Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet [Colored Holland Import]

Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet arrives as a limited coloured vinyl import from Holland, a fitting way to revisit one of the most explosive albums hip-hop has ever produced.

Released in 1990, it followed It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and somehow raised the stakes. Chuck D sharpened his political focus, Flavor Flav kept the energy chaotic and funny, and the Bomb Squad production team built dense collages of samples, sirens and grooves that still sound radical. The album tackled race, media, healthcare and identity head-on, and it became one of the defining records of its era.

Fight the Power, first heard in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, remains the ultimate protest anthem, a furious call to arms layered with dozens of samples. 911 Is a Joke gives Flavor Flav his moment, a biting, darkly comic critique of emergency services in Black neighbourhoods. Welcome to the Terrordome is a breathless rush of words and noise, and Burn Hollywood Burn brings Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane on board to skewer the film industry.

More than three decades on, it still feels urgent and confrontational. This is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how hip-hop became the voice of a generation.