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“To find, at an impressionable age, a record that not only expands your sense of what music can do but offers a new way of reading the world, is a remarkable privilege. For my 16-year-old self, undergoing a political awakening, the musical epiphany was Public Enemy's 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet but its predecessor is the group's stem-to-stern masterpiece and still the most exciting album I have ever heard.

White Britons like me were thrown a bone by this fiercely pro-black band in the shape of the first track, in which future Radio 1 rave ambassador Dave Pearce introduces the band at the London date of the 1987 Def Jam tour. After the ominous siren and Professor Griff's declaration, "London, England, consider yourselves warned!", I was already on the edge of my seat. Public Enemy's international ambitions and focus on live performance were just two reasons why, even as they gave me a passion for hip-hop, they always felt bigger than hip-hop. Leapfrogging rap's usual emphasis on local identity, they saw the bigger picture and couched it in suitably omnivorous music” – The Guardian

“It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is the second studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy. It was released on June 28, 1988, by Def Jam Recordings.

With the album, Public Enemy set out to make the hip hop equivalent to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, a record noted for its strong social commentary. Recording sessions took place during 1987 at Chung King Studios, Greene St. Recording, and Sabella Studios in New York. Noting the enthusiastic response toward their live shows, Public Enemy intended with Nation of Millions to make the music of a faster tempo than the previous album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, for performance purposes.

The album charted for 49 weeks on the US Billboard 200, peaking at number 42. By August 1989, it was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of one million copies in the United States. The album was very well received by music critics, who hailed it for its production techniques and the socially and politically charged lyricism of lead MC Chuck D. It also appeared on many publications' year-end top album lists for 1988 and was the runaway choice as the best album of 1988 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll, a poll of the leading music critics in the US. – Wiki

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