I bought this tape and played it over and over until it broke. Then I spliced it back together with some scotch tape until it broke again. This was a monumental moment in hip hop, and this song is probably the dopest of them all.
Easily one of my favorite PE songs. And I don't think there has ever been a rap song laid out quite like this - 15 second intro - 8 bar verse - 5 second mini interlude - 8 bar verse - 5 second mini interlude - 8 bar verse - 30 second main interlude - 16 bar verse - 30 second main interlude - 8 bar verse - abrupt ending Chuck's flow is masterful here and the record is up tempo without it being out of control. With everything that is going on in this country today, I wish a few of the more popular rappers today would do more socially conscious songs that would enlighten more of these kids today.
***** Absolutely! This is the single best bit of scratching I have ever heard. The ONLY other rap song that comes anywhere close to this one is Bring the Noise.
bought this tape when i was 9 yrs old in 1988...played it so much,i broke about 6 tapes this beat and song will forever be fireee!!!!!!!!!! dope video too
Blew my mind back in the day. Three thing knocked me out of my feet ever - the first time I heard "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin as a kid, then "Anarchy in the UK" and this.
Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey & Margaret Thatcher, These were the names mentioned in this song, sadly it flew right over some peoples heads without notice, but look them up when u have time. The Margret Thatcher line was actually a diss because of her views on Apartheid and the ANC....Jus look em up
we need music like this today. this music provoked thought,change,action and rebellion just what we need in this day and time, instead of doing the soulja boy or the stanky legg. THINK!!!!!!
Mandela, cell dwellar Thatcher you can tell her Clear the way for the Prophets of Rage Damn that's deep. Gotta say that has more meaning than: This is why I'm hot, this is why I'm hot I'm hot cuz I'm fly you ain't cuz you not This is why, this is why, this is why I'm hot To paraphrase Public Enemy "As you sing your senseless songs to the mindless"
Yes #1 hip hop group of all time....there are some who can come close but no one was bigger or more socially and pollitically relevant for their time. They need to tour again. "Nation" was voted #1 Album in The Source...dont sleep kids.
We should retroactively make a video for every song off Nation of Millions just like this one. I'm putting out the memo right now. Get to work, cut & pasters.
I dont knoooooow which track is my favorite from P.E...2 many sigh...! I'm the recordable But God made it affordable I say it, you play it Back in your car or even portable always love this line
seriously, listen to the depth and meaning to these lyrics. you just don't get this in today's hip hop. for me this is PE's best song of all time. I get pumped everytime I hear it.
@TheRealCritique OH HELL NO....I LOVE IT! KEEP IT REAL PLEASE CAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE STILL SLEEP ON REAL MUSIC! PE IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE ONE OF THE BEST GROUPS EVER!
Exactly, when you see a comment like- "R.I.P. protest rap, Obama's in the whitehouse," you think man that guy thinks protest rap is all about blackness, and since Obama is obviously black- you know just looking at him, they should forget about protest rap. It's over because you know we have a black president. black blackety black, I'm tired of it. Let's just forget about the facts of his lineage. Barack Hussein Obama is 50 Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75 Arabic and 6.25 African.
Hypothetical: I get a job, lets say at McDonalds. I'm in charge of fries. I tell my boss that I'm gonna do my very best to make the best fries possible. Customers start to arrive, I fry some fries for them. Then I commence to shit on the fries. Customers are like wha?? I tell them the fries are delicious that way, they say well ok. A year goes by and I've been shitting on everybodies fries all this time. Some people think I should be fired, my boss thinks I'm trying my best.
You clearly don't have the intellectual capacity to listen to music like this. Stick to listening to music about glorifying guns and violence. As a matter of fact, Wu Tang talked about a lot of deep stuff too. Did you ever listen the Gza's Liquid Swords album? Like I said you wouldn't even understand it any how.
listen up & this is the truth Public Enemy are the shit - old school rap done with heart & conviction these guys believed in what they were doing today every mother fucker out there is just doing it for the money Public Enemy had a message & brought that message to everyone... Public Enemy are still the greatest!
@ efex2007, you are sadly uninformed. Everything Obama has said hes gonna do, hes done the opposite. I defy you to name one thing he has followed through with, that was promised. You cannot. Ron Paul 2012
besides, black people in general, in our struggle, were not always swimming in money we were swimming in under-privelege and that is what he's rapping about, to fight the system.
@maofunkshun Norman Rodgers aka Terminator X was just a prop DJ, it was DJ Johnny Juice who did all the ill transformer scratches on P.E.'s 1st & 2nd albums. Juice was the Ghost DJ for X & tried to teach him how to transform! Just type in "Johnny Juice Scratch Practice" and "DJ Johnny Juice Movin the Crowd w/ M-Audio Torq at DJ Expo" & learn this cats history. It's one of hip hops biggest but widely unknown secrets!
I DO believe it is by design. I agree with that and all must look at what was going on at the time P.E. were doing their thing. the fact that PE were holding large concerts over seas, influencing youth from a wide range of races and cultures as well as giving away at their concerts copies of The Isis Papers The Keys to the colors by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and no wonder that Gangsta rap became more and more PROMOTED to the point that NWA albums were put out around the same time as PE albums.
Rakim is the greatest lyricist - his word play and style are sick! He was #2 in Kool Moe Dee's "There is a God on the Mic" 50 greatest MCs. Chuck was #5 - 8 can't recall. However, with presence, command, SUBSTANCE, word play and intensity - Chuck and PE reign! Flav is perfect compliment. I love both Rakim and PE and Run DMC. All are masters, with RUN DMC being the first Godfathers of Rap. But PE may have eased by them a bit. Also Whodini is mad underrated.
@udownwithepic I couldn't agree more. Boots Riley is a great lyricist with a humorous side to him which I think is pretty cool. Also Boots Riley is doing music with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave in a group called Street Sweeper Social Club. Check them out if you haven't. Good Shit.
I could be wrong, but I think the divide between the shallow and the meaningful is more pronounced in rap and hiphop; there's less middle ground than there is in rock or pop. And to add to that mostly it's the vapid stuff that gets popular. A lot of the time middle-of-the-road pop and rock gets a modest amount of popularity, so it's seen as a more "intelligent" genre.
Oh and speaking of arizona.. can i see some papers? Guess we need another oversized 80s rap group with Dancers and angry frontman who can flow half decent called Paco D and his hype man Burrito Burrito with a big chulopa clock around his neck.. Wu-Tang Forever motherfuckers! !
preach on brotha Maz2aru. "If you don't think i'm a brotha then check my chromazones." There is no balance and it IS by design. Yes, Immortal Technique is one of my faves, but he had to sell out the trunk. No record company would touch him. But you can get all the mindless sex, drugs and guns u want.
WhenIgnoranceReigns, please tell me what the hell you are talking about. Chuck D lived in Long Island as a kid, and Zach de la Rocha lived in Irvine. Underprivileged? Please. You don't need to romanticize the backstory of Chuck D. He speaks the truth. That's all that matters.
It's not as if they were born with tons of money. Most of the good political activist lyricists WERE underprivileged. (Public Enemy, Zack de la Rocha, Immortal Technique, etc.) It's not as if they make music as a hobby. It's their job. People tend to get paid for doing their jobs.
In 2012 this record NEVER would have never made it to pressing. The so-called chosen and Lyor Cohen would have SHUT IT DOWN. LMAO Are you enjoying Kosher Drake and Kosher Mac Miller Good Night and L'Chaim Rythmic American Poetry (RAP)
I call it plain insane brothers causin me pain when a brother's a victim in a cellar a dweller in a cage Those are lyrics!! Style, flow, and with a PURPOSE!! Nas was right, Hip-Hop IS dead....
swimming in money or not, PE sent a message stronger than how big their rocks were or what whip they were in. Todays rap aint shit in comparison. Who gives a fugg how much money someone has?
Beyond a doubt...Chuck was first...without taking away from any other rapper out there, Chuck was just a cut above...it's all about the dexterity and intensity. I wish he'd still write.
I bought this tape and played it over and over until it broke. Then I spliced it back together with some scotch tape until it broke again. This was a monumental moment in hip hop, and this song is probably the dopest of them all.
Easily one of my favorite PE songs. And I don't think there has ever been a rap song laid out quite like this
- 15 second intro
- 8 bar verse
- 5 second mini interlude
- 8 bar verse
- 5 second mini interlude
- 8 bar verse
- 30 second main interlude
- 16 bar verse
- 30 second main interlude
- 8 bar verse
- abrupt ending
Chuck's flow is masterful here and the record is up tempo without it being out of control.
With everything that is going on in this country today, I wish a few of the more popular rappers today would do more socially conscious songs that would enlighten more of these kids today.
***** Absolutely! This is the single best bit of scratching I have ever heard. The ONLY other rap song that comes anywhere close to this one is Bring the Noise.
+finisher3x Enlightened kids don't buy what you tell them... For that purpose, you have to dumb them down...
Still fresh as !!!!!! 25 years later they still do it the best love Chuck D one of the best rappers, love it!!!!!!!!
Public Enemy forever! The greatest Hip Hop group of all time!
Maybe my favorite PE song, underappreciated but a definite classic.
My God Chuck D is the greatest MC ever!!!!
Q
really got to pump your fists when Terminator X solos
I've seen Griff do those round house kicks at 1:53 before. Don't let his height fool you.lol. Love these brothers.
Saw them in '88 at Brighton Centre, they blew Run DMC off the stage, PE should have been headliners that night. Get a little stoopid!!!!
bought this tape when i was 9 yrs old in 1988...played it so much,i broke about 6 tapes
this beat and song will forever be fireee!!!!!!!!!!
dope video too
Me too issued to record this track over blank cassettes
If you're here because of RATM...
no, because of Public Enemy (Prophets Of Rage covered this, not RATM).
Greatest HH band of the 90's ! Was my favourite ! Always good to hear them.
back when Rap/Hip-Hop was real
i was listening to PE 25 years ago an still love them today,awesomeness!!! Lost at birth keeps getting taken off youtube though :(
One of the hardest hitting cuts ever
Blew my mind back in the day. Three thing knocked me out of my feet ever - the first time I heard "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin as a kid, then "Anarchy in the UK" and this.
Still on it 2019 !!!
On to 2020, still 🔥🔥🔥
Spoken like a true Rabid Khazar hustler of cultures.
"Hustlers of cultures" I cant take credit for. Chuck D called them that first. LMAO
So glad I got a chance to see them live in their heydays - together with the Beastie Boys. PE never dies!
Chuck D went hard on this.
..I roll with the punches so I survive...
This album changed my life
Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey & Margaret Thatcher, These were the names mentioned in this song, sadly it flew right over some peoples heads without notice, but look them up when u have time. The Margret Thatcher line was actually a diss because of her views on Apartheid and the ANC....Jus look em up
32 years letter and the song resonates more than ever. Masters of their craft. 🔥🔥🔥
we need music like this today. this music provoked thought,change,action and rebellion just what we need in this day and time, instead of doing the soulja boy or the stanky legg. THINK!!!!!!
At 0:52 the line you hear is also sampled in the hook of Jurassic 5's whats golden
Mandela, cell dwellar
Thatcher you can tell her
Clear the way for the Prophets of Rage
Damn that's deep. Gotta say that has more meaning than:
This is why I'm hot, this is why I'm hot
I'm hot cuz I'm fly you ain't cuz you not
This is why, this is why, this is why I'm hot
To paraphrase Public Enemy "As you sing your senseless songs to the mindless"
Yes #1 hip hop group of all time....there are some who can come close but no one was bigger or more socially and pollitically relevant for their time. They need to tour again. "Nation" was voted #1 Album in The Source...dont sleep kids.
This and Run DMC were the first rap albums I had. They are still the best of their kind in 2021.
We should retroactively make a video for every song off Nation of Millions just like this one. I'm putting out the memo right now. Get to work, cut & pasters.
I dont knoooooow which track is my favorite from P.E...2 many sigh...!
I'm the recordable
But God made it affordable
I say it, you play it
Back in your car or even portable
always love this line
played Dublin, Ireland in 1989 and that was a major happening for skinny white irish kids at trinty, prophets of rage - best song in my opinion
Terminator X destroy'd the tables on this joint...(if his back-up dj was on the track, then he kill'd it, too)!!!
british rap has also a lot of meaning i once saw silverbullet in the foreplay of a PE concert and that was awesome
.....and if you haven't already check out Josh Wink vs Public Enemy,turn it up and let your ears melt.....
One the best songs from the best group.
Period.
the best rap group of all time,
They sampled "Shining Star" the live version from the album Gratitude.
Those Jackson 5 and EWF samples are used just right! Excellent job!
POWERFUL. POWERFUL POWERFUL POWERFUL POWERFUL THANK YOU GOD.
One of PE's best
terminator x brought a damn nice beat to the table too!! cheers man
seriously, listen to the depth and meaning to these lyrics. you just don't get this in today's hip hop. for me this is PE's best song of all time. I get pumped everytime I hear it.
My all time favourite "Prophets Of Rage"!
20 years later, this track still kicks.
@TheRealCritique
OH HELL NO....I LOVE IT! KEEP IT REAL PLEASE CAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE STILL SLEEP ON REAL MUSIC! PE IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE ONE OF THE BEST GROUPS EVER!
This is REAL rap ya'll! Not the bullshit that's out now!
Actually, WU are way better to you. To someone else, maybe not so. Music is subjective...it's a matter of personal taste...
You guys kick ass! Keep in it old school 👍 check out Www.Novanquished.com
The Earth, Wind & Fire sample is nice!!!
Prophets of rage is their new group now, guess we know where the name came from.
slusam enemy od 1989. g. svaki dan i nije mi dosadno.
i love pe!
theyre still revolutionary
This song will forever give me goose bunps and get me charged!! PE 4 Life!
SUPER POWER SONG.I LIKE IT.
love it, this song has me pumped
lyrics delivered with venom...beautiful
Chris Easdon u damn right
The G. O. A.T.
You are so right about that Public Enemy will always be untouchable.
1988😍
Basically...sort of...80s-90s on left, 00s on right...
Exactly, when you see a comment like- "R.I.P. protest rap, Obama's in the whitehouse," you think man that guy thinks protest rap is all about blackness, and since Obama is obviously black- you know just looking at him, they should forget about protest rap. It's over because you know we have a black president. black blackety black, I'm tired of it. Let's just forget about the facts of his lineage. Barack Hussein Obama is 50 Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75 Arabic and 6.25 African.
Hypothetical: I get a job, lets say at McDonalds. I'm in charge of fries. I tell my boss that I'm gonna do my very best to make the best fries possible. Customers start to arrive, I fry some fries for them. Then I commence to shit on the fries. Customers are like wha?? I tell them the fries are delicious that way, they say well ok. A year goes by and I've been shitting on everybodies fries all this time. Some people think I should be fired, my boss thinks I'm trying my best.
You clearly don't have the intellectual capacity to listen to music like this. Stick to listening to music about glorifying guns and violence. As a matter of fact, Wu Tang talked about a lot of deep stuff too. Did you ever listen the Gza's Liquid Swords album? Like I said you wouldn't even understand it any how.
listen up & this is the truth Public Enemy are the shit - old school rap done with heart & conviction these guys believed in what they were doing today every mother fucker out there is just doing it for the money Public Enemy had a message & brought that message to everyone... Public Enemy are still the greatest!
One of the most sickest PE track.
@ efex2007, you are sadly uninformed. Everything Obama has said hes gonna do, hes done the opposite. I defy you to name one thing he has followed through with, that was promised. You cannot. Ron Paul 2012
besides, black people in general, in our struggle, were not always swimming in money we were swimming in under-privelege and that is what he's rapping about, to fight the system.
@maofunkshun Norman Rodgers aka Terminator X was just a prop DJ, it was DJ Johnny Juice who did all the ill transformer scratches on P.E.'s 1st & 2nd albums. Juice was the Ghost DJ for X & tried to teach him how to transform! Just type in "Johnny Juice Scratch Practice" and "DJ Johnny Juice Movin the Crowd w/ M-Audio Torq at DJ Expo" & learn this cats history. It's one of hip hops biggest but widely unknown secrets!
I DO believe it is by design. I agree with that and all must look at what was going on at the time P.E. were doing their thing. the fact that PE were holding large concerts over seas, influencing youth from a wide range of races and cultures as well as giving away at their concerts copies of The Isis Papers The Keys to the colors by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and no wonder that Gangsta rap became more and more PROMOTED to the point that NWA albums were put out around the same time as PE albums.
Rakim is the greatest lyricist - his word play and style are sick! He was #2 in Kool Moe Dee's "There is a God on the Mic" 50 greatest MCs. Chuck was #5 - 8 can't recall. However, with presence, command, SUBSTANCE, word play and intensity - Chuck and PE reign! Flav is perfect compliment. I love both Rakim and PE and Run DMC. All are masters, with RUN DMC being the first Godfathers of Rap. But PE may have eased by them a bit. Also Whodini is mad underrated.
the masters!
@udownwithepic I couldn't agree more. Boots Riley is a great lyricist with a humorous side to him which I think is pretty cool. Also Boots Riley is doing music with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave in a group called Street Sweeper Social Club. Check them out if you haven't. Good Shit.
I could be wrong, but I think the divide between the shallow and the meaningful is more pronounced in rap and hiphop; there's less middle ground than there is in rock or pop. And to add to that mostly it's the vapid stuff that gets popular.
A lot of the time middle-of-the-road pop and rock gets a modest amount of popularity, so it's seen as a more "intelligent" genre.
Oh and speaking of arizona.. can i see some papers? Guess we need another oversized 80s rap group with Dancers and angry frontman who can flow half decent called Paco D and his hype man Burrito Burrito with a big chulopa clock around his neck.. Wu-Tang Forever motherfuckers! !
preach on brotha Maz2aru. "If you don't think i'm a brotha then check my chromazones." There is no balance and it IS by design. Yes, Immortal Technique is one of my faves, but he had to sell out the trunk. No record company would touch him. But you can get all the mindless sex, drugs and guns u want.
WhenIgnoranceReigns, please tell me what the hell you are talking about. Chuck D lived in Long Island as a kid, and Zach de la Rocha lived in Irvine. Underprivileged? Please. You don't need to romanticize the backstory of Chuck D. He speaks the truth. That's all that matters.
It's not as if they were born with tons of money. Most of the good political activist lyricists WERE underprivileged. (Public Enemy, Zack de la Rocha, Immortal Technique, etc.) It's not as if they make music as a hobby. It's their job. People tend to get paid for doing their jobs.
yeah but back then, they had a higher cause for their music, their focus wasn't necessarily on their money. (At least the political rappers wasn't.)
In 2012 this record NEVER would have never made it to pressing.
The so-called chosen and Lyor Cohen would have
SHUT IT DOWN.
LMAO
Are you enjoying Kosher Drake and Kosher Mac Miller
Good Night and L'Chaim Rythmic American Poetry (RAP)
still today no one can touch them as a rap group
Truth
The thing is a lot of hip hop was on that political tip back then. You still had the gangsta stuff but unlike nowadays you had an alternative.
I call it plain
insane
brothers causin me pain
when a brother's a victim
in a cellar
a dweller
in a cage
Those are lyrics!! Style, flow, and with a PURPOSE!!
Nas was right, Hip-Hop IS dead....
PE is ORIGINAL SCHOOL, kid...get it right.
swimming in money or not, PE sent a message stronger than how big their rocks were or what whip they were in. Todays rap aint shit in comparison. Who gives a fugg how much money someone has?
Beyond a doubt...Chuck was first...without taking away from any other rapper out there, Chuck was just a cut above...it's all about the dexterity and intensity. I wish he'd still write.
Probably my favorite PE song ever made. Listen to how it flows. 5 STARS
This style seems wild, wait before you treat me like a step child. let me tell you why they got me on file. ha ha ha! I love PE
i'm a rock and roll loving middle class indie white kid and even I love this; it's fucking brilliant, but then so's the whole of a nation of millions.
barak cant pull this place outta the bs bush left it in with only one term.give the man 2 terms,you give bush two terms and he made things worse.
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, for example, has a meaningful message
I defy anyone to find one meaningful thing about any song by Soulja boy
I understand .. but wu is better lol thats a fact. Im talking music here not impacts on society and mlk and arizona .. lol deep stuff.
@ efex2007 why? hes only 5% black, and has done nothing for black people. R.I.P. protest rap? LOL never.
ogrebattle,vismajorx i'm feelin where u cats r comin from n im a top supporter ol'skool 2 my heart pleez keep me posted
They opened with this at First Avenue in Minneapolis in '99. One of the best opening tracks to a concert I have ever seen.
and public enemy knew what they were talking about, like you say most modern rap is just people bigging up themselvs
Drinking Powerade in Fresno, thinking about a revolution
@jazzpoetess your not talking to me...cuz I don't remember using the word race at all.
They tell lies in the books that you're reading, it's knowledge of yourself that you're needing!
@robert3473
Terminator X didn't do any cuts on the vinyls, he deejayed on live performances.
@nikkolic И аз батко и аз ;) отлично се вписват в ситуацията на Балканите. 5/5
14 in 88 and we would be riding bikes playing ball and bangin It takes a Nation to hold us back all summer. This album had a positive effect on me.