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From bootleg cassettes, rap moved onto commercial recordings and into the acts of savvy performers. Yet even those from middle-class homes -- like the group Run-D.M.C., or some members of Public Enemy -- accentuated the funkiness of the music by dressing in sweatsuits, baseball caps and other street wear. They evolved a hip lingo that turns ordinary meanings upside down ("stupid" is a compliment in rap argot) and adopted flashy aliases like LL Cool J that could pass for graffiti signatures. Youngsters rallied to these homeboys who, unlike smoother sequined and glittery entertainers, seemed so much like themselves. "Rap is the sound of urban youth," says Bronx native Fred Brathwaite, who as Fab 5 Freddy hosts the cable show Yo! MTV Raps. "People identify with rap. You feel that you can look like that, that you can be a part of it immediately."
A whole generation of young performers reared on rap is taking the music in new directions. Their music is more complex, their lyrics are more subtle, and their style is more adventurous. Female rappers like Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah wage a feminist assault on the macho world of hip-hop. Mellow fellows D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince bring a Cosby-like calm to the music. The laid-back rappers De La Soul put out a hippie-style hip-hop. Los Angeles' N.W.A. (Niggers with Attitude) get down to a gritty realism and sometimes hair-raising hostility. And groups like 3rd Bass add a white soul flavor to the rap mix.
But no group has had a more radical effect on rap music than Public Enemy. "Once Public Enemy got in the door, that really turned the rap world upside down," says Cynthia Horner, executive editor of Right On, a magazine for black teens. "Many rappers come out with lyrics that are just boastful, but Public Enemy goes several layers beyond that. They try to set a kind of model for black youths to follow."
And what a model. Fans liken Public Enemy to the Black Panthers, and it is an image that the group cultivates. A precision-stepping, paramilitarily clad backup group known as S1W (the Security of the First World) stands at attention onstage during all their performances. Lead rapper Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) and his comic sidekick Flavor Flav (William Drayton) philosophize about the everyday problems of urban life and are unabashed in their declarations of black pride, peppering their songs with references to Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, Huey Newton and Malcolm X.
Public Enemy isn't the only rap group to tackle political issues. Longtime rapper Kool Moe Dee pushes the importance of getting a good education. Kris Parker, also known as K.R.S.-One, is a committed activist whose Stop the Violence coalition has helped raise $150,000 for the National Urban League. Parker, who spent several years living on the streets of New York City, also devotes time to the homeless. Nearly all the groups preach against drugs. What sets Public Enemy apart is the militancy of its views and the insistently defiant manner in which it expresses them both in and out of its songs.