Public Enemy «Fear of a Black Planet» · cassette

«Fear of a Black Planet» by Public Enemy on cassette — the 1990 album with which hip-hop became decisively political. Cassette and printed inlay are both present.

This is the album with «Fight the Power» and «911 Is a Joke», produced by the Bomb Squad — a production team that layered dozens of samples per track until the result was a wall of noise. That method was possible for only a few years: afterwards the courts tightened sampling law so far that nobody could work that way again. «Fear of a Black Planet» therefore stands at the end of an era that happened only once.

Cassette means more than the music — the narrow inlay you had to unfold to read the lyrics, and a tape you rewound before listening. If you still have a deck you can play it; if not, you stand it up.

• Public Enemy, «Fear of a Black Planet» (1990)
• Cassette with printed inlay
• Def Jam / Columbia
• Includes «Fight the Power», «911 Is a Joke»
• Playback not tested

Good. The inlay is complete and fresh in colour, the shell unbroken. The tape is cleanly wound. Whether it plays faultlessly has not been tested — tapes of this age can lose treble, though nothing here suggests it.