Peter Scholtes in City Pages: PE, Prince, Mpls hip-hop

Clearing out some more of the weekly e-mail newsletters that fill up my inbox. Figured this link was appropriate to post, since we've had a running conversation about the historical significance and continuing relevance of PE and Chuck D:

Welcome to the Superdome
How Hurricane Katrina made Public Enemy relevant again
by Peter S. Scholtes
November 2, 2005

It was news to me that PE dropped a track titled "Hell No We Ain't All Right!" via shutemdown.com amid the Katrina aftermath.

That transitions into a review of two PE discs thave have just dropped: Power to the People and the Beats: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits and New Whirl Odor.

BTW, Scholtes seems to know what's he's talking about. I've come across two of his CP features from the summer of 2004 that were just mind-blowing:

One Nation, Invisible
The untold story of local hip-hop: 1981 to 1996
by Peter S. Scholtes
August 18, 2004

Who knew there was any story of Twin Cities hip hop from '81-'96??

And then there was this, which tells a story where you know the players, but their prehistory is amazing:

School of Funk
Jimmy Jam was a DJ. Morris Day was a drummer. Prince was a kid with a huge afro. Before they changed popular music, Mom told them to turn
that racket down.
by Peter S. Scholtes
July 14, 2004

That feature goes a large part of the way towards explaining something I've always wondered about: how did a genius of black music like Prince manage come out of Minneapolis, of all places?