Fight the Power -- Public Enemy

1989 the number another summer (get down)  Sound of the funky drummer Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got sould  Listen if you're missin' y'all  Swingin' while I'm singin'  Givin' whatcha gettin' nowin' what I know
While the Black bands sweatin'  And the rhythm rhymes rollin'
Got to give us what we want  Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death  We got to fight the powers that be  Lemme hear you say  Fight the power


As the rhythm designed to bounce  What counts is that the rhymes
Designed to fill your mind  Now that you've realized the prides arrived We got to pump the stuff to make us tough  from the heart
It's a start, a work of art  To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange People, people we are the same  No we're not the same
Cause we don't know the game What we need is awareness, we can't get careless  You say what is this  My beloved lets get down to business Mental self defensive fitness  bum rush the show  You gotta go for what you know  Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be Lemme hear you say.. Fight the Power

Elvis was a hero to most  But he never meant  to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was  Simple and plain  Mother- him and John Wayne  Cause I'm Black and I'm proud  I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps  Sample a look back you look and find  Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check Don't worry be happy  Was a number one jam  Damn if I say it you can slap me right here  lets get this party started right  Right on, c'mon
What we got to say  Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see  In order to fight the powers that be  

this embodies their message of black pride, and along the way takes shots at the white icons Elvis Presley ("Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant s--t to me") and John Wayne. Even Bobby McFerrin couldn't escape their wrath, as Chuck D raps, "Don't Worry Be Happy was a number one jam, damn if I say it you can slap me right here."This militant and confrontational approach was designed to empower the black community and create some controversy along the way, which helped sell a lot of albums. By this point, many of Public Enemy's fans were young white guys who liked the beats and associated with the anti-authority message.                                                   (songfacts) 


                         

   
It's carnival time! The people are swaying to their drumbeats, marching on a wave of music through the streets of Brazil.

But life isn't always so harmonious. For Black Brazilians the battle against apartheid is only just beginning. Though slavery was abolished 107 years ago, power still rests with the fair skinned. A decade ago, the Olodum movement took black culture and black music to the carnival for the first time. Other movements have developed like the Ax'e group which rescues abandoned children from the streets. At the refuge they can play football, free from drugs, violence and the police. In dilapidated shanty towns, people are questioning their inferior status. As children splash in the muddy water, parents are rejecting the white Brazilian ideal promoted by the mass media. Maria de Lourdes from the Unified Black Movement concludes, "we Negroes need to become conscious of our situation, but Brazilian society needs to change too."