No. 5: Chuck D

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour doesn't always get his due when people start talking about the greatest emcees of all time — but he's going to get it here.

Never really had a gun. Didn't need it.

Chuck D put together the group Public Enemy in 1986 and immediately became one of early hip-hop's most important figures. His hard-hitting delivery and social commentary fueled the first (and really, maybe the only) wave of conscious rap music. With their first two albums, Yo! Bum Rush The Show and It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, PE was able to open the minds of an entire generation of urban (and even suburban) youth.

But it was with the group's third LP, Fear Of A Black Planet, that Chuck really took things to another level. Noted urban music authority VH1 (kidding, but still) tabbed "Fight The Power" as the No. 1 song in hip-hop history — and it might not even be the best song on the album. I'm partial to "Welcome To The Terrordome" myself. Fear Of A Black Planet was added to the Library Of Congress music stash in 2005.

The fourth and final album during PE's apex was Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, which is arguably the best of a pretty incredible bunch. While the track for "Can't Truss It" isn't all that memorable, the lyrics are:

The hater taught hate, that's why we gang-bang it
Beware of the hand when it's coming from the left/I ain't trippin', just watch your step...

Apocalypse also includes a remake of "Bring The Noise" featuring Anthrax, one of the first and most successful rock/rap collaborations of the 1990s (which unfortunately led to groups like Limp Bizkit down the road)...and "By The Time I Get To Arizona," a political rant about Martin Luther King Day that Sarah Palin and Jared Loughner seem to have misinterpreted.

Public Enemy lost its fastball for a little while with Greatest Misses and Muse Sick-N-Hour Message before enjoying a brief revival in 1998 with the He Got Game soundtrack. After that, the group lost its DJ (Terminator X) and Flavor Flav began his downward spiral into drugs — and worse, reality TV.

As for Chuck D, he released a largely ignored solo album in 1996 before going the political route. Most people forget that he had an early gig at Fox News, but he also co-hosted one of the first programs on Air America Radio. While other rappers have branched off into such frivolous side projects as clothing lines, corporate endorsements and acting, Chuck has kept it 100 — he was a political activist as an emcee, and he remains one even without the drum track behind him.

Hip-hop would be in a much better place if more emcees had tried to emulate Chuck D. He represented the very best of what the music can be.

(By the way...Happy Saturnalia, everybody. I'll unveil the top four next week.)