Content
Throughout the album, Chuck D delivers narratives that are characterized by black nationalist rhetoric and regard topics such as self-empowerment for African Americans, critiques of White supremacy, and challenges to exploitation in the music industry. "Caught, Can We Get a Witness?" directly addresses the issue of sampling in hip hop and copyright violation from a perspective that supports the practice and claims entitlement due to "black ownership of the sounds in the first place".
"Rebel Without a Pause" exemplifies the faster tempo that Public Enemy intended for the album, while incorporating a heavy beat and samples of screeching horns, the latter taken from The J.B.'s' "The Grunt" (1972). According to Ron Eglash, such effects of sampling exemplify the "sense of urgency" given to the messages of the album's tracks, "to heighten the tension of the mix", while Chuck D's message is "one of total resistance that was readily accessible through the confrontational sounds of bass, groove, and noise." Lyrically, it eschews the traditional verse/chorus—verse/chorus song structure, with 12 bars of Chuck D's aggressive rapping, punctuated by Flavor Flav's stream of consciousness ad-libs. Public Enemy-biographer Russell Myrie writes of the track's significance, "It matched 'I Know You Got Soul' in terms of its innovation and its breathtaking quality. It increased the tempo for Public Enemy, something they would do repeatedly during their forthcoming masterpiece The faster tempo was important as it would heighten energy levels at their shows. Most important of all, it sounded fresh. It was some next level hip-hop. Chuck and Hank rightly felt it could stand alongside the best rap records of the time."
Some of the song titles make reference to other works from popular culture. The title of the song "Party for Your Right to Fight" is a rearrangement of the Beastie Boys' 1987 hit single "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)." The vocal sample of hip hop DJ Mr. Magic stating that his show would play "no more music by the suckers" was used on the song "Cold Lampin' with Flavor" after having been recorded from Magic's radio show by Flavor Flav. Magic had dissed the group with the line when he mistakenly embroiled them in the WBAU-WBLS radio war.
Read more about this topic: It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
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