Public Enemy

Rap superstars Public Enemy will perform in Philadelphia this Sunday at Studio West, 59th and Market streets, show co-promoter (and former WDAS-FM disc jockey) Bilaaly Bee said yesterday. The rap group had planned to appear here several weeks ago as a benefit for Kyle Sampson, a fellow Muslim and Democratic candidate for the 188th District seat in the state House. But because of the group's controversial image, "Lincoln University reneged on a verbal agreement to house the show, then two big clubs in the area refused to let us hold the show, with one saying they just don't like the group's lyrics," Sampson said.

While the soundtrack for "He Got Game" is the music for the Spike Lee film of the same name, it's also the first Public Enemy disc in four years. And with the original lineup intact, including once-deposed member Professor Griff and the Bomb Squad production team that created several classic P.E. albums, it presented an intriguing challenge. The once-mighty P.E. would have to create songs that made sense for the film and do so under the weight of heavy expectations. With seminal '80s rap releases like "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and "Fear of a Black Planet," Public Enemy was in the unenviable position of having to compete against their previous works in a rap market that has changed dramatically since their heyday.

Chuck D., Public Enemy's primary rapper and one of the most strident voices in pop music, delivers his missives with the controlled fury of a martial-arts master. His thick bullhorn of a voice expresses disdain and dissatisfaction in tones that are deceptively conversational. He can summon rage in the blink of an eye, provoke his audience without becoming even mildly aggravated. His scowling impatience with the status quo makes every phrase an urgent communication. And like any fighter, Chuck D. is most effective when he has a clear opponent.

If Public Enemy has indeed disbanded in light of the controversy over group member Professor Griff's anti-Semitic remarks, an apt summary of their work is provided by "Fight the Power Live," their first home-video release (CMV Enterprises, $19.95). Fifty-five crazed minutes of concert footage, music videos and Flavor Flav antics, the video is as purposefully controversial as the group itself. Public Enemy often seemed less a band than an agenda, and the emphasis here is as much on sermonizing as on the music.

They may be New Yorkers for five nights a week, but the Roots still know how to make their hometown feel loved. Saturday's Roots Picnic at Festival Pier was a sprawling, sweaty thank-you gift to the city they call Illadelph. The Roots themselves opened the all-day affair with a short set before ceding the stage to a wide swath of friends and fellow travelers, including Public Enemy, TV on the Radio, Asher Roth, and Santigold, not to mention New Kids on the Block's Donnie Wahlberg and Jordan Knight, who stopped by on their way to a show in Camden.

The popular rap group Public Enemy is apparently breaking up. On MTV's Week in Rock news program this weekend, leader Chuck D. said he was calling a halt to the group due to pressure that came from his record company, CBS Records, and his management, Rush Productions. He said he'd been called on to dismiss Public Enemy's "Minister of Information," Professor Griff, for a series of anti-Semitic statements made in recent interviews. "The group is over," Chuck D. told MTV's Kurt Loder, intimating that he would have rather handled the situation internally.

With 1 million copies of its "Fear of a Black Planet" album having been shipped in recent weeks, Public Enemy has settled down to prepare for a tour starting in July. With PE, though, things are never as calm as they seem. Harry Allen, PE "director of enemy relations," has sent copies to journalists of "The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation. " This 1970 paper by psychologist Frances Cress Welsing argues that white racism and its evil effects are rooted in whites' sense of inferiority over their lack of color and subsequent attempts to compensate by degrading those who have it. The writings of Welsing and Neely Fuller Jr., who argues that white racism is a worldwide system, "should be seen as some of the inspiration for 'Fear of a Black Planet,' " Allen says.

Somehow we were just waiting for this one. In the Good-Gigs-Are-Hard-to- Come-By-So-Why-Should-We-Kiss-Off-Ours world of popular music, members of the recently disbanded rap group Public Enemy announced yesterday that they'd reunite and were planning a new album before the end of the year. "After having taken time out for reorganization, Public Enemy is back in action," began an eight-paragraph, state-of-the-band statement from leader Chuck D. "The show must go on. Brace yourselves for 1990.

Rap is in trouble. In just a few years, it's gone from being "the black CNN," as Public Enemy's Chuck D. once called it, to being the Cartoon Channel, full of brutish gangsta poseurs and dim bulbs who cling to their old-school musical tricks like a security blanket. After all, how many ways are there to combine "bitch," "hoe" and "Uzi" into insightful poetry? In rides Public Enemy to save the day. The Long Island rap collective, dormant for three years, has always required an adversary, and there's none better right now than rap itself.

"All rap is political," declares Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy. "Some rap is just more political than most. " Public Enemy, whose second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam), has already sold more than a half-million copies with very little airplay, might be the most political rappers of all - the group's logo pictures a black man caught in the cross hairs of a gun sight. So when the group recently appeared before inmates in a New York City prison, two busloads of journalists tagged along.

In a big city with crime, corruption, and SEPTA, a surplus of furry little woodland critters isn't a natural public policy priority. Darrell Clarke has been doing his best to change that. The North Philadelphia councilman is the city's foremost hawk on raccoons - though, surprisingly, not its only one. Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller has also noticed the masked varmints' vaguely menacing aspect: "I think they look terrible when you see them running down the street with their backs all hunched.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO is one of more than 30 actors to play J. Edgar Hoover, whose shrouded life makes him a tough target for actors. The list includes Bob Hoskins, Jack Warden, Ned Beatty, and Treat Williams. Ernest Borgnine played him twice. So did Broderick Crawford, once on "Saturday Night Live. " Over time, Hoover portrayals have become less reverential - the propaganda of "The FBI Story" (1959) gave way to the gossipy Hoover vs. Kennedy soap opera of several TV miniseries in the 1970s and '80s.

It's a week and a half before WRNB DJ Lady B's celebrity-studded 30th-anniversary party, and she hasn't heard from rapper-turned-actor Will Smith yet. Will her childhood friend record a promo video in her honor? Maybe Smith will perform one of his megahits at Sunday night's concert at the Dell Music Center. B is not sure what's up with Smith, and she's getting antsy. She has called Smith's management team and even his mom. No answer. Wait a minute - she just found out Smith is going to call her show in a few minutes.

THERE SEEMS to be an assumption in Hollywood that girls don't like basketball. All of the major DVDs released this March Madness finals weekend tilt toward women - "Black Swan," "Tangled," "Fair Game. " "Black Swan" earned a best-actress Oscar for Natalie Portman, playing the tormented ballerina with the svengali director (Vincent Cassel) and ambitious rival/sex-crush Mila Kunis. I found the movie demented and unintentionally funny, but never dull. "Fair Game," on the other hand, was frequently dull, despite its contentious story of CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts)

Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 is the second half of the epic French gangster biography chronicling the outrageous career of '60s and '70s outlaw Jacques Mesrine. Vincent Cassel, looking hopped-up and wily - and gaining considerable heft to play the celebrity outlaw in his middle age - once again delivers a performance of full-force magnetism. Magnetism, however, isn't always the same thing as likability. Mesrine (pronounced may -reen - he hated it when someone called him mez -reen)

LAST YEAR, investigations into government employees by the city's Inspector General's Office resulted in 24 arrests/indictments, terminations of 34 people, with 11 others suspended and two demoted. Combining restitution, fines and termination of salaries, this represents $4.2 million of city dollars recovered. This year, the office is on track to recover $6.5 million. That includes the latest investigation, which revealed that six employees in a division of the finance department that handles ticket appeals by the Parking Authority were involved in a ticket-fixing scheme.

Evan Francks will don his William and Mary uniform today. His goal is to disrupt Villanova's offense. If he succeeds, Francks will be public enemy No. 1 for most fans watching the Colonial Athletic Association game at Villanova Stadium. Oddly enough, the redshirt junior outside linebacker envisioned himself as a Wildcat when he was a student at Shawnee High School in Medford. "If I would have never visited William and Mary, Villanova would probably be the school I went to," Francks said.

The 1930s gangster movie is back. Does anybody care? Public Enemies, set in the "golden age of bank robbery," when the likes of Baby Face Nelson, Ma and Pa Barker, and Bonnie and Clyde were looting and shooting across the land, is the first A-list Depression-era crime pic since Brian DePalma's The Untouchables. And like the '87 hit, Michael Mann's burnished new enterprise pits two mighty stars opposite each other. (And showcases Chicago's palatial Union Station, too.)

The 1930s gangster movie is back. Does anybody care? Public Enemies, set in the "golden age of bank robbery," when the likes of Baby Face Nelson, Ma and Pa Barker, and Bonnie and Clyde were looting and shooting across the land, is the first A-list Depression-era crime pic since Brian DePalma's The Untouchables. And like the '87 hit, Michael Mann's burnished new enterprise pits two mighty stars opposite each other. (And showcases Chicago's palatial Union Station, too.)

Director Michael Mann is a stylish, brooding perfectionist who makes movies about men who are stylish, brooding perfectionists. Mann's subjects are often cops or criminals, but though he carries a camera instead of a gun, you can feel the way Mann empathizes with and admires their terse professionalism. The Next Big Score is probably a lot like your Next Big Movie - the script, the cast, the crew, the locations. Whatever the reason, Mann excels at dramatizing elaborate criminal schemes and the equally elaborate strategies of the men sworn to stop them.