, can't help being on Public Enemy's side throughout the record as Chuck takes on the American Patriarchal Military Industrial Racist Complex, Inc. On Hitler Day, he attacks the idea of having a holiday for Christopher Columbus: "How can you call a takeover/ A discovery?" And on White Man's Heaven Is a Black Man's Hell, short, sharp phrases contrast the world of white privilege with the oppressed status of African Americans: "Black history. White lie. Black athletes. White agents. Black preacher. White Jesus."

O.K., easy shots. But then comes a song like So Whatcha Gone Do Now? in which Chuck takes on gangsta rappers, calling them "slaves to the rhythm of the master" for promoting negative, violent images of African-American life. To Chuck, the rappers aren't the only ones to blame for their albums. "Every story needs to be told," he says. "I just think the record companies would rather have that ((negative)) story told, and they're not accountable to our community. Personally I'd like to go to the record-company presidents and challenge them to a fistfight."

There are up-and-coming rappers out there who are making albums worth listening to: Coolio (who has been called post-gangsta) and Warren G (gangsta lite), to name two. Nonetheless, the hip-hop veterans who make up Public Enemy continue to offer listeners a choice -- their brand of adventuresome, committed music vs. the often degrading work of their successors.