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"Give it Up" by Public Enemy
"Give it Up" by Public Enemy

"Give it Up" by Public Enemy

Performing artist Public Enemy
Record company Def Jam Recordings
Date1994
Mediumink; paper (fiber product)
DimensionsOverall (HW): 24 × 24 3/16 in. (60.96 × 61.436 cm)
Credit LineMoPOP permanent collection, gift of Chuck D
Object number2001.448.9
Text Entries

"Give It Up" is a song by Hip-Hop group Public Enemy. It was released in July 1994 on Def Jam and was their first single from their fifth album, Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age. It was their highest peaking song on the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 33

Public Enemy is a Hip-Hop group created by Chuck D and Flavor Flav in Long Island, New York, in 1985. The group rose to prominence for their political messages including subjects such as American racism and the American media. The group included members, Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, b.1960), Flavor Flav (William Jonathan Drayton Jr. , b. 1959), DJ Lord Professor Griff (Richard Griffin, b. 1960) and Terminator X (Norman Rogers, b. 1966). The politically charged group were known for their renegade lyrics and protest songs like “Fight the Power” and “Burn Hollywood Burn.” Public Enemy was a group that adopted the military aesthetic early in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was known to wear military fatigues and parade on stage like a squad of guerillas. In 1988, the group was pictured wearing a woodland camo pattern during the promotion of their album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back. Public Enemy is considered the first Hip-Hop group to adopt camouflage and the military-style look. Public Enemy's first four albums during the late 1980s and early 1990s were all certified either gold or platinum. In 2013, they were inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at the 62nd Grammy Awards.

Black and white image of six men standing around a helicopter. Public Enemy is printed in black ink next to their logo on the right which is in black and white ink. The song title is printed on the lower left corner in white.
CopyrightThis work is issued under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License. For more information, go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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Medium: cotton
Object number: 2001.448.1
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