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Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam 466281 1)

David Sinclair, The Times, 13 April 1990

THERE HAS been an all-round upping of the ante in the rap stakes since Public Enemy released the classic, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back in July 1988. De La Soul has ushered in the so-called daisy age with its trippy paeans to love and peace and a generally more harmonious existence. On the darker side, a posse of sudden death warriors including Ice-T and Niggers With Attitude has come to prominence with a virulent strain of gangster rap that glorifies new extremes of manly violence with repetitious recourse to the most drab of undeleted expletives.

Total word count of piece: 265

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