It Takes a Nation of Millions [Explicit Lyrics]

Public Enemy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 2, 1995)
• Original Release Date: 1988
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Label: Def Jam
• ASIN: B0000024K1
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (190 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,346 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #18 in Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > East Coast
  • #25 in Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > Gangsta & Hardcore
  • #79 in Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > Pop Rap

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It Takes a Nation of Millions was the sign that hip-hop had exploded like a grenade. A rap record as abrasive, hardcore, and eloquent as a JFK speech, the 1988 disc is one classic track after another: tense, multilayered, harmonically wild music. Chuck D. declaims like a master preacher with foil Flavor Flav's voice darting around his. They've got the desperate energy of people fighting for their lives, and everything from their pumped-up rhetoric ("Prophets of Rage") to the group's quasi-paramilitary organization to the sirens and sax squeals in nearly every track declares how urgent their mission is. It's a hugely influential album, and it still sounds fresh and frightening after all these years. --Douglas Wolk

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 86 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Proof that Rap Can be Thought-Provoking AND Funky!!! February 17, 2005

By P. B. Reynolds

Format:Audio CD

All that I could say after hearing this album for the first time was "wow!" Even though the tracks here are almost two decades old, they sound much more daring, progressive, and experimental than any rap you can hear on the radio today. Is it possible that we are "de-evolving" now that perfection was already reached in 1988? I mean, I enjoy a lot of Snoop and NWA as well, but everything recorded since, say 1995 has been pretty abysmal in comparison to rap's "Golden Age." I suspect that since Chuck D. and the gang so thoroughly nailed it here, others knew that they couldn't rise to the occasion, so they didn't even try.

This album is a musical marvel, in every sense of the word. This is coming from a southern white male who was only four years old when this came out and, a mere few months ago, hated pretty much all rap. What can I say? I've been converted. Chuck D.'s militant message here is simply dead on, and while I can't quite get behind their endorsement of Farakhan, I can overlook that, because I agree completely with everything else they're laying down here. From the first track to the last, the album is a relentless indictment of government and media, from the unheard voices of urban America. And if that wasn't enough, the music is incredibly funky.

I'll take these Bomb Squad arrangements and Terminator X turntable magic over all of the over-produced pop garbage we have to put up with now any day of the week. Others have already extolled the merits of the brilliant production values and technical superiority, so all I'll say is this. The grooves here are as deep and pervasive as anything you will ever hear in popular music.... I've loved all types of music, from Sinatra to Stravinsky, and if "Don't Believe the Hype" doesn't get some butts shaking at your next house party, consider moving to a funkier neighborhood!!!

Other stand-out tracks here are numerous. The repetitive striking of a minor piano chord in "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" makes for a menacing, delightful hip-hop experience. In this anti-authority "story song", you can almost hear an early prototype of later, very similar songs like Dr. Dre's "Deep Cover" but this is ten times better! Chuck is in great voice, and this track seems way ahead of its time.

You can't go wrong with this album, as it is perfection epitomized, on every level. If you, like me, are fairly new to rap, check this one out and get a taste of how rap SHOULD sound, and how it sounded for so many years before the hollow, voiceless perpetrators and posers took it over (in the interest of civility, I won't name names, but you all know who I'm talking about!) On a lighter note, I want to share with you my idea for the perfect drinking game. Turn this thing up to full-blast on your speakers, get a bottle of your beverage of choice, and take a shot every time Flavor Flav shouts "Yeeeaaah, boyeeee!!!!!!"

Uhhh...maybe you'd better make that HALF a shot. Afterall, I wouldn't want anybody out there to get alcohol poisoning! Read more ›

47 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A landmark album that holds up forever July 14, 2001

By R. Riis VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

Perhaps the greatest rap/hip-hop album ever made, and one of the great albums of any genre. PE rock harder than any of today's gangstas with solid beats and magnificent sound collages that front eloquent raps not about violence, sexism, and nihilism, but empowerment, self-respect, and self-determination. Just as fresh today as it was in 1988. Five times five stars.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars PUBLIC ENEMY'S MASTERPIECE August 2, 2002

By Eric C. Martin

Format:Audio CD

"Some people said rap is all noise. So, I gave them noise!"
-Hank Shocklee (Bomb Squad)

A furious mixture of whistles, whines, and noise over dense samples, scratches, and beats which Shocklee later called "Music's worst nightmare." Aside from Chuck D.'s intelligent and thought provoking lyrics and Flavor Flav's hyper-active, idiotic, role playing of the court jester, it was Hank and Keith Shocklee, and Eric (Vietnam) Sadler of the bomb Squad who put PE on the map. As a whole, the group was way ahead of it's time. Boldly putting out their political views and attacking the media, PE was also unfairly attacked in the press portrayed as anti-semetic and anti-white.

From the groundbreaking "Bring The Noise", to Slayer's guitar sample on "She Watch Channel Zero", to the pulsating piano chord on "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos", PE simply shines.

Sad that this group never got the financial recognition it rightly deserved. Back in the day, I was the only one in the group of friends who worshiped PE. Everyone else couldn't handle the intelligent lyrics that [weren't] sprayed with 4 letter words.

Feed your brain. Listen to the genius that was PE and READ the lyrics.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars When hip-hop actually meant something. August 3, 2004

By Shotgun Method

Format:Audio CD

Public Enemy were perhaps the best, most influential hip-hop act of all time, and this is the greatest thing they created. Fear Of A Black Planet is the only other P.E. release in the same league and even that had some moments of filler. By the time Apocalypse '91 was released the group was already fractured from the Professor Griff controversy and past its prime. With It Takes A Nation... Chuck D., Flavor Flav, and the Bomb Squad were young, energized, angry, and at the top of their game in 1988.

It Takes A Nation... was hip-hop's clarion call to the world. While earlier albums from Run D.M.C., the Beastie Boys, and others proved that hip-hop could expand its sound and be more than a passing fad, Public Enemy showed that hip-hop could also be a voice for the black community and its social and political concerns. Intense, angry, militant, political, thoughtful, creative...all of the above apply to this album. While I'm no proponent of black radicalism (and think Louis Farrakhan is a nutcase), I definitely admire the intelligence and innovation that went into this recording. And contrary to what some have said, there is little that is racist about the messages in this album, though the views presented are largely Afrocentric. After all, this is the same group that later teamed up with Anthrax (a bunch of thrash metal-playing white dudes) to record "Bring Tha Noize" and bring about rap-metal. P.E. are trying to make people question society and history and look at the world around them, similar to what earlier punk bands like The Clash, Crass, and The Dead Kennedys have done. Pretty powerful stuff.

Love him or hate him, you ignore Chuck D. at your own peril. His prescence as an M.C. and lyricist is virtually unrivalled.... While he's not as technically skilled as say, Rakim, he's definitely no slouch, and his lyrics are very thought-provoking, eloquent and downright quotable expressions of righteous indignation at the American prison system, pop culture "values," the inner-city drug epidemic, the federal government ("You're CIA, you see I ain't kiddin'"), the media, and the watered-down history we're fed in public school textbooks, among other things. A far cry from today's common topics of "bling and b-tches," that's for sure. Flavor Flav fills the role of jester, dropping humourous rhymes in between Chuck D.'s blasts of venom--smart writers know that polemics go down a little easier with a dash of humor (a lesson that all too many would-be political songwriters forget).

If the Rick Rubin/Bomb Squad production sounds dated these days (and I think it has stood up brilliantly, not something you can say for most hip-hop albums), it's because so many later hip-hop artists and producers have ripped it off. There's free jazz sax squeals, funky beats, excellent samples (my favorite is that MLK Jr. sample which, if I remember correctly, kicks off Night Of The Living Baseheads), and some crazy turntable scratching from Terminator X. On She Watch Channel Zero?, even a Slayer sample is used to awesome effect, proving already that metal can make an excellent hip-hop backdrop. Like Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, It Takes A Nation... is worth listening to for its production alone.

Bring The Noise, Don't Believe The Hype (practically an anti-media anthem), Louder Than A Bomb, Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos (coolest title EVER!), Prophets Of Rage, Party For Your Right To Fight...all classic hip-hop. To all those who think Eminem is "thought-provoking" or "original" I'd advise you to pick this up and experience the real thing. Read more ›