GRAMMY-winning hip-hop group and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Public Enemy first released their seminal sophomore album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on vinyl through Def Jam Recordings on June 28, 1988. The album is also released on cassette tape that same year around the same date.

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 by saying, “It changed the face of rap music.”

Tracklist

Side Silver

1. Countdown To Armageddon
2. Bring The Noise
3. Don’t Believe The Hype
4. Cold Lampin With Flavor
5. Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic
6. Mind Terrorist
7. Louder Than A Bomb
8. Caught, Can We Get A Witness?

Side Black

1. Show ‘Em Whatcha Got
2. She Watch Channel Zero?!
3. Night Of The Living Baseheads
4. Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
5. Security Of The First World
6. Rebel Without A Pause
7. Prophets Of Rage
8. Party For Your Right To Fight