Public Enemy's Chuck D has called it the What's Going On of rap.
That's a big call, but few would argue that his band's 1988 release It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back was any less politically loaded than Marvin Gaye's masterwork.
If the shared intent was to expose hypocrisy, injustice and racism in urban America, the modus operandi couldn't have been more different.
Where Gaye couched the message in soulful prayer, Public Enemy rammed it home with blunt force amid a squall of air-raid sirens, thumping beats and myriad samples.
Chuck D and clock-wearing clown Flavor Flav bounced rapid-fire rhymes off each other in a performance that was part diatribe, part history lecture, and part classic comedy riff.
Flav egged his stony-faced partner on to deliver one street-savvy proclamation after another in such genre-defining tracks as Bring the noise, Don't believe the hype, Night of the living baseheads and Black steel in the hour of chaos.
It was threatening, enlightening and entertaining, all at once.
Technically, the album was a meticulous patchwork made more impressive by its assembly in an analogue environment.
Today, clearance costs for samples alone would probably bankrupt any similar effort but production crew The Bomb Squad revelled in the freedom they had to pile snippet upon snippet.
Sound bites from James Brown, Malcolm X, Lois Farrakhan, The Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Queen and Slayer all featured in the sonic soup.
Public Enemy's tour de force would in turn be sampled by the likes of Jay-Z, Ice Cube, Madonna and My Bloody Valentine, marking not only its status as an influential entry in the hip-hop canon, but also its significance to the pop and rock community.
Most notably, though, it stands as a reminder of hip-hop's golden age, when the size of a man's clock denoted dedication to a cause more important than the elevation of ego.
Yeah boyee!
