After the holy trinity Dre and Primo and RZA, I put
The Bomb Squad. Their wall-of-noise aesthetics, their approach to sampling, and their energy and aggression level (as well as their diversity) is as important a leap forward in boom bap research as the discoveries of Kurtis Mantronik or Marley Marl. Their sonic portrayal of the chaotic urban landscape is very much missed in rap music these days.
Public Enemy - Lost at Birth
Although they surely have influenced almost all producers working within hiphop, their sound gave even stronger echoes in other genres. Groups like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers - matter of fact all that big beat, breakbeat, hardcore, jungle, drum n' bass noise - would have been impossible, or at least would have sounded very different without
Public Enemy's
second and
third album.
Public Enemy - Anti-Nigger Machine
Among other guest productions, they went on to lay the sonic landscape for Ice Cube's brilliant first solo album, helping him to make a political record rivaling PE's efforts. And on the
Juice soundtrack they helped Rakim make one of his best songs ever ("
I'm a put it on a bullet... and put it in your brain!")
Rakim - Know The Ledge
As you can read in
the Unkut interview, The Bomb Squad started as a soundsystem, and these days they, like many others, have continued their musical explorations into the realms of dubstep. Rockthedub has paid attention to this, and
offers us two of their live mixes.
