Public Enemy Perform on Skid Row and Announce Two Albums for 2012

Post by Chelle Jones, Jan 16, 2012 at 10:06 am Speak Up0

Public Enemy hit Los Angele’s Skid Row to perform a benefit concert for the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an organization which provides housing for low-income families and works with the area’s homeless, on Sunday, January 15th. The Operation: Skid Row festival featured performances from acts such as Kurupt, the X-Clan, Lady Of Rage and the Freestyle Fellowship.

Although reports from the LA Weekly indicated that the show could be cancelled by authorities for not obtaining the proper permits to play amplified music, the festival went down without a hitch according to Chuck D’s twitter feed. The rapper posted an image of the concert through the social networking site that shows that the event attracted a large crowd.

Just before the concert, Chuck D reminded his followers of the 1 p.m. start time and confirmed the festival’s line-up writing “Operation SkidRow Festival Public Enemy, FreestyleFellowship, XClan, Kurupt LadyOfRage, NipsyHussle etc starts 1p sharp!!We play VERY early 2p!!!” Initial reports indicated that Cypress Hill, The Dogg Pound and Mellow Man Ace would join Public Enemy.

The free concert was put on to draw attention to the area’s poverty and to give something back to the community. “You’ve got organizations in your city that are trying to say and do the right thing–who are practically invisible–fighting for some media time. What other place do I have? My place in hip-hop is not to be a tycoon, making trillions with a yacht. That’s not my place. My place is maybe bringing people together and me being able to identify and illuminate a cause, and we’ll make it comfortable for them to be themselves but say what they’ve really been wanting to say all along, you know, with my protection,” Chuck D told Billboard.com.

During the interview with Billboard.com’s The Juice, Chuck D revealed that Public Enemy was gearing up to push out two new records this year. The first will be ‘Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear on No Stamp,’ which will feature production form Gary G-Wiz and should be out in June, while the ‘The Evil Empire of Everything’ is scheduled to follow in September. According to Chuck D, the albums are “two concise statements that are connected in the same breath.”