“…an unusual musical happening in a most unusual place…” Let’s jump right into Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos! The vocals are done mostly by lead MC Chuck D, with Flavor Flav appearing in between verses, seemingly speaking to Chuck over the phone. A storyteller approach that caught the attention of P.E. fans…Flavor went to another room and did actually call the studio to achieve this effect! The song tells the story of a draft dodger who makes a prison escape. It is built on a high-pitched piano sample from the 1969 Isaac Hayes song “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” from the album “Hot Buttered Soul” Who remembers watching YO! Mtv Raps and waiting to hit record on your VCR when this video was dropped! https://youtu.be/ZM5_6js19eM Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos features a slower, more melodic beat in comparison to other songs from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back but still remains highly chaotic. Aside from the aforementioned Hayes sample, the song samples “Little Green Apples” by The Escorts and “Living for the City” by Stevie Wonder. The lines in the scratch breaks, “Now they got me in a cell” and “Death Row/What a brother knows”, are samples from another song from the same album, “Bring The Noise”. This tune charted on U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks , peaking at #88 and #11 on U.S. Billboard Hot Rap Singles!
