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 2LP 180 gram vinyl—pressed on limited-run red or standard.
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.”
