Consumer Guide Album

Public Enemy: He Got Game [Def Jam, 1998]
Who better than the sports addict who wrote "Air Hoodlum" with no prompting from Spike Lee to comprehend and then control the soundtrack concept? Note, however, that for all the we're-back bluster and covertly sexist anti-r&b rhetoric, the closest it gets to the stressful speed of classic PE is on one of the seven (of 12) songs Shocklee-Shocklee-Sadler didn't produce, the Danny Saber-Jack Dangers closer "Go Cat Go." Instead you'll hear backup femmes, churchy chorales, skeleton beats, Wu strings, more guest rappers than advertised, and funk samples, although these are outnumbered by hooks appropriated subtly (in fact, brilliantly) from "James Bond Theme" and the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and blatantly (also brilliantly) from Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." On the latter, Steve Stills himself blubbers a climactic coda. Over-the-hill blowhards gotta stick together. A