Picture 1988 if you will. There is no Chance, Lil Wayne, Fiddy Cent, Eminem, Dre, Tupac, Biggie or any of ’em yet. A newer group on the scene, influenced by Run DMC, Whodini and similar acts, drops their second disc entitled “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”… and revolutionizes the entire hip-hop/rap genre.
This sonic assault from leader Chuck D, hype man Flavor Flav, DJ Terminator X and their production team was a time bomb ticking, a wrecking ball slamming home, and a stunning rap, rock, metal and punk album all at once.
It took me a little time after I’d first heard it to be able to adapt to and ‘realize’ the swirling vortex of sound that was now the group’s trademark. A friend of mine had slipped me a cassette, and at first the sounds were a little too dense to me; I’m also sure I didn’t understand the lyrics fully until later listens. But boy oh boyee, when I did catch the vibe, I caught it hard! I became fascinated with it. It was so layered, so funky, so avant-garde, so steamingly angry, inspiring, funny , towering, fresh and invigorating to me. I know that Rolling Stone magazine once named it best hip-hop album of all time, and I tend to agree.
The first thing you hear is air raid sirens blaring, letting you know how the group felt… this is war.
The track “Bring the Noise” follows and is a genuine rap classic. The tempo of the beat, the insane choice of sounds used and the omnipresent high-pitched wails of sax’s or sirens (a recurring sound used through-out the disc) carries a bone-jarring impact. A sample of lyrics from Chuck D in this track: “Black is back, all in we’re gonna win, (Flav: Yeah y’all, c’mon!) Here we go again! Turn it up!…” Chuck’s lyrics declared the deep dismays of much of the black community of America, and something else I really loved was that you could see the man’s raw, evident anger but you did not hear him using constant, foul or obscene language… shocking for MC’s vying for superiority in this time frame! That was a big inspiration to me, that you could be angry (and intelligent) without using non-stop cursing and also be *righteously* angry, meaning something real or true was genuinely behind the anger and that it was an issue that was over due for and in bad need of addressing. In other words, it wasn’t like NWA or others where basically every track was like “I’ll kill you *%$#@, *#&% you by the way.. I got guns N*##@ I’ll blast that m*($#^@ *$@#a and %$*!, *$(@%!!!!….. (*^%*($#@!)^*#$^%!!!!!!
The group had something to say and was adamant about sharing it loudly and proudly. Lead vocalist Chuck D’s voice was deep and booming and rode perfectly atop the chaos of their beats. Chuck’s comic foil Flavor Flav was very funny and continuously surprising in how outrageous he was, both in personality and in wardrobe choice. His signature clock around the neck was worn so that people would “know what time it is..” aimed to wake up both black and white folks alike. A sideways ball cap or maybe an Elizabethan stovepipe top and some funky shades completed his look. PE also traveled with their own military-garbed force called the S1W, security of the first world.
“Don’t Believe the Hype” was next and was another knock-out classic featuring a slowed down version of their usual chaotic, sonic maelstrom. “They treat me like Coltrane, insane… we’re brothers of the same mind- unblind…”
“Caught, Can We Get a Witness” and “She Watch Channel Zero” decried penalties for sampling and daytime soap operas, respectively. The latter features a heavy-metal guitar riff sample and has Flavor Flav yelling out “We tryin’ to watch the Super Bowl baby and there’s a black quarterback, so step back!”
The insistent “Night of the Living Baseheads” demonstrated how the group felt about the crack epidemic on the streets, while “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” was a truly menacing fantasy from Chuck about a prison riot and break-out with the help of their S1W security force.
“Rebel Without a Pause” had been out prior to the full album release and was a sign of the new direction to come, much like “Strawberry Fields”/”Penny Lane” had been for fellow masters of their genre the Beatles. It was the first track released, I believe, featuring the high pitched, constant, rising wail sound placed rhythmically in the beat. Then the penultimate track, “Prophets of Rage”, blew the roof off the sucka’. A slick and terrifying beat matched with more vehement rhetoric from Chuck and goofy calls from Flav to “Kick it to the north, east, west, south.. yo kick it to ’em Chuck!!” This is also a good time to mention that I did not always agree with every bit of Chuck D’s pro-black politics, but I did agree with much of it and because of the high artistic quality, which was my main concern personally, I was sold.
No album before or since has matched its brilliance and inventiveness in the genre as far as I have ever heard. Their next album would be the even more dense “Fear of a Black Planet”, another classic in it’s own right, but for my money nothing ever topped this one. Nothing in all of rap or hip-hop has ever exhilarated me more or made me want to leap off the couch with an exultant cry of “Yeeesss!!” (Or “Yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh boyeeeeeee, Ha ha!!!”) If you have never experienced it than I, obviously, highly, highly recommend it. Open year ears and mind on this one and prepare to be blown away. The album caused many imitators in group member design and surely in sound, and hip-hop was never the same again after it.