Night Of The Living Baseheads

Recorded in 1988 at Greene Street Studios in New York during the It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back sessions. Chuck D led the vocal performance, with Flavor Flav, Terminator X, and The Bomb Squad contributing to the dense sample-based construction. Released by Def Jam in 1988 as a single from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, it addressed the crack epidemic and its damage in Black communities. The track reached number 62 on Billboard's Hot R&B Singles chart and reinforced Public Enemy's reputation for militant political rap. It remains one of Public Enemy's defining anti-drug records and a landmark example of The Bomb Squad's maximal sample-collage production. Lionel C. Martin's video, featuring MC Lyte and PETV satire, extended the song's critique into one of the group's most memorable visual statements.