Band:  Public Enemy

Song:  “I Shall Not Be Moved”

Label:  Enemy Records/Slam Jamz/SpitDigital

“I Shall Not Be Moved” is the leadoff single from Public Enemy’s online-exclusive LP Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp.  Produced by longtime collaborator Gary G-Wiz, frontman Chuck D. offers elder-statesman swagger over funk-guitar licks with occasional chime-ins from comic partner Flavor Flav.

Topic-wise, “…Moved” is all over the place, but it still manages to work despite (or perhaps because of) its inadvertent nod to ADHD fan-sensibilities: “What good is learning from some record/ when y’all only listen to 15 seconds!?”  Between shout-outs to deceased death-row cause célèbre Troy Davis and dissing the Basketball Wives, Chuck manages to slip in swipes against ageism in Hip-Hop and home-grown bands left out in a post-Clear Channel airplay era:  “Drive by trucker, I play it loud mother******/ Use it, don’t abuse it, the voice gets rougher/  Shout my vocals, I salute all the locals/ Slept on, kept them out of radio focus…”

The ending refrain, repeated ad infinitum with an ominous synth backdrop, is about as arcane as you can get:  "Oh wi-fi, got you gaggin' off Gaga, ‘Pac made woman cry from the very first line.." This will have lyric scholars hitting reverse on their MP3 player for some time.