The Post-Rockist

[Editor’s note: We’ll be at Pitchfork this weekend, but since we’re going to miss Friday, we wanted to give Public Enemy some much needed preemptive lovin’.]

Public Enemy - “Bring the Noise”
(from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back)

When I first heard It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, I thought it sounded outdated and a little too old school for my tastes. After all, it had been a little over a decade since it was released, so it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t seem incredibly relevant to me at the time. The reason I picked it up was because it was one of those albums that consistently made all the Best Albums of All Time lists, in everything from The Source to Time magazine. From what I could tell, its importance and cultural impact weren’t up for debate and it was a classic in every sense of the word. Being a curious music fan with limited knowledge and taste, I wanted to understand what all the fuss was about and see if it could live up to the hype. So after hearing it a few times, I was a little disappointed that it hadn’t changed my life.

That would come later.

It Takes a Nation sat on my shelf for a couple years before I listened to it again. It had become one of those albums in my collection that I set aside before fully absorbing, as I waited until I was in the right mood for it. After all, you can’t force music to reach you when you aren’t ready for it. Like wine, music can require a bit of patience, but oftentimes it’s well worth the wait. So that year I decided I was going to listen to as much hip hop as possible, since it was a genre I enjoyed, but didn’t know a whole lot about. Being a middle class white kid from a small town in Michigan, the only hip hop I was exposed to growing up was whatever I saw on MTV in the nineties. As I was making my way through classics I had missed like Raising Hell, Paid In Full and Three Feet High and Rising, I figured it was time to give Public Enemy another try.

So I put It Takes a Nation back on my stereo and it felt like I just got punched in the face. I was immediately struck just by the sound of it. I’d never heard production as dense as this before. It felt like all my senses were being bombarded at once. How could I have ignored this before, I mean physically? There were samples colliding all over the place from police sirens to James Brown horns and beats to Malcolm X speeches to guitars from Slayer and David Bowie. Plus they were even sampling themselves! It was music that forced you to pay attention to it since there’s so much going on and it’s never pretty. Production team The Bomb Squad wasn’t interested in creating music that was even remotely pleasing to the ears. They wanted to hit you over the head repeatedly and without mercy. Their production assault mixed with DJ Terminator X’s up front scratching technique created a sound that was totally relentless.

After getting over the shock of being beaten by the music, I started to notice how brilliant Chuck D and Flavor Flav were as MCs. The two of them seemed like the oddest couple imaginable with Chuck D’s serious frontman intensity and Flavor Flav’s cartoonish sidekick persona creating a hodgepodge effect that couldn’t have been achieved without the both of them. It allowed the music to be deathly serious and surprisingly playful at the same time. Chuck D was spitting politically conscious rhymes that were as powerful as Malcolm X’s speeches, using a bizarre Marv Albert-inspired sportscaster voice that somehow fit the intensity of the music just perfectly. Whether he was speaking about incarcerated black men, drug abuse, Louis Farrakhan or just about what it’s like to be a black man in America, Chuck D seemed to have an endless supply of words to put into action. Of course, politically conscious rhymes weren’t entirely new to hip hop, but the uncompromising intensity that Chuck D’s vocals had made them seem revolutionary. Plus, he was rapping at such a quick pace that his words sounded like they were bouncing all over this avant-garde collage of sound in a way that made them seem more ferocious. I couldn’t think of any vocalist in music history who meant what he said more than Chuck D. Even if I wasn’t paying close attention to the specific things he was talking about, I wasn’t about to disagree with him. Flavor Flav served as the perfect foil to Chuck D as he provided much needed comic relief that gave the listener room to breathe. Without Flavor, the music would have been almost too much to listen to. He may have been on the same page with Chuck D about most things, but he didn’t have the capacity to take himself that seriously. The two of them together were like a comedy duo that was only funny a small fraction of the time, but listening to them interact and play off each other was constantly entertaining.

That year I listened to It Takes a Nation repeatedly for months on end as the music revealed more and more to me upon each listen. I couldn’t get over the pacing of the album and how every part of it seemed to be in exactly the right place. As the album starts with an announcer pumping up a crowd before introducing the group, it gives the listener the feeling that something amazing is about to happen. “Countdown to Armageddon,” the title of track one couldn’t be any more perfect. Once they drop the beat and Flavor Flav and Chuck D make their grand entrances in “Bring The Noise,” it feels almost like a boxing match has begun. “Bring The Noise” serves as a manifesto as well as a preview for what’s to come on the album, with Chuck D rapping, “Never badder than bad ‘cause the brother is madder than mad at the fact that’s corrupt like a senator. Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope ‘cause the beats in the lines are so dope. Listen for lessons I’m saying inside music that the critics are blasting me for.”

“Don’t Believe the Hype”

The next track, “Don’t Believe The Hype,” has a slower, funkier beat, but the rapping is just as fierce with Flavor Flav getting more into his role as a goofy sidekick. Next up is “Cold Lampin With Flavor,” where Flavor Flav gets his own solo track, proving that this is no one man show. Then Terminator X gets to show his stuff on “Terminator X To The Edge of Panic,” reminding the listener of how much of a group effort this really is. To seal the deal, “Mind Terrorist” gives the Bomb Squad a chance to make one of their avant-garde sound collages while Terminator X mixes up some Flavor Flav catchphrases.

Finally, when we get to “Louder Than A Bomb,” it’s clear that Public Enemy has already laid out exactly what they plan to do with the record, so here is when they start to pick up steam. The progression that happens over the second half of the record is unstoppable. It’s almost like when a preacher gets on a roll halfway through his sermon, and starts sweating and crying and shouting at the congregation. They break into the 1-2-3 punch of “Caught, Can I Get A Witness!,” “She Watch Channel Zero?!” and “Night Of The Living Baseheads,” which cover everything from the legal ramifications of sampling to women who waste their lives away watching TV to a tale of drug addicts who used to get their fix from music. At this point it becomes very clear that no topic is off limits to Chuck D. He then gets into the most remarkable track of the record, with “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos,” which begins with the classic opening lines, “I got a letter from the government the other day. I opened and read it, it said they were suckers. They wanted me for their army or whatever. Picture me given’ a damn – I said never. Here is a land that never gave a damn about a brother like me and myself.” Here Chuck D is at his most fiery and powerful as he offers a rant against the military, the correctional system, and the general treatment of black people in America.

“Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”

Then, without taking a breath, P.E. go into their grand finale and offer “Rebel Without A Pause,” with its screeching sirens and scratching turntables in a sound collage that refuses to quit. When they break into “Prophets Of Rage,” Chuck D reminds us that this is not your typical hip hop record with the lines, “I roll with the punches so I survive. Try to rock ‘cause it keeps the crowd alive. I’m not ballin, I’m just callin’, but I’m passed the days of yes y’allin’.” Finally we get to the last track, “Party For Your Right To Fight,” which is a brilliant send-up of The Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right To Party.” Here Chuck D and Flavor Flav both rap the same lines at the same time, one in each channel, which makes you feel like your head is about to explode. It’s the perfect way to end the most intense listening experience you’ve ever had.

Somewhere along the way, It Takes a Nation has become the album that I measure all albums against. The way it works as a whole, the way it gains momentum and never loses it, the way the vocals match the music at all times, the way every member of the group gets their chance to shine, the way it completely pummels the senses. It Takes a Nation is now also my go-to angry album whenever I feel like I’m about to blow. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to personally relate to all the subjects they are talking about. It’s not what they are saying, but it’s how they’re saying it, despite the fact that they are saying some incredibly powerful stuff. Since I have fallen in love with this album, there have been specific times in my life, when I couldn’t imagine listening to anything else. I’m at the point where I would feel lost without being able to put this record on when I need it most. You can’t ask for anything more from a little piece of plastic.