Public Enemy’s sophomore album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, is considered one of the most influential and greatest hip-hop albums of all-time. Executive produced by Rick Rubin and produced by The Bomb Squad, It Takes a Nation was released on June 28, 1988 through Def Jam Recordings. Frontman Chuck D explained the origin of the album’s title. The album title was actually conceived from an interview from Now Magazine in Toronto, where they used it for the headline of their article. It comes from a line from a song that’s on Yo! Bum Rush The Show called “Raise The Roof.” Originally, the album was going to be called Countdown To Armageddon, but myself and Hank Shocklee, who was the other wall of noise, saw the interview together. We saw how long it was. It was so crazy long that it was actually kind of dope ‘cause it stood out. With the combination of Chuck D’s powerful socio-political rhymes and Flavor Flav’s comedy relief mixed with the collage of sounds—from James Brown and Queen to Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X—provided by the Bomb Squad, Public Enemy set out to make the hip-hop equivalent of Marvin Gaye’s classic 1971 album What’s Going On, an album noted for its strong social commentary. Noting the enthusiastic response toward their live shows, Chuck D explained that they wanted to make songs with a faster tempo than their previous album for performance purposes: We noticed when we did Yo! Bum Rush The Show, whenever a concert would happen, we would want to pick up the music on the turntable to join the hype of the crowd. We felt that recording wise it was one speed, so our BPM went up. We also wanted to present a live aspect. We were really influenced by the live Earth, Wind & Fire album called Gratitude. It influenced It Takes A Nation when we finally had all our songs done. I had this tape of our live performances in London to intersperse within the album. Chuck D also revealed that Rick Rubin thought “Rebel Without a Pause” and “Bring the Noise"—two of the album’s most popular songs—should be left off the album, Johnny Juice Rosado also provided DJ scratches on the album along with Terminator X, and the intended sequencing of the album was flipped by Hank Shocklee: The second side of It Takes A Nation was originally the first side, and the first side was originally the second side. The album topped the Billboard Top Black Albums chart and achieved platinum status one year after its release with support from the singles “Rebel Without a Pause,” “Bring the Noise,” “Don’t Believe the Hype,” “Night of the Living Baseheads,” and “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.” The album was very well received by music critics, who hailed it for its production techniques as well as the socially and politically charged lyricism. It Takes a Nation was listed on many “best of” lists, including a spot on The Source’s list of the Top 100 Rap Albums of All Time and it is ranked #15 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.