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vant to African Americans. Rap, as Chuck D called it, was the “CNN of the
streets,” a source of news for Blacks much more credible than the networks
or newspapers controlled by wealthy, almost all White, Capitalists. PE broke
through in 1989 when director Spike Lee used their song “Fight the Power”
in his movie, Do The Right Thing. It remains one of the most compelling
political songs ever written, in a class with Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, or Gil
Scott-Heron. “Elvis, was a hero to most/But he never meant shit to me,” it
begins, “Straight up racist/That sucker was/Simple and plain/Mother Fuck
him and John Wayne.” Chuck D made a call for African American solidarity,
“Cause I’m Black and I’m proud/I’m ready and hyped plus I’m amped/Most
of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps.” The answer to these woes—“Fight
the powers that be.”
Public Enemy remains the most important rap group ever assembled, and
after the Reagan years much of the music performed by rappers was about
sex, often anti-woman, parties, drugs, and the “thug life.” Still, acts like Mos
Def, Dead Prez, and Boots Riley’s The Coup are still active and political. Even
mainstream artists like Jay-Z have made social commentary a part of their
work. The compelling video for “99 Problems” details racism, police brutal-
ity, and the horrors of prison for Black men. Rap, like punk, might not have
gained the immense following of popular singers and dancers in the MTV era,
but it offered the harshest critique of American society, and Capitalism, in the
late 20th Century. Still, the Military-Industrial Complex and Wall Street grew,
and the people had to deal with it.Clinton, Wall Street, and Globalization
Ultimately, even though President George Bush Sr. gained a great deal of
political credit for “ending” the Cold War and winning the Gulf War [to be
discussed], economic problems were a more pressing issue, and so, in the elec-
tions of 1992, he lost to the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton of Arkansas.
Clinton would be president throughout the rest of the decade, and oversee
significant economic growth on a global level, along with inequality and the
roots of an economic crisis that would erupt in 2008. Clinton ran as a “New
Democrat,” meaning he had rejected the traditional liberal idea that the gov-
ernment had a major role to play in the economy and that social issues like
civil rights, abortion, or affirmative action should be major political priorities