Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (33 1/3) Read Online Free Page B

live snippet of Public Enemy performing “Rebel” at the Hammersmith Odeon. Chuck demands that Terminator X “bring that beat back” — and the beat he brings back is ripped straight from a vinyl copy of “Funky Drummer” which he had been dutifully beat-matching with “Rebel” during the show. “Funky Drummer” is the eye of the storm in “Bring the Noise,” anchoring the second verse (hell, it even makes a cameo in the Anthrax version in ’91). It’s also likely the headbanger time-keeper buoying the Slayer riffs in “She Watch Channel Zero?!” When asked why he used “Funky Drummer” on “Rebel without a Pause,” Hank told
Rolling Stone
, “Because that song was my milk — like when you’re baking.” 17
    In 1988, hip-hop stood up and took notice. Chuck D says the first two copies of
Nation of Millions
that he received went to N.W.A.’s Dr. Dre and Eazy-E during a tour stop. Dre is an avowed fan of
Nation of Millions
, so maybe it’s no coincidence how the “Funky Drummer” break sneaks into one tension-releasing bar of the second verse of their “Fuck tha Police” — exactly the same as it does in the second verse of “Bring the Noise.” Run-DMC concocted an early versionof “Beats to the Rhyme” with “Funky Drummer” underneath in an attempt to be more like Public Enemy (they eventually settled on using the “Funky Drummer” loop in “Run’s House”). Other notable Stubblejackers in ’88: Eric B and Rakim’s “Lyrics of Fury” and Stetsasonic’s “DBC Let the Music Play.”
    Despite being tortured by art-terrorists Atari Teenage Riot, slowed down for Nine Inch Nails, drowned in bass by 2 Live Crew, surrounded by plush Dr. Dre interior and rapped over by practically every MC on the planet from 1988 to 1991, no one made “Funky Drummer” more arresting than Public Enemy. They practically own it. By the time Chuck and Flav were dubbed the conscience of the hip-hop generation, naturally given the final word in the landmark 1989 anti-violence benefit record “Self-Destruction,” the faint echo of “Funky Drummer” played in the background, a familiar bustle that everyone recognizes is there to clear the way for the prophets of rage.
    Stubblefield claims that the beat was influenced from the rumbling trains and appliances of his childhood. James Brown went even further back, taking a little credit for himself (as he was wont to do), saying the “beat of rap” was based on “the old drums of passion, my personal combination of the drums of Africa and the drums of the American Indian, both of whom I claim a heritage from.” 18
    “Funky Drummer” is a tricky, ineffable thing full of ghost notes. Biz Markie says he never heard anyonebeatbox it. None of the videos of people playing “Funky Drummer” on YouTube even come close. And even if the Bomb Squad didn’t sample it on “Rebel,” they certainly tried to capture its human element. The Bomb Squad huddled around samplers and pressed buttons in fractured unison, making sure it never looped perfectly. Flavor Flav tapped the snares in by hand on the Akai S-900 drum machine. They used him because Flav’s feel was different, something uniquely Flav — an example of the Bomb Squad going with what felt good over what felt right. Hank would later fill
Nation of Millions
with near silent ghosted notes so even the drum-machine beats sounded like breaks. There are extra kicks tacked in “Rebel” like drum fills so the beat never repeats itself. The beat isn’t a static loop: it’s a living organism. According to Hank there are four beats at play in “Rebel,” each with a different turnaround, all mixed and programmed and played so as to not repeat themselves. He says, “It gives you the illusion that the record is getting better instead of just staying linear.” 19 It’s truly a performance piece, closer to James Brown than the rap groups that sample him, the sound of a bunch of people sitting in a room and