Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (33 1/3)

Every 33.3 has a different author, so youse pays yer 33 cents and takes yer chances. This one is a masterpiece. The author identifies the samples used, and then goes back in time to write about the original recording, forward to the PE track, and beyond that to the impact of the track on later artists. It's beautifully written and packed with revelations that should please and surprise the most hardcore fans, while giving new listeners a sublime learning curve on this astounding album. I wish there were an audiobook, but I'd probably still buy the hard-copy in order to go page by page and call up each sample on youtube as it's mentioned.

The best 33 and 1/3 books make you realize not only why an album is so great, but that it is better than you thought. I grew up listening to Public Enemy. I remember when "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" was a "world premiere" video on MTV. I was a fourth-grader; a whiteboy from the sticks who would soon be reading books by and about Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, Huey Newton, Marcus Garvey, and Eldridge Cleaver -- thanks to Chuck D and Public Enemy. P.E. was definitely my favorite group up through 1994, and even after the big miss with Muse-Sick-N-Hour-Mess-Age, I still cited them as my favorite group "of all time," with Nation of Millions #2 only to Illmatic. But somehow, over the past five years or so, P.E. and this album had fallen in my estimation. I was asked to compile a list of top 25 hip-hop albums of all time last year, and I ranked Nation of Millions... #25. Well, after reading this excellent book by Christopher Weingarten, it's back at #2 and may even be knocking on the door of #1 -- and for reasons I never would have suspected.Growing up, I was always much more concerned with lyricism than production. I remember I used to consider hip-hop beats "background music" for the rhyming. My favorite emcees as a kid were Rakim, KRS-ONE, and Chuck D. Rapping was about being smart, first and foremost, and it wasn't until The Chronic that I really started paying attention to beats. Now, I make beats (or at least try to) on the MPC 2000, and I've been doing that an and off again for 15 years. I collect records and always listen for samples, but this is a comparatively recent development, if you consider that the bulk of the formative years of my hip-hop education came B.C. (Before Chronic). Thus, while I have a keen appreciation for what guys like Pete Rock, J Dilla, DJ Premier, and even Kanye West do and have done with their samplers, I never really gave a whole lot of thought to the Bomb Squad. Chris Weingarten's book is actually much more about Nation's production than Chuck D's lyrical content -- and that really surprised me.As a beat-digger myself, I loved Weingarten's approach. He takes each of the major samples used by Public Enemy, and traces not only why and how they were used, but also the conditions under which the original recordings were made! The amount of care and research required to do this is staggering, and it is no surprise that at 138 pages (prior to Works Cited), this is the longest of the five hip-hop books in the 33 and 1/3 series. For example, when looking at P.E.'s usage of James Brown's "The Grunt," Weingarten goes back to an evening when the J.B.'s were in mutiny, refusing to take the stage for the Godfather of Soul unless he paid them more. Refusing to bow down to his band, Brown tracked down Bootsy Collins and his Pacesetters and sent his private jet to pick them up and play the show! From here, we get "The Grunt." Each of the major samples used are traced in similar fashion, and I especially liked the sections on Isaac Hayes and Rufus Thomas (and the whole Wattstax thing, which I knew nothing about).The denseness of information caused me to read this book over three or four days, whereas I finished most of the other 33 and 1/3 books in a day or two, but the entire time I was reading it, I kept relaying stories to my wife and telling her, "This is like the greatest thing I've ever read!" All the while, I was listening to Nation of Millions, and I haven't stopped. It is once again in heavy rotation, and now -- for the first time ever -- I truly appreciate its greatness. You know how P.E. had that chaotic, rock 'n roll intensity to their music? That's because they didn't sequence their beats -- they'd all stand around at samplers, tapping them in, jamming like a live band! Four samplers (or more), with even Flavor Flav responsible for the snares! These are the kind of details that I love, and they're missing from all of the other 33 and 1/3 books (save Paul's Boutique) that I've read. I've enjoyed all the hip-hop books in the series, and Paul's Boutique gives it a run for its money, but this is the best. Stop what you're doing and buy this book NOW!

Really enjoyed this book, such a great and quick read. I knew a lot about this record already but the book was meticulously researched and I learned a ton throughout the read. Cannot recommend this enough to fans of music, hip-hop or Public Enemy. Great behind the scenes look via interviews and stories of a classic album.

The book contains a lot of background on the making of the record - PE's transition from "Yo! Bum Rush the Show," their relationship with Russell Simmons, the Beastie Boys, Rick Rubin and Run DMC, how the beats were built, Chuck D's involvement in the production, so on and so forth. The information is all interesting, but what sets the book apart is the same thing that set the record apart: the samples.Christopher Weingarten starts pulling on strings to see where they lead, and you get the sense that he could have gone on for another hundred pages with no problem.If the records sampled were played in your house growing up, I'm not sure how riveting this book would be for you. If you were raised on Neil Diamond and Joan Baez (or some similarly James-Brown-less palette)and Nation of Millions sounded like a screed from another planet when you heard it, then every page of this book is a revelation and a story well-told. Weingarten pulls out individual samples and tells the stories of those records, often tying them to PE, explaining how they were chosen.The writing is crisp and the writer has a good eye for interesting detail, regularly stopping to tell a good story only tangentially related to Nation of Millions.After reading the book, I listened to the album, and it's almost new to me. An immensely enjoyable trip overall.

seriously aggravating book, as a primer on the whole of black american culture since the 60s it may have some negligible worth but as a description of the album and its makers it is comprehensively flawed, the author suffers from a grasshopper mind that should be righteously thwacked with a rolled up newspaper. He is so busy waxing lyrical over the various line ups of James Brown bands that Public Enemy barely get a look in, Flava Flav has two paragraphs, Bootsy Collins has three pages.The author just doesn't seem that interested in the band. There is, eventually, some interesting background info on the albums recording and the samples employed so it's a worthwhile slog for the serious fan but it's seriously flawed, Spin should recomission the book and get someone in that is interested in the band and the album, preferably using the song by song breakdown device that works so well in other books in the series.

Fascinating insights into the production of this classic album. The author skilfully uncovers and explains the significance of some of the (over 100) samples used on the creation of this record. Thankfully this never feels dry or dull, instead it draws us to gain a deeper understanding of this 80s masterpiece and its cultural significance.

Great story about a seminal album. Loved hearing the backstories to the tracks and about all the samples used. Got a big list of tunes to buy now!