Fight The Power - Legacy and Influence

Legacy and Influence

Public Enemy's explosive 1989 hit single brought hip-hop to the mainstream—and brought revolutionary anger back to pop.

Upon its release, "Fight the Power" became an anthemic song for politicized youth. Janice C. Simpson of Time wrote in an 1990 article, "The song not only whipped the movie to a fiery pitch but sold nearly 500.000 singles and became an anthem for millions of youths, many of them black and living in inner-city ghettocs ." Laura K. Warrell of Salon writes that the song was released "at a crucial period in America's struggle with race", crediting the song with "capturing both the psychological and social conflicts of the time." She interprets it as a reaction to "the frustrations of the Me Decade", including the crack epidemic in the inner cities, AIDS pandemic, racism, and the effects of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush's presidencies on struggling urban communities. Warrell cites "Fight the Power" as Public Enemy's "most accessible hit", noting its "uncompromising cultural critique, its invigoratingly danceable sound and its rallying", and comments that it "acted as the perfect summation of ideology and sound." It became Public Enemy's best-known song among music listeners. The group closes all their concerts with the song. Spike Lee and the group collaborated again in 1998 on the soundtrack album to Lee's film He Got Game, also the group's sixth studio album.

"Fight the Power" has been accoladed as one of the greatest songs of all time by critics and publications. In 2001, the song was ranked number 288 in the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004, it was ranked number 40 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, a list of the top 100 songs in American cinema. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song number 322 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2008, it was ranked number one on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop. In 2011, Time included the song on its list of the All-TIME 100 Songs. "Fight the Power" is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll,