Since February '73: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back: 30 Years Later

As a fifteen year old in 1988, any allowance money I received was spent on comic books, or records. The closest place to buy music was a record store in Hempstead called Disc N Dat, which was on Main Street. A few times a month I would ride the bus there to check out the latest releases on vinyl or cassette tape. That year, "Strictly Business" by EPMD, "Follow the Leader" by Eric B & Rakim, and Big Daddy Kane's "Long Live the Kane" were just some of the purchases added to my small, but growing collection of hip-hop records. One such trip into Hempstead that summer led me to purchasing what would ultimately become my favorite album of all time, and that's Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"

From the moment I got home and took it out of the cover, it stayed in rotation on my record player for the rest of the summer and well into the new school year. The music was pro-Black, political, and made quite an impression on me. There were plenty of hip-hop records in these early days that were conscious, but nothing like this. The lyrics Chuck D was kickin' along with HOW he delivered them, thanks to his booming voice, over these incredible beats crafted by the Bomb Squad were like nothing ever heard before. The inside packaging of the record came with the lyrics for each song, which allowed me to rap-a-long with each listen. Using their music as a vehicle to attack white supremacy, and uplift Black people, Public Enemy may as well have been real super heroes. Having streamed it in its entirety recently, it dawned on me how timely and relevant this album remains during this Trump Error of America. Here is a breakdown:

(I have previously written about the first time I heard the song "Rebel Without A Pause" which can be read here.)

Back cover of "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"

Don't Believe The Hype

Before Trump and his base popularized the term 'Fake News', Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype" was made in response to some inaccuracies written about the group from Rock music journalists'. While not fully aware of these circumstances at the time, I interpreted the song as a call to not take things at face value, not believe everything you hear, and to know your sources for information to better help form opinions. Society today seems to absorb what they see online or posted somewhere as truth without verifying if its an actual fact, and as we learned from the Election of 2016, vast amounts of misinformation were spread far too easily. Before accepting any information as fact, let's remember: Don't Believe the Hype!

Night of the Living Baseheads

This album was released at the height of the crack/cocaine epidemic that ravaged the United States. Media coverage back then made these drugs synonymous with Black people, which shaped perception, and policy on how to combat the problem; harshly. "Night of the Living Baseheads" was this album's powerful anti-drug statement. The video in particular showed how these drugs were not just in Black communities, but on Wall Street as well. Ironically, today the Opioid drug crisis has been framed as a white people problem, yet recent studies show that this drug is devastating the Black community as well. Treatment for this addiction seems to be readily available in white communities, yet for Black victims too often the only options seem to be punishment via harsh drug laws or death.

Black Steel In the Hour of Chaos

With its haunting piano sample from Issac Hayes' "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" the subject of this song was Chuck D receiving a letter to register for the military, and his refusal to comply which landed him in jail. Chuck's booming vocals defiantly rapped, "Here's is a land that never gave a damn, about a brother like me and myself because they never did" as his explanation. There is a long history in this country of criminalizing and punishing Black people for taking a stand on social issues from Muhammad Ali, and his refusal to serve in the military when he was drafted, to Rosa Parks for not giving up her seat on a bus for a white person. The most recent example of this is former NLF quarterback, Colin Kaepernick and the stance that he took, of taking a knee during the National Anthem prior to football games to protest police killings of Black people. Cynics may say he is just not good enough to play in the league, yet his stats from the last season he played say otherwise.

She Watch Channel Zero?!

Viewers of daytime soap operas were the target on this song, especially if they only seemed to watch or care about these types of programs, and not balance that out with activities that had more substance as highlighted by Flavor Flav's line "Read a book or something, Read about yourself, Learn your culture you know what i'm saying?" Today the gender specific-ness of this song's title would not fly as both men and women are responsible for their fair share of ratchet television viewing. The message remains the same though.

Caught Can I Get a Witness

This song addressed one of the biggest legal issues in the hip-hop music business back in 1988 which was music sampling. How much of a song could be sampled to make a new beat, and how much would the original artist be paid for their work being sampled? The biggest legal issue facing artist in 2018 is music streaming and getting paid properly. Although these rates have gone up as of 2018, they still do not seem to be where they should be.

These are some examples of how my favorite album is still relevant thirty years past its release. I wonder how this will hold up over the course of the next thirty years? Time will tell.

Here are some videos off of the album.

"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"