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Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (2010)

by Christopher R. Weingarten(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Bloomsbury Academic

series

33⅓

review 1: My first foray into the 33 1/3 series, and I can't imagine a better one. This is a phenomenal book about a phenomenal album, but more importantly, this is a book about the history of music sampling and the evolution of an entirely new genre of music.With page after page of detailed foundational information, and fascinating parallels drawn between significant moments in Black history (civil rights, the deaths of Malcolm X and MLK, James Brown and the rise of funk) and the evolution of Public Enemy, Weingarten offers up an education, not fanboy admiration.The details matter, and Weingarten highlights them all. A dozen pages on the "Funky Drummer" beat might seem like minutia, but I found myself hanging on every word, and realizing that the indescribable appreciation I have f... moreor the sound of It Takes a Nation of Millions is the result of precisely that level of attention to detail. The sonic tsunami that is this 2nd PE album has a history as well as a trajectory, and it's a captivating one.Part of the fun for me was going back and listening to some of the precursor music mentioned in the book. For example, Eric B and Rakim's "I know you got soul," which is described as making Chuck D "pissed...because I knew we didn't have anything to go against that." Hearing that track now, in 2012, you can't imagine how it could have made PE nervous, with its bare bones simplicity and its schoolkiid rapping.Highly recommended for any music fan, and doubly so for rap aficionados!
review 2: As a writing exercise, I will try to write my review as poorly as the author of this book because convoluted, as it may be, and history has a way of being confusing, which James Brown's drummer might know, but the Bomb Squad tried to use a different mix, but RFK was killed in the 60s, which history will affect... Ugh, I can't do it anymore. The writer doesn't interview any band members, provides barely any insight into the album. Rather, he focuses on the music which PE sampled. And even then, he screws it up.Ignore this book, just buy the incredible album. Grade: D less

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