VIA PRESS RELEASE | GRAMMY® Award-winning legendary hip-hop collective and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame® Inductees Public Enemy celebrate the 35th anniversary of their seminal sophomore offering, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, with a very special new vinyl edition out November 10, 2023 via Universal Music Enterprises’ (UMe). Fittingly, the release also coincides with UMe’s continued celebration of rap’s 50th birthday, Hip-Hop 50, as well.
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back will be available in either 4-LP 180gram vinyl and 2LP 180 gram vinyl—pressed on limited-run red or standard. The 4LP package features bonus tracks from the Deluxe 2CD, extensive new liner notes penned by Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Q-Tip, and Questlove, and a 12×12 sticker insert of the instantly recognizable Public Enemy logo.
Speaking on this release, Chuck D said, “Thanks to Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and Whodini, we knew that hip-hop albums could explode on cassettes. At about the same time, Hank Shocklee was the manager of a record store, and he would point out how rock bands like Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, and even Bruce Springsteen were getting the most out of the album concept. So, we took that and went further with It Takes a Nation, approaching it like a rock band. It ended up becoming a part of rap’s evolution from a singles-driven genre into the dawn of rap’s album age.”
Public Enemy first dropped It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on an unsuspecting world on June 28, 1988. Nothing would ever be the same in its wake. It not only climbed to #1 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum, but it also carved out a place in history thanks to singles such as “Rebel Without a Pause,” “Bring the Noise,” “Don’t Believe the Hype,”and many more. It yielded an unprecedented collision of jazz fluidity, punchy funk, and fascinating sample alchemy with provocative, powerful, and poetic wordplay about everything from race to revolution.
By doing so, this magnum opus set a template followed by successive generations of rappers. Speaking to the record’s impact, Rolling Stone touted it in the Top 15 of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” while Pitchfork rated It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back a highly rare “10.0” score and summed it up best, “It changed the face of rap music.”
