Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power' released for 'Do the Right Thing'

Why it matters

"Fight the Power" came out on Motown on June 30, 1989, as the lead single from the soundtrack to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The Bomb Squad produced. The song appears in the film at least twenty times, blaring out of Radio Raheem's boombox in the Bed-Stuy block the movie is set on, and is the moment of intentional cultural confrontation the entire film is built around. Spike Lee commissioned the song from Public Enemy specifically for the movie. He told them he wanted an anthem. He got one. The Bomb Squad pulled samples from James Brown, the Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, and Branford Marsalis, then stacked them into a four-and-a-half-minute call-to-action with Chuck D doing most of the heavy lifting (Flav handles the bridge: "Elvis was a hero to most / but he never meant shit to me"). PE rerecorded the song for Fear of a Black Planet the next year. The 1989 version, the soundtrack version, is the one most people mean when they say "Fight the Power." You have probably heard it. You have probably needed it.