"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" is a song on the American hip hop group Public Enemy's 1988 album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

The lines in the scratch breaks – "Now they got me in a cell" and "Death Row/What a brother knows" – are samples from "Bring the Noise", another song on the same album.

The music video was filmed in the abandoned cell blocks of the nationally landmarked old Essex County Jail in Newark, New Jersey.

Ramone refused, as group member Professor Griff – despite not appearing in the video – had been reported making antisemitic remarks.

[3] The title and cover art of writer/director Bayer Mack's 2016 American documentary drama In the Hour of Chaos – which tells the story of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr.'s ("Daddy King") rise from an impoverished childhood in the violent backwoods of Georgia to become patriarch of one of the most famous, and tragedy-plagued, families in history – are influenced by Public Enemy's song.