Your Favorite White Boy

There is a great debate going over at Dallas Penn and Daily Mathematics that I’m hoping my fellow bloggers will weigh in on.  A quick rundown: from the posts, I guess DP was chilling at the crib with Combat Jack and was getting all goopy over Fear of A Black Planet.  He said it was the greatest P.E. album ever made.  Combat Jack vehemently disagreed, saying that It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back was by far the superior album.

They took it to their blogs and not to blow smoke up asses, but the result is exactly what making blogging worth all this bandwith and time.  Both bloggers went into their respective corners and banged out their treatise on why each album is the G.O.A.T. from their perspective.   As one who has been known to butt into a debate or four, I’m throwing my money on the table.  I want to see all my blogger fam do the same.  If you don’t, I’m automatically better than you.

I a coming down on It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, which I will be abbreviating to “Nations”, as  I’m lazy.  Nations is an iconic album; not solely because it is where most of the public, especially of the suburban variety, were introduced to Public Enemy.  It is iconic because Nations is at the core of how we currently define what P.E. was and what they are today.

Don’t get it twisted – I was up on P.E. in 1987 when Yo Bum Rush The Show came out.   There’s even a videotape somewhere of me and my friends dressed all in black and lipsyncing “Public Enemy No 1″ in my friend’s basement, but I digress.  Yo was a dope album.  But the P.E. identity we know today was not yet fully formed.   When Nations arrived on store shelves, we had a complete picture of Public Enemy.

I respect Dallas’ personal connection to Fear, based on what was going on in NYC and in his life.  So I can understand why that album would have such significance – for him.  They say music is the soundtrack of our lives and there was no question that Fear captured the anger, frustration and growth of P.E. as a group were going through at the time, and obviously heads like Penn – even NYC itself.  That’s significant.  Most important albums in music are snapshots in time.

However, Fear delved into specifics while Nations spoke on issues in more general, abstract terms.  Fear built on what Nations actually created.  In terms of image, Flav’s clock, Chuck’s hat tilted over his eyes, Griff and the S1Ws – those were all created on Nations.  In terms of sound and content, the classic “Wall of Sound” style that Bomb Squad pioneered was first heard on Nations.    As Jack noted, some of the Squad’s best production was done on Nations: “Rebel Without A Pause”; “She Watch Channel Zero”; and the classic “Don’t Believe The Hype”.  More so than Fear, the tracks on Nations were a much more cohesive fit to Chuck’s bombastic delivery.  Fear’s sound was innovative, Nations’ was perfect.

The subject matter – fighting the system, racial conflict, social injustice, flat out absolute rage – created the core of what Chuck and Flav spoke on.  “I got a letter from the Government the other day….”  This is where it all began. I respect to the fullest that Fear delved into more personal issues (see: “Welcome To The Terrordrome”) and made much more specific social commentary (“Meet The G That Killed Me”, “Anti N–ger Machine”).  And I cannot discount the fact that Fear birthed one of the greatest combative anthems of all time, “Fight The Power”.

However, Fear cannot possibly match the pace, tone or trailblazing qualities Nations brought to heads back in 1988.   In my opinion, it is no less than one of the important rap albums in its musical history.  It mixed consciousness with nakedly blunt commentary and had the aggressive soundscape to back it up.  I had never heard anything like it before and really haven’t since.

Fear of a Black Planet extended that legacy, but It Takes A Nations of Millions To Hold Us Back created it.

Tags: Daily Mathematics, Dallas Penn, Fear Of A Black Planet, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy