MEST 4 Xmas Task #3

"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" is a song by the American Hip-Hop group Public Enemy from their second album, 'It takes a nation of millions to hold us back'.The lyrics deal with a fictional story of an escape from a US prison. Chuck has been drafted ("I got a letter from the government, the other day / I opened and read it, it said they were suckers / they wanted me for their army or whatever"); however, he refuses to become part of the army ("Picture me giving a damn / I said 'never!'"). The main idea behind this is that the war is wrong, with a hint of pure indignation towards the treatment of Black people by other parts of American society ("here's a land that never gave a damn about a brother like me"). This serves to both criticize racism and the prison system ("Four of us packed in a cell like slaves").

Chuck is then taken to prison, from which he attempts to escape. "Black Steel" is a reference to a gun, which he needs to escape. By the end of the second verse, Chuck has taken a gun from a C.O. (corrections officer) who was "fallin' asleep." ("But ever when I catch a C.O. / Sleeping on the job/My plan is on go-ahead.)

With gun in hand, Chuck and the other prisoners escape "to the ghetto - no sell out." Chuck then comments on how there are 6 C.O.s who he "ought to put their head out." He does not, at first ("But I'll give 'em a chance 'cause I'm civilized"), but after a female tries to thwart the escape she is shot, ("Got a woman C.O. to call me a 'copter / She tried to get away, and I popped her"), presumably dead ("I had 6 C.O.s, now it's 5 to go").

The final verse ends with Chuck and the rest of the prisoners on their final escape. They are confronted with shots and there is a state of chaos. Chuck makes a comment about prison and racism ("This is what I mean—an anti-nigger machine"), which later became the basis for another Public Enemy song, "Anti-****** Machine" (featured on the 1990 album, Fear of a Black Planet). Finally, he is rescued. The song ends with the line "53 brothers on the run, and we are gone" indicating a successful prison escape. (However, in the video for the song, this line accompanies the image of Chuck D being hanged by the triumphant warden of the prison.)