Public Enemy ‘Yo! Bum Rush The Show’ 30th Anniversary
Release date: 10th February 1987
Label: Def Jam
Producers: The Bomb Squad, Bill Stephney
Profile (courtesy of Wikipedia):
“Yo! Bum Rush the Show is the debut studio album of American hip hop group Public Enemy. The album was released on February 10, 1987 under Def Jam Recordings. The group’s logo, a silhouette of a black man in a rifle’s crosshairs, debuted on the album’s cover.Yo! Bum Rush the Show features a sample-heavy sound by production team The Bomb Squad. The album peaked at number 125 on the U.S. Billboard Top LPs chart and at number 28 on the Top Black Albums chart.NME magazine named it the best album of the year in its 1987 critics poll. Along with the Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill (1986) and LL Cool J’s Radio (1985), music writer Cheo H. Coker has cited Yo! Bum Rush the Show as one of three of the most influential albums in hip hop history. In 1998, it was selected as one of The Source’s 100 Best Rap Albums. In 2003, the album was ranked number 497 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
According to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, “From its first album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show in 1987, the group marketed itself as a distillation of black anger and resistance. It set out to be the voice of a community, not just one more posse of boasters”. Yo! Bum Rush the Show debuts The Bomb Squad’s sample-heavy production style, which is prominent on the group’s following work. Joe Brown of The Washington Post described the album’s music as “a more serious brand of inner-city aggression”, in comparison to Licensed to Ill (1986) by Def Jam label-mates the Beastie Boys. On its musical style, Brown wrote “Public Enemy’s mean and minimalist rap is marked by an absolute absence of melody - the scary sound is just a throbbing pulse, hard drums and a designed-to-irritate electronic whine, like a dentist’s drill or a persistent mosquito”. The album’s sound is accented by the scratching of DJ Terminator X.Chicago Tribune writer Daniel Brogan described Public Enemy’s style on the album as “raw and confrontational”, writing that the group “doesn’t aim to—or have a chance at—crossing over”.”
Additional info:
- Listen to samples used in the making of the album on WhoSampled.
Purchase: Discogs