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

[HarveyCanal]

The many, many, many times I've listened to Nations over the years = baseline.





The many, many, many times I've listened to Amerikkka's Most over the years = baseline X3.





The many, many, many times I've listened to Strictly Business over the years = baseline X5.





Not sure how all the excessive dissertation-level analysis done on Nations is supposed to trump that actual reflection of reality.





b/w





"Workmanlike" makes the world go 'round.

 

[pcmr]

i just got an OG of this and the record store dude told me ''play it loud''


incredible album and a true masterpiece


mandatory

 

[james]

HarveyCanal said:Not sure how all the excessive dissertation-level analysis done on Nations is supposed to trump that actual reflection of reality.

=

Reactionary resentment after years and years of critical fellation

b/w

"Workmanlike" makes the world go 'round.

Though seldom forward.





But you know me, Harvey--I'm on some art shit.

 

[HarveyCanal]

It's all good, James. I used to always call Nations the greatest rap album of all-time. Then I went about 15 years of hardly ever revisiting it. And then realized I was far from alone on that.

 

[james]

Oh yeah, I wouldn't say it's my greatest rap record of all time (between you and me, it's not even my favorite P.E. record, and like you say, is probably the one I revisit least), but I still think--whether or not this is the case with you--that a lot of the criticism/dismissal/downplaying it receives these days is more reactionary and trendy than it is earnest and significant.





I guess one could argue that the praise it receives is just as reactionary (i.e. there's probably a lot of people who like it mainly because some of all that aforementioned dissertation told them to like it), but I don't know; it seems to me that most of the people who really like Nation have some story as to why they like it that has at least something to do with Nation itself (the sound of it, its message, the circumstances under which they purchased it, the effect it had on their parents/peers, whatever), where most of the people who dislike/devalue it have a story that revolves around how disproportionately other people like it.

 

[ppadilha]

I wouldn't argue that it's the greatest hip-hop album ever, especially since that's pretty subjective anyway.





but maybe it's the most important hip-hop album ever?





has there been another album that changed things so drastically, or that has had such a widespread and long-standing influence? Is there another album that kicked off hip-hop in so many different countries the way this one did?





you always hear about Beastie Boys or the Aerosmtih & Run DMC shit being breakout hits, but that just means they were being played in white suburbia. It Takes a Nation was being played in the favelas in S??o Paulo, the banlieues in Paris, making kids want to start rapping and write songs about the places they lived in. This album was the St Paul of hip-hop, proselytizing around the world.

 

[batmon]

ppadilha said:I wouldn't argue that it's the greatest hip-hop album ever, especially since that's pretty subjective anyway.





but maybe it's the most important hip-hop album ever?





has there been another album that changed things so drastically, or that has had such a widespread and long-standing influence? Is there another album that kicked off hip-hop in so many different countries the way this one did?





you always hear about Beastie Boys or the Aerosmtih & Run DMC shit being breakout hits, but that just means they were being played in white suburbia. It Takes a Nation was being played in the favelas in S??o Paulo, the banlieues in Paris, making kids want to start rapping and write songs about the places they lived in. This album was the St Paul of hip-hop, proselytizing around the world.




Run DMC Raising Hell was huge.





Nations even if a whole 'nother animal benefitted from the albums popularity.





And that was a time where u played Hip Hop albums longer. U could still hear Dumb Girl in '88.

 

[james]

ppadilha said:you always hear about Beastie Boys or the Aerosmtih & Run DMC shit being breakout hits, but that just means they were being played in white suburbia.

I think you're being reductive. It might not sound like much when you phrase it as "[rap] being played in white suburbia," but if you think of those records as "[rap] being played and succeeding anywhere outside of the black American community," it's kind of a big deal, and closer ot the truth of their impact. After that, le deluge.





In the context you're talking about, Raising Hell is probably the most important rap record ever.

 

[Possum Slim]

Raising Hell was the first hip hop album I bought.

 

[CinisterCee]

HarveyCanal said:at this point, I'd rather see Strictly Business or Criminal Minded getting more love than Nations.

I must agree, those are two albums I actually listen to more often.





Hell, I listened to Criminal Minded today! Haha

 

[tripledouble]

every single ride day riding on the subway in middle school there would be at least one dude with headphones leaking the telltale rebel with out a pause samples. that shit was just everrrrywhere





i think the whole record holds up fine. maybe not in the yon club, but play dont believe the hype etc to a grown folks crowd in philly and they will move on the dancefloor. criticising this record or how it aged just seems like some masturbate in the mirror shit to me

 

[asstro]

CinisterCee said:HarveyCanal said:at this point, I'd rather see Strictly Business or Criminal Minded getting more love than Nations.

I must agree, those are two albums I actually listen to more often.





Hell, I listened to Criminal Minded today! Haha




Yo, why you bitin' my LOC thun?

 

[Rishan]

dollar_bin said: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?!?!?!?!?"













the intro and sirens just make me lose my shit every time. goosebumps like nothing else i ever experienced. monstrously hardcore

 

[batmon]

Rishan said:the intro and sirens just make me lose my shit every time.

 

[batmon]

Do yall consider Rebel Without A Pause a Nation's song or a YO! Bum Rush The Show extension/b-side?

 

[DOR]

tripledouble said: just seems like some masturbate in the mirror shit to me







HA!





:off_the_wall:

 

[PrimeCutsLtd]

one of my most listened to albums.

 

[Ricky Forcefield]

batmon saido yall consider Rebel Without A Pause a Nation's song or a YO! Bum Rush The Show extension/b-side?




it represents that whole transition in sound and intensity/changing of the guard.





could never have belonged on that first album

 

[DocMcCoy]

batmon saido yall consider Rebel Without A Pause a Nation's song or a YO! Bum Rush The Show extension/b-side?




That's a really good question.





Funnily enough, I saw it as a stand-alone joint and still do, to an extent. Yo!... had already been out for a minute, and the reason everybody was copping the 12" of You're Gonna Get Yours was because this was on the b-side. It was obviously in a different league from the sound they had on the first album, so it never really felt like just something they had lying around from those sessions. They'd taken it up a bunch of levels. Nobody could believe they'd tossed it away as a b-side, and it made sense when it was eventually released as a single in its own right. Equally it made sense within the context of Nation Of Millions..., but because it was so familiar by then, I still consider it to be like the trailer for the album - this is where it's going next.

 

[batmon]

DocMcCoy said:batmon saido yall consider Rebel Without A Pause a Nation's song or a YO! Bum Rush The Show extension/b-side?




That's a really good question.





Funnily enough, I saw it as a stand-alone joint and still do, to an extent. Yo!... had already been out for a minute, and the reason everybody was copping the 12" of You're Gonna Get Yours was because this was on the b-side. It was obviously in a different league from the sound they had on the first album, so it never really felt like just something they had lying around from those sessions. They'd taken it up a bunch of levels. Nobody could believe they'd tossed it away as a b-side, and it made sense when it was eventually released as a single in its own right. Equally it made sense within the context of Nation Of Millions..., but because it was so familiar by then, I still consider it to be like the trailer for the album - this is where it's going next.




I dont recall this dropping way after Yo! came out.


That Black Flames/Bring The Noise single came out afterwards and then Dont Believe The Hype then Nations.





It saw it as an extension of Yo! An improved sound yet still under that umbrella.





I think they said they were in the studio right after YO! dropped and was making new shit.


So yeah its not some lost master from YO! stuck on B-Side.





And the roots of the Rebel sound was there in Yo!s production. I dont see it as rendering YO extinct.





In fact Rebel sounded kinda "dated" by the time Nations hit and we got the album. On some simple shrill + break shit like YO.


Rebel to me was like Nas' Halftime on Nations. Burnt out in the streets by the time the album drops.





______





Like w/ The B-Side Wins Again on Black Steel yet is appears on Fear 2 years later. Is it a Fear song or an extension of Nations?


Or Dwyck.....?





Can they be both?