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Night of the Living Baseheads

"Night of the Living Baseheads"
Public enemy-night of the living.jpg
Single by Public Enemy
from the album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
B-side
  • "Cold Lampin' with Flavor"
  • "Terminator X to the Edge of Panic"
  • "The Edge of Panic"
Released 1988 (1988)
Format
Recorded 1987 (1987)
Genre Political hip hop
Length 3:15
Label Def Jam
Writer(s) Carlton "Chuck D" Ridenhour, Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, and Hank Shocklee
Producer(s) The Bomb Squad
Public Enemy singles chronology
"Don't Believe the Hype"
(1988)
"Night of the Living Baseheads"
(October 4, 1988)
"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"
(1989)
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back track listing
"She Watch Channel Zero?!"
(10)
"Night of the Living Baseheads"
(11)
"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"
(12)
Music video
"Night of the Living Baseheads" on YouTube

"Night of the Living Baseheads" is the third single released by hip hop group Public Enemy, from their critically acclaimed album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. The lyrics deal with the effects of crack cocaine on African-Americans during the 1980s crack epidemic, referring to the slang for cocaine "base". The song reached #62 on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks.

The song uses more samples than any other song on the album, a total of 20 (including the sample of Chuck D saying "Bass!" at the start of the song "Bring the Noise"). The chorus of the song that asks "How low can you go?", refers to a person degrading himself/herself, rather than a dance. The title is a reference to the film Night of the Living Dead, equating people addicted to crack cocaine with zombies.

The official music video for the song was directed by Lionel C. Martin. It features MC Lyte as a reporter and Flavor Flav appears as co-anchor of a fictional T.V. news program, PETV. The video shows footage of the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, New York City (After Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam in 1964, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). The weekly meetings of the OAAU were held at the Audubon Ballroom and it was at one of those meetings, on February 21, 1965, that Malcolm X was assassinated.) During the video, MC Lyte searches for 'baseheads' and finds them on Wall Street where executives are caught sniffing cocaine, pointing out that drug use is viewed differently among black and white communities. In another scene, Chuck D is captured by the racist, anti-rap group the "Brown Bags". In the middle of the music video, a T.V. commercial is shown of a "beeper tie" which allows drug dealers to appear respectable, and in another scene a reporter investigates a crack house, showing what crack addiction does to families.


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Wikipedia

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