“Fight The Power” by Public Enemy

Spike Lee wanted a musical theme for Do the Right Thing, and Public Enemy handed him "Fight the Power": first on the film's 1989 soundtrack and a Motown single that summer, then stretched into an extended version for their third album, Fear of a Black Planet, in 1990. The Bomb Squad produced it, with Chuck D, Eric Sadler and Hank Shocklee credited, and it's a collage at full boil, calls to arms from the civil rights era, echoes of the Black church and chopped-up James Brown all grinding against each other.

Lee shot the video himself in Brooklyn, staged as a political rally with Chuck D, Flavor Flav and Terminator X out front and portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X held high. The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics named it the best single of 1989, and in 2021 Rolling Stone put it at number two among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.