Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black

The title alludes to the films Apocalypse Now and The Empire Strikes Back. It was recorded in Long Island and produced by the Bomb Squad and the Imperial Grand Ministers of Funk, a credit that covered Gary G-Wiz Rinaldo, The JBL and two fictional names. Hank Shocklee said that the disks for every track the group had been working on for four or five years were stolen, so they had to rush to recreate their music. He believed the loss stunted their growth. The sound was leaner than on the earlier albums, and live musicians were more prominent, among them horn and keyboard players, a guitarist and a bassist.

The songs include 1 Million Bottlebags, a protest against malt liquor in the African-American community, and a version of Bring the Noise with the thrash band Anthrax to close the record. The singles were Can't Truss It, Nighttrain and Shut 'Em Down, with By the Time I Get to Arizona as the B-side of the last. Can't Truss It reached 50 on the Hot 100 and number one on the rap chart.

The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and went platinum on 26 November 1991. Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis wrote that it attempted nothing short of setting a sociopolitical agenda for the black community. Christgau, in Playboy, called its first half Public Enemy's most exciting sustained sequence ever. It came second to Nirvana's Nevermind in the 1991 Pazz & Jop poll, and Spin placed it seventh among its albums of the year.