Public Enemy has been making hip-hop protest music as long as anyone, and the group's latest release, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?, is unsurprisingly full of confrontational, political songs. Throughout the record, Chuck D, Flava Flav and company take aim at Donald Trump, technology, racism and corruption — and give space for Rapsody to add an outstanding verse that brings the 1989 protest anthem " Fight The Power" into 2020.
"Go At It," however, is the album's most explicit call to arms. Over a blown-out guitar loop, Chuck D shouts rhymes like declarations of war in the same booming voice he has been using for decades. Chuck is both furious and motivational, urging listeners to do whatever they can to help change the country for the better. "So it be revolution, then let it be known / Whatever it is, whatever it be / You just go at it," he raps on the chorus.
It's a sentiment that risks venturing into slightly-cliched "be the change you want to see in the world" territory, but Chuck presents the message with so many layers of bombast and righteous anger that the song feels like a genuinely urgent call to get up and go do something.
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