Soul Strut 100: # 34 - Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

[Controller_7]

Tea kettle.








There was some interview with Priemer a log time ago and he basically said if you don't know this record than you don't know shit. Kind of cracked me up because it was on his "perpetrating" sample snitch type of rant.





Awesome record. I could see how kids these days think its dated. I'm sure breaks and James brown sound dated to them. Not enough weird ad libs, money talk, or slang words. No fault of their own, just probably sounds a little old schooly to them.

 

[batmon]

Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.

 

[drbrownscelray]

batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




This.

 

[bassie]

Made me who I am type shit.





My best girl at that time was a metalhead - she bought the new Iron Maiden and I got this tape. We agreed to listen to each other's tapes from front to back and later on, her Dad asked, "How come such pretty girls are listening to such ugly musics?" This was beyond amusing to hear, if for no other reason than us being total freaks at school as the South Asian rocker and Iranian rap fiend. In retrospect, it must have be quite a racket coming out of her room to parental ears.





Anyway. This belongs in the Top Five and I still play this record out.

 

[ketan]

drbrownscelray said:batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




This.




THIS





i've had this in the car for the last month.





this was always my joint - had me wanting a solo lp at the time.

 

[Electrode]

When I was 13 or so, I discovered this after a (black!) neighbor on my block informed me what a "basehead" is. As mentioned, the beats hooked me; an assault of samples.

 

[Horseleech]

batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




I was living in NYC when this came out and playing in various hard/heavy rock bands. Pretty much every dude I knew on the scene was down with this, and it was the first rap album I had to own myself. It still plays something like a rock album to me, even though it's obviously a rap record. Something about the density of the samples works like guitars for me (and the Slayer samples and such).





Brilliant all the way through - production/lyrics/performance/concept, it's basically a perfect record.

 

[Dante]

Horseleech said: It still plays something like a rock album to me, even though it's obviously a rap record.




Totally. It was weird for me to enjoy so much a record that had ???apparently??? very little to do with what I was listening at the time (angry teen guitar music + 60s shit).





I guess that's part of what made it go from great to absolutely fucking huge record. At least in 'rockist' circles. I might be way out here, but i think people who were into hip hop before getting into rock wouldn't say this is the best hip hop record ever, and people who were into rock earlier would probably say so.

 

[DOR]

One of the first hip hop concert I ever went to was the DefJam tour (But I think it was under a different name here). I was going mainly for EPMD... PE was doing stuff off Yo! Bum Rush the Show. I remember thinking their shit was tight, but still wasn't a huge fan (I still bought all the singles and album tho).





Not until my uncle gave me some promo tape for It Takes a Nation. From that very first moment to this very day I hold "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" as one of the greatest albums of my generation.





I was able to hit up 3 PE concerts in support of that album (Any old school Toronto dudes will remember hip hop concerts & jams at the Concert Hall during those times and how special they were. And the PE shows were AMAZING).





The summer of 88, it was almost impossible to go anywhere without the album blasting from cars, school yards and on the courts.





I may hardly listen to this album much anymore. But when I do, I'm still in love with the production and presentation.





"From a rebel it's final on black vinyl


Soul, rock and roll comin' like a rhino


Tables turn - suckers burn to learn


They can't dis-able the power of my label


Def Jam - tells you who I am"

 

[dollar_bin]

Thanks to this album, whenever I walk by a live microphone I find it hard to resist the temptation to scream into it "HAMMERSMITH ODEON ARE YOU READY FOR THE DEF JAM TOUR?!?!?!?!?"

 

[Ricky Forcefield]

batmon said:Fuck the kids.





This changed the game.




Ignorance is at an all time high!

 

[cai]

Horseleech said:


It still plays something like a rock album to me, even though it's obviously a rap record. Something about the density of the samples works like guitars for me.




So true.

 

[ppadilha]

This album is a fucking monster. I was too young to have any real taste in music but my older brother was really into this when it came out. He had the cassette and it became a staple of road trips. From what I remember this was the first hip-hop album to really make a splash in Brazil, probably because the production is so heavy that the usual hard rock/metal heads could also get into it.





this album also became the template for most hip-hop groups in Brazil. The production down here was still pretty crude so they couldn't match it in that sense, but PE's political message had a huge influence and to this day most brazilian hip-hop still has that attitude. I bet that if you took a poll of which record had the biggest influence on producers and MCs down here, this would be #1 by a mile. It cast a long shadow, and its only in the past 5-10 years that people started doing something different.

 

[HarveyCanal]

ppadilha said:


this album also became the template for most hip-hop groups in Brazil.




Not just in Brazil. For instance, I blame PE for Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Yuck.





While I'll be the first to scream how incredibly and profoundly hard Rebel Without a Pause hit me when it came out...there was much about Nations specifically playing like a rock album that made it age so poorly, not just in reference to today but pretty quickly after its release.





PE has fallen off the map for a lot of younger rap fans not just because they sound any more dated than say Rakim or BDK, but because PE's music simply wasn't being played for decades on end. I mean, it seems like I've heard rap classics like say TROY and Electric Relaxation 5 million times a piece...but I practically need a time machine back to high school in order to ever hear PE away from my own devices.





All that being said, I've grown very weary over the years of hearing the same old camp trying to prop this album up as more than it is. Shit, I used to be in that camp. But no more...at this point, I'd rather see Strictly Business or Criminal Minded getting more love than Nations.

 

[batmon]

HarveyCanal saidpadilha said:


this album also became the template for most hip-hop groups in Brazil.




Not just in Brazil. For instance, I blame PE for Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Yuck.





While I'll be the first to scream how incredibly and profoundly hard Rebel Without a Pause hit me when it came out...there was much about Nations specifically playing like a rock album that made it age so poorly, not just in reference to today but pretty quickly after its release.





PE has fallen off the map for a lot of younger rap fans not just because they sound any more dated than say Rakim or BDK, but because PE's music simply wasn't being played for decades on end. I mean, it seems like I've heard rap classics like say TROY and Electric Relaxation 5 million times a piece...but I practically need a time machine back to high school in order to ever hear PE away from my own devices.





All that being said, I've grown very weary over the years of hearing the same old camp trying to prop this album up as more than it is. Shit, I used to be in that camp. But no more...at this point, I'd rather see Strictly Business or Criminal Minded getting more love than Nations.




All the artists mentioned above took cues from Nation. Pete Rock & CL Smooth, ATCQuest, EpMD and KRS-One responded in kind after Nations.





Its influence on the game cannot be diminished even if folks didnt "party" to it directly.


They all partied to it indirectly. And did so for the next couple of years.


Dont tell me the shrill sound of The Bomb Squad didnt inform Dr. Dre's Chronic Worellian over the top keyboard steez.

 

[HarveyCanal]

Time has proven that Amerikkka's Most Wanted is the Bomb Squad's best album.

 

[Ricky Forcefield]

HarveyCanal saidpadilha said:


this album also became the template for most hip-hop groups in Brazil.




Not just in Brazil. For instance, I blame PE for Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Yuck.




and 'Industrial Rap' in general, unless there was some other major influence on it?





Also responsible for the entire Britcore / UK Hip Hop sound for a number of years after, that stuff you love Harvey

 

[batmon]

HarveyCanal said:Time has proven that Amerikkka's Most Wanted is the Bomb Squad's best album.




That still doesnt diminish Nations impact.





Shit...im a Yo! Bum Rush The Show guy myself but Nations is still the shit.





Limp Biscuit and all that terrible Rap Rock comes from Nations and not Run-DMC/Aerosmith.

 

[james]

HarveyCanal said:TimeReactionary resentment after years and years of critical fellation of Good Old East Coast Rap has proven has made it fashionable to assert that Amerikkka's Most Wanted is the Bomb Squad's best album.

Amerikkka's Most Wanted is like the Here, My Dear of rap: It is the cool answer that is increasingly mistaken for the right answer.





Old Heads who are tired of hearing the same ten records get all the praise turn salty and contrary because that's what we old people do, and post-internet Young Heads--typically being both ahistorical and competetively obscurantist--reflexively ditch the canonical in favor of the slept-on, and everybody thinks both sides are saying the same thing, and everybody ends up gassing up good records for bad reasons. I mean, Strictly Business is a great fucking record, but trying to prop up workmanlike shit like that in place of something like Nation belies a perspective that is either far too young or far too old.





batmon said:Fuck the kids everybody.





This changed the game.

 

[Possum Slim]

Have to agree with the above, this album was Year Zero for me hip hop wise at the time and I'd been buying for a few years by then. It was my most played album for the following decade easily and probably my favourite until I heard Pieces Of A Man.