It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

NWA (ie, Dre) totally ripped the Bomb Squad production for ZAGGIN4EFIL and the "100 miles and running" EP. Gawd, remembering some of these songs in my head makes me realize just how bad Dre was as a rapper. I'm not sold on his legacy as a producer either tho...

For no reason I want to mention "Jackin' For Beats" by Ice Cube.

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...), March 25th, 2004 8:55 PM. (M Matos) (later)

point of order - it WAS!!!

It Takes a Nation of Interns to Troll Us Back

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/07/05/156327372/youve-never-heard-public-enemys-it-takes-a-nation-of-millions-to-hold-us-back

Ultimately, I have no regrets leaving It Takes A Nation on what is now an entirely metaphorical shelf. I'll gladly say thank-you, but given the choice, I'm going to blast Drake's infectiously triumphant mp3s every time.

ha ha, one of the pitfalls of free will. some will choose death over life every time.

"I hesitate to use the word influence, but the question really has to be asked: other than their perenial place on critic's polls what was Public Enemy's lasting effect on hip hop?"

yeah, I sometimes wonder why more writers choose not to write like Nabakov, or why more running backs choose not to run like Barry Sanders?

It's the ones who write like Sanders and run like Nabokov that concern me.

the lex responded

where?

Publishing this on NPR is definitely trollbait, but I don't have an issue with the kid preferring Drake to Public Enemy. Among all of the comments sputtering with outrage, there was a smart one, I thought, that said something to the effect of "Hey, based on your tastes in current hip-hop, Public Enemy probably wasn't the best recommendation. I bet you'd be more into Tribe or De La Soul."

That was Questlove!

Lex's response, which I thought was pretty great:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jul/17/public-enemy-classic-albums?newsfeed=true

lol NPR really running with this music-troll thing

That was Questlove!

Quest's comment was also good, but this was a different one.

I don't have a problem with the piece really. he listened to it and responded to it critically, and divorced as he is from it's context he doesn't find anything sonically engaging about it. that's fair.

of course if you really want to understand hip-hop's history as a genre you kind of have to know this record, but that's a different thing from enjoying listening to it

Exactly.

Publishing this on NPR is definitely trollbait, but I don't have an issue with the kid preferring Drake to Public Enemy. Among all of the comments sputtering with outrage, there was a smart one, I thought, that said something to the effect of "Hey, based on your tastes in current hip-hop, Public Enemy probably wasn't the best recommendation. I bet you'd be more into Tribe or De La Soul."

― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:44 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

whether the guy is allowed to have his opinion, or whether it's an understandable preference for someone his age, is like the 80th most pressing aspect of all this though

literally laughed out loud at lex's headline "Surely such youthful individuality should be applauded?"

What's the most pressing aspect of all this?

i don't care if he likes PE bigger problem is that he seems pretty inarticulate about the CURRENT hip hop he likes other than the fact that he likes it

also if you can write this sentence and not think "man i'm gonna get clowned for this" you're pretty fucking dense, i mean c'mon

I remember the first time I really cared about a rap song. It was the spring of 2010 and "Over" by Drake had just come out.

literally laughed out loud at lex's headline "Surely such youthful individuality should be applauded?"

― Barack 2 Chainz Obama (some dude), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the individuality of liking one of the top 4 or 5 the most popular artist among young people instead of liking an old rap group no young ppl like??

Maybe every half-formed thought that comes into an intern's tiny developing mind doesn't need to be blasted out to the worlds largest public radio audience

Quest's comment was also good, but this was a different one.

― Never translate Dutch (jaymc), Wednesday, July 18, 2012 12:53 PM Bookmark

oh, my bad. I should have doublechecked.

my main takeaway is that NPR really, really hates its interns

he's so brave tho whiney

surviving the halls of his high school hounded by mobs of burly teen christgaus beating him about the head with used CD copies of apocalypse 91

Sounds like the sequel to Streets of Fire right there.

19 year old acts like 19 year old, thirtysomethings respond like thirtysomethings

DJP OTM this is like an exercise in soliciting public ridicule

thirtysomethings?

19 year old acts like 19 year old,

most 19 year olds don't have a national in which to air their views!

national platform that is

npr has given a lot of adults play talking about what college rock and teen pop is good, only fair to let a teen in college speak

get a tumblr, 19 year olds

sure they'll have someone on npr talking about whatever young band reminds them of the 90s soon enough

maybe they should let the teen speak about music they actually like tho, rather then hectoring them into listening to some arcane artifact they're unlikely to understand

altho tbh I find his "listen to something made 3 years before I was born!? that's crazy!" schtick sort of weird. this is hardly a universal sentiment among teenagers ime.

Yeah, I really liked lex's resopnse and appreciated his main thrust, but, this...

the individuality of liking one of the top 4 or 5 the most popular artist among young people instead of liking an old rap group no young ppl like??

is exactly what I was thinking.

if this kid had said Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was trash NPR would've had to fire and publicly admonish him

i just think it's hilarious when guys who looooove to be irreverent are all pissed at this whippersnapper getting the mic

"let's tear down the canon! which canon? let's start with the most popular genre we cover the least" (xpost)

who's pissed?

it's trollbait, but no one seems pissed

you

i really sincerely do hope this all results in this kid having a one-on-one debate/interview with whiney

"brother intern, in order to shatter the canon first you must memorize it"

like i'll totally give him a pass on being as venomous as he wants to be since this is the album he literally wrote the book on (xpost)