Song 4: Fight The Power, Public Enemy

Critics were concerned Spike Lee's movie Do The Right Thing would provoke riots. David Denby said Lee was "playing with dynamite in an urban playground" and Newsweek worried the movie would put "dynamite under every seat." Lee pointed out the critics were implying that black audiences were incapable of understanding they were watching a fictional motion picture.

Public Enemy's song Fight The Power played a critical role in the film. The character Radio Raheem walked around the neighbourhood playing nothing but this tune on his ghettoblaster. At the movie's climax, the local pizza shop owner demands Radio Raheem turn the music down and ends of smashing the ghettoblaster. A fight breaks out and Radio Raheem dies after police put him in a chokehold.

Public Enemy's Brian Hargrove explained:  

Law enforcement is necessary. As a species we haven’t evolved past needing that. Fight the Power is not about fighting authority — it’s not that at all. It’s about fighting abuse of power.

Song 19: Changes, 2Pac

These guys work well together.

2Pac's Changes:

Bruce Hornsby's That's Just The Way It Is:

Song 32: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron

The New Statesman put it best:

Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's 1956 "Howl", or Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues. It is the liner notes to a generation, a relentless stream of cultural references against hand-beaten drums.

Listen to this one twice.

Song 33: Your Revolution, Sarah Jones

Sisters are doing it for themselves. Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah are feminists and rappers who easily could have made this Top 100. But the best critiques of sexism and the patriarchy in rap music is from Sarah Jones. She turns Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised into "Your Revolution will not happen between these thighs".

Warning: the  Federal Communications Commission declared this song INDECENT. Although they later reversed their decision, writing, "the most graphic phrase ('six foot blow job machine') was not repeated," and "We take cognizance of the fact presented in this record that Ms. Jones has been asked to perform the song at high school assemblies." It may offend some guys out there.

Check out The Strange Case of Sarah Jones from the Free Expression Policy Project.

Song 36: Burn Hollywood Burn, Public Enemy

As I walk the streets of Hollywood Boulevard

Thinkin' how hard it was to those that starred

In the movies portrayin' the roles

Of butlers and maids, slaves and hoes

Many intelligent black men seemed to look uncivilized

When on the screen

Like a guess I figure you to play some jigaboo

On the plantation, what else can a n!gger do?

And black women in this profession

As for playin' a lawyer, out of the question

For what they play Aunt Jemima is the perfect term

Even if now she got a perm

So let's make our own movies like Spike Lee

Cause the roles being offered don't strike me

There's nothing that the black man could use to earn

Burn Hollywood burn

Song 37: Somalia, K'naan

Somali-born Canadian rapper K'naan's albums The Dusty Foot Philosopher and Troubador are equally fantastic. It was a very difficult task to decide which one song to include on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown.

I love the brave and fierce Smile:

(Smile) When you're strugglin'

(Smile) When you're in jail

(Smile) When you're dead broke

(Smile) And the rent's due

(Smile) You ain't got friends now

(Smile) And no one knows you

NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU DOWN SMILE WHILE YOU'RE BLEEDING

From his challenge to the warlords of Africa in Soobax to his heart-breaking Fatima, K'Naan is the best political artist to come out so far this century. He's not the next Bob Dylan, he's the first K'naan.

From Somalia:

We used to take barb wire

Mold them around discarded bike tires.

Roll em down the hill in foot blazin’.

Now that was our version of mountain bike racing

Here's a good article from The Coast after The Dusty Foot Philosopher was released.

And an article on K'naan's work to try to get the Canadian government to pass an NDP bill that would make it easier for Canada to export life-saving drugs to developing countries.

Song 43: The Message, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five

Released at the peak of the Reagan recession in the United States, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five's song The Message captured the fear of living in the ghetto: unemployment, poverty and police brutality and was one of the first rap songs to get the attention of mainstream music fans with this depressing but catchy hook:

It's like a jungle sometimes

It makes we wonder

How I keep from going under

Song 73: Mosh, Eminem

Seething.