PUBLIC ENEMY Vinyl & CDs

Review: A mere 35 years old and still brutally relevant, Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is as essential as late 80s hip-hop gets. It was the album that confirmed Chuck D, Flavor Flav and The Bomb Squad as a world-beating concern breaking beyond the boundaries of rap with a message that couldn't be ignored. When you listen back to it now, its influential status bursts out of every beat and bar, whether sampled, covered or para-phrased by the generations of MCs and producers who have come since. The nods and co-signs are all good, but sometimes you need to trackback to the source and realise how important Public Enemy were.