Protest music surged in the late ‘80s and into the early ‘90s in response to world-changing events, including the war in Iraq, the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It all reflected what punk poet Patti Smith observed in ‘88 in her first new music in nearly a decade: “The people have the power.”
February 1987
Public Enemy’s militant “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” debut marks a landmark shift in hip-hop, reflected by the group’s Black-man-in-the-crosshairs-of-a-gun logo.