The song's lyrics, most of which are delivered by Chuck D with interjections from Flavor Flav, include boasts of Public Enemy's prowess, an endorsement of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, retorts to unspecified critics, and arguments for rap as a legitimate musical genre on par with rock. The lyrics also have a notable metrical complexity, making extensive use of meters like dactylic hexameter. The title phrase appears in the chorus. The song includes several shout-outs to fellow hip hop artists like Run-D.M.C., Eric B, LL Cool J and, unusually for a rap group, Yoko Ono, Sonny Bono and thrash metal band Anthrax, allegedly because Chuck D was flattered about Scott Ian wearing Public Enemy shirts while performing Anthrax gigs. Anthrax later collaborated with Chuck D to cover the song.
The recording begins with a sample of Malcolm X's voice saying "Too black, too strong" repeatedly from his public speech at the Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference on November 10, 1963, in King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan entitled Message to the Grass Roots.
Used as a sample
"Much More" by De La Soul, "Here We Go Again!" by Portrait, "I Know" by Seo Taiji & Boys
"Everything I Am" by Kanye West, and "Here We Go Again" by Everclear all sample Chuck D's voice saying "Here we go again" in "Bring the Noise". His exclamation "Now they got me in a cell" from the first verse of the song is also sampled in the Beastie Boys song "Egg Man". The track, 'Undisputed', from the 1999 album Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic by Prince samples Chuck D's voice saying "Once again, back, it's the incredible" in its chorus and also features an appearance from Chuck D himself. This same sample is used in on Fat Joe's album All or Nothing on the track "Safe 2 Say (The Incredible)". Rakim, on his 1997 single "Guess Who's Back", uses the same sample. Also, the game Sonic Rush samples the beginning of "Bring the Noise" in the music for the final boss battle. In addition, Ludacris' hit "How Low" samples Chuck D's "How low can you go?" line. In 2010, it was sampled by Adil Omar and DJ Solo of Soul Assassins on their single "Incredible". LL Cool J used a sample on the line of Chuck D's "I Want Bass" during the final verse on the song, "The Boomin' System" from the 1990s Mama Said Knock You Out album. Also, the lines "[To save] face, how low can you go" and "[So keep] pace how slow can you go" in Linkin Park's song "Wretches and Kings" on their album, A Thousand Suns (which is also produced by Rick Rubin) refer to Chuck D's line: "Bass! How low can you go?"[3]
Additionally, Public Enemy sampled the song themselves in several other songs on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, including the lines "Now they got me in a cell" and "Death Row/What a brother knows" in "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and the lines "Bass!" and "How low can you go?" in "Night of the Living Baseheads".
Thrash metal band Anthrax recorded a version of "Bring the Noise", which sampled the vocals from the original Public Enemy recording.[4] Chuck D has stated that upon the initial request of Anthrax, he "didn't take them wholehearted seriously", but after the collaboration was done, "it made too much sense",[5] and it was eventually included on both the Anthrax compilation Attack of the Killer B's and as the final track on Public Enemy's own Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black album.
The song's release was followed by a joint-tour featuring the two groups, with shows ending with both groups on stage performing the song together. Chuck D went on to say that shows on the tour were "some of the hardest" they ever experienced, and that at the start of the tour, Anthrax "commenced to destroy, slaughter and wipe the fuckin' stage" with Public Enemy as the opener,[6] forcing the group to not only up the intensity of their set, but to innovate by having a dedicated light board operator - a first in hiphop.[6] According to Chuck D, the show intensities eventually began to even out,[6] and when the two bands joined on stage for "Bring the Noise", "it was shrapnel".[5] Anthrax first played "Bring the Noise" live in 1989, two years before the Public Enemy collaboration was released, and it has been a live staple ever since.[7]
In 2007, "Bring the Noise" was remixed by Italian houseDJBenny Benassi as well as Ferry Corsten. Benassi's remix slowed the track down, and cut off many of the lyrics. Benassi mixed two versions of the song. The Pump-kin version exemplifies a heavy melody, while the S-faction edit added more emphasis to the bassline. The S-faction version won a Grammy Award for best remixed recording at the 2008 Grammy Awards. The Pump-kin remix appeared on his album Rock 'n' Rave (2008). The song was also used for the EA Sports game, NBA Live 09. Ferry Corsten only mixed one version which was released around the same time as Benny Benassi's remixes, it was released on February 26, 2008 on iTunes. In 2007, Gigi D'Agostino also released a track called "Quoting", which is a remix made by him of "Bring the Noise". He made it in the bass line of Lento Violento a style created by him, similar to hard style but slower and harder.
A remix of "Bring the Noise" titled "Bring the Noise 20XX", featuring Zakk Wylde, is a playable track in the video games Guitar Hero 5 and DJ Hero.
A traditional country version by Unholy Trio is included on the Bloodshot Records sampler "Down to the Promised Land".
An unofficial remix entitled "Bring DA Noise", (based on Led Zeppelin's – "Immigrant Song") was released for free download in 2005 by Irish radio presenter DJ Laz-e.
The 2012 video game Yakuza 5 features a track titled “Skankfunk - Vendor Pop”, which samples the ending of the Anthrax version of “Bring The Noise”, which plays during one of Tatsuo Shinada’s substories titled “Shinada’s Interview.”
^Alexander, Phil (January 2015). "Anthrax and Public Enemy Bring the Noise, 1991". MOJO. Peterborough, UK: Bauer Consumer Media. ISSN1351-0193. p. 31: When did we record with Chuck? I have to tell you that Chuck and Flavor Flav never came into the studio. We got their vocals from [the master to] Bring The Noise and sat there without sampling technology and cut them into the track word by word until we made it work. I've never told anybody that because nobody's actually asked when we cut it together. It took forever. Our version was in a different key but in the end we were even more stoked with the results because it was so great.
