Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (33 1/3)
Christopher R. Weingarten
Language: English
Pages: 160
ISBN: 0826429130
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Christopher R. Weingarten provides a thrilling account of how the Bomb Squad produced such a singular-sounding record: engineering, sampling, scratching, constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing - even occasionally stomping on vinyl that sounded too clean. Using production techniques that have never been duplicated, the Bomb Squad plundered and reconfigured their own compositions to make frenetic splatter collages; they played samples by hand together in a room like a rock band to create a "not quite right" tension; they hand-picked their samples from only the ugliest squawks and sirens.
Weingarten treats the samples used on Nation Of Millions as molecules of a greater whole, slivers of music that retain their own secret histories and folk traditions. Can the essence of a hip-hop record be found in the motives, emotions and energies of the artists it samples? Is it likely that something an artist intended 20 years ago would re-emerge anew? This is a compelling and thoroughly researched investigation that tells the story of one of hip-hop's landmark albums.
Remixology: Tracing the Dub Diaspora
The Advancing Guitarist (Reference)
Alban Berg and His World (The Bard Music Festival)
IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK Praise for the series: It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch . . . . The series . . . is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration—The New York Times Book Review Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner
they are products of the ’70s and ’80s and were influenced by TV shows like Good Times, The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son . . . [In the 1970s] Vietnam was over. It was an era of cocaine, heroin, partying and having a good time.”32 The age difference meant Public Enemy witnessed the rise of Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad, the speeches of Malcolm X, the emergence of the Black Panther Party, the start of the Vietnam War and its protest movement, the assassinations of Malcolm and Robert Kennedy
wrapped tightly under Friedman’s surveillance-camera cover, it became Nation of Millions ’ third single. Chapter Four – “Beat is the father of your rock ’n’ roll” While James Brown, Fred Wesley and the JB’s were picking up the pieces in 1971, space cadet Bootsy Collins and his brother Catfish had run away to join George Clinton’s P-Funk circus. Over the next decade, Parliament and Funkadelic would leave an acid-soaked trail that ushered in the second wave of funk, providing hip-hop
weekend long clad in Flav’s oversized clock, sunglasses and Viking helmet. The 12:30 a.m. performance was accordingly intense. Chuck and Flav stopped after “Show ’Em” to have a spirited back-and-forth. On the original record, the Bomb Squad had sampled Flav’s voice, but that night he breathlessly recreated it live in front of the sweaty, muddy Tennessee crowd. “Yo, you sound just like the record, my brother.” “Ayo, Chuck, you be sounding just like the record too.” “No, you sound like they
Frank and the Street Force. Using the same cut-and-paste technique the Bomb Squad used on their records, Chuck X-Acto-knifed a picture of LL Cool J’s buddy E Love from an issue of tweenie rap rag Right On! and fit it with crosshairs. When the group came up with their name in 1986, Chuck placed the logo next to some stenciled letters that were influenced by a gangster move he had seen on TV and broke it up with a Run-DMC-style horizontal crossbar. The logo alone was a stark, perfect symbol of how
