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It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back

Certain Songs #1675: Public Enemy – “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”

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Album: It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Year: 1988

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“Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic.” That’s the name of the Isaac Hayes song — from his 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul — from which the piano sample that fuels what is probably my favorite rap song: the titanic “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.”

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Certain Songs #1674: Public Enemy – “Bring The Noise”

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Album: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Year: 1987

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Holy fuck, this song!!

Public Enemy’s second single in the run-up to It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back as well a cornerstone of the Less Than Zero soundtrack, “Bring The Noise” is so chock full of great lines and great beats it’s actually kinda overwhelming. I’m tempted to just quote the lyrics, and let it go at that.

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Certain Songs #1673: Public Enemy – “Rebel Without a Pause”

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Album: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Year: 1987

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The first single from the monumental It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back came out only a few months after their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush The Show!, but it was already light years ahead, an early example of the production technique of The Bomb Squad, who along with Sonic Youth on the rock tip, completely changed music in 1988.

Or at least changed me. I was never the same after those two records, neither of which I actually fully heard until they finished 1-2 in the 1988 Pazz & Jop critics poll, and so in early 1989, I knew that I had to give them a shot or ignore the critical conversation for the rest of my life.

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