178 pages Edited by Grégory Salle Text(s) by Grégory Salle 18 x 10 cm Language: French Paperback Publisher: Densité 2025
Released in 1988, at the height and the twilight of the Reagan-era counter-revolution, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is not only one of the greatest albums in the history of rap. By common consensus, Public Enemy’s second album stands as an exceptional work in its own right, an unprecedented musical object whose overwhelming power layers samples to surpass the raw energy of rock.
Both unsettling and magnetic, this politico-aesthetic manifesto is the result of careful construction as much as unrestrained spontaneity. These tensions run throughout the album’s New York patchwork, from its conditions of creation to its enduring legacy.
Led by the unlikely posse of Chuck D and Hank Shocklee, Public Enemy forged singularity through antagonism, between discipline and abandon, music and noise, seriousness and humor, the margins and the market, denunciation and entertainment, empowerment and spectacle. A record built on contradictions, whose force continues to resonate far beyond its time.
