10/13/07 - Classic Album Reviews Thread(Illmatic,The Infamous, The Chronic etc.)

[YounG AleX]

Nas-Illmatic (Rolling Stone Review)



Roll down the windows on a summer Saturday and ride down New York's Broadway – from the Bronx, where hip-hop was created, through Harlem and the Village, where it's criticized and consumed, and down to Wall Street, where hit singles turn into big dollars for the companies that market it. You'll find out who is the Man of the moment. As vibrantly urban a street as exists in America, Broadway insists on being up-to-the-minute hip. At the sound of the tone the Man will be Wu-Tang Clan. Bong.

On Broadway, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) remains as hot as August concrete and Doggystyle as cold as ice – meaning that Dre and Snoop will not be returning as the Man. But the race ain't over, as a horde of major albums have recently been released or are slated for the last half of '94: Ice Cube and Dr. Dre's Helter Skelter, Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's The Main Ingredients, Coolio's It Takes a Thief and Shyheim's AKA the Rugged Child, as well as albums from Smif n' Wessun, Redman, 2Pac, the Lady of Rage, the Method Man, Rakim and a solo album by A Tribe Called Quest's Phife. But they'll all be chasing the MC with a street buzz so loud it's threatening to silence the Death Row bass thump on Broadway: Nas.

The humming began once the hottest producers in New York – DJ Premier, Pete Rock, the Large Professor, Q-Tip, L.E.S. – completed their parts on Illmatic, and Nas stepped to their tracks (many smooth and mellow, a few hard and biting, all mid- to low-tempo) and vaulted himself into the elite group of MCs. Not because of an ultrabutter flow and boldly distinctive voice like Q-Tip or Slick Rick but because of sharp articulation, finely detailed lyrics and a controlled tone reminiscent of Rakim. Those sounds and Nas' no-nonsense urban tales pair Ill's every beautiful moment with its harsh antithesis. From "One Love," Nas' letter to homies in jail – "So, stay civilized/Time flies/Though, incarcerated, your mind dies/I hate it when your moms cries/It kinda makes me wanna murder" – to the end of "Life's a Bitch," when his father, Olu Dara, steps in over the beat with a muted trumpet, searching for the tone with which Nas expressed the futility of his life, it's all like a rose stretching up between cracks in the sidewalk, calling attention to its beauty, calling attention to the lack of it everywhere else.

If it's a butter flow you crave while cruising for daisy dukes this summer, Shyheim is your man, even though he's only 15. For kids in hip-hop, like women, it's nearly impossible to become the Man, because if you don't sound like a man, you can't be Him. Shyheim tries to bolster his credentials by announcing often on AKA that he's down with Wu-Tang, but the Method Man and Ol' Dirty Bastard don't rhyme on the album, so who cares? Shy is a kiddie rapper with an erratic album and a childish tone, making him sound like a novelty whose notoriety stems from being an MC who's young rather than one with an impressive flow. It's not a dis to say: Watch for Shy after he breaks puberty.

Coolio, an ex-drug addict, ex-fire-fighter and ex-member of WC and the Maad Circle, has had a long wait for his turn to shine, and he's ready. Thief establishes him as a rapper who's got the skills to be taken seriously, even though he's as lighthearted and comical as Biz Markie. But Coolio is not self-effacing, and with his Southern California twang, he's likely to be noticed for not being a gangsta. With all the bass-heavy, huge-groove singles on Thief, Coolio will keep low riders high on his "wino funk" all summer long.

But bop and swerve as they may, in colder regions a West Coast backlash might be in effect: The wild success of Wu-Tang and their inexpensive sound, coupled with the surprisingly mild aesthetic impact of Death Row's Above the Rim soundtrack (not to mention Regulate, by Warren G, Dre's little brother), signal that Dre's hegemony may be ending. That's why Nas' timing, like his cadence, is so dope. He's not as underground sounding as Wu-Tang, yet he does spring from and aspires to impress the hood.

But to assume that the ghetto in him – Queensbridge projects, Queens, N.Y. – makes him great is to get way too wrapped up in hip-hop's realness debate. No matter how rough you had it and how authentically you portray it, it'll be MC skills – the distinctiveness of your voice, the adeptness of your rhythm and flow, the quality of your lyrics – that will ultimately determine if you move the crowd.

The Wu crew opened a door for Nas, reminding Broadway how good New York-style beats and lyrics – as opposed to West Coast sinister funk and slow, gangsta rhymes – could be. Illmatic will probably be Broadway's album of the year, not for the real life behind its dedication to 13 dead homies but for the work on the CD. If an MC's history were really more important than his skills, then anyone from the projects would be able to rhyme like Nas, and Nas would be no different from any bum riding down Broadway. (RS 689)



Run-D.M.C (All Music)



Years after the release of Run-D.M.C.'s eponymous 1984 debut, the group generally was acknowledged to be hip-hop's Beatles -- a sentiment that makes a lot of sense, even if Run-D.M.C. isn't quite the equivalent of a rap Please Please Me. Run-D.M.C. were the Beatles of rap because they signaled a cultural and musical change for the music, ushering it into its accepted form; neither group originated the music, but they gave it the shape known today. But, no matter how true and useful the comparison is, it is also a little misleading, because it implies that Run-D.M.C. also were a melodic, accessible group, bringing in elements from all different strands of popular music. No, Run-D.M.C.'s expanded their music by making it tough and spare, primarily by adapting the sound and attitude of hard rock to hip-hop. Prior to this, rap felt like a block party -- the beats were funky and elastic, all about the groove. Run-D.M.C. hit hard. The production is tough and minimal, built on relentless drum machines and Jam Master Jay's furious scratching, mixing in a guitar riff or a keyboard hit on occasion. It is brutal urban music, and Run and D.M.C.'s forceful, muscular rhymes match the music. Where other MCs sounded cheerful, Run and D.M.C. prowl and taunt the listener, sounding as if they were a street gang. And while much of the record is devoted to braggadocio, boasting, and block parties, Run-D.M.C. also addressed grittier realities of urban life, giving this record both context and thematic weight. All of this -- the music, the attitude, the words, the themes -- marked a turning point for rap, and it's impossible to calculate Run-D.M.C.'s influence on all that came afterward. Years later, some of the production may sound a bit of its time, but the music itself does not because music this powerful and original always retains its impact and force as music.



LL Cool J- Mama Said Knock You Out(All Music)



Increasingly dismissed by hip-hop fans as an old-school relic and a slick pop sellout, LL Cool J rang in the '90s with Mama Said Knock You Out, a hard-edged artistic renaissance that became his biggest-selling album ever. Part of the credit is due to producer Marley Marl, whose thumping, bass-heavy sound helps LL reclaim the aggression of his early days. Mama Said Knock You Out isn't quite as hard as Radio, instead striking a balance between attitude and accessibility. But its greater variety and more layered arrangements make it LL's most listenable album, as well as keeping it in line with more contemporary sensibilities. Marl's productions on the slower tracks are smooth and soulful, but still funky; as a result, the ladies'-man side of LL's persona is the most convincing it's ever been, and his ballads don't feel sappy for arguably the first time on record. Even apart from the sympathetic musical settings, LL is at his most lyrically acrobatic, and the testosterone-fueled anthems are delivered with a force not often heard since his debut. The album's hits are a microcosm of its range -- "The Boomin' System" is a nod to bass-loving b-boys with car stereos; "Around the Way Girl" is a lush, winning ballad; and the title cut is one of the most blistering statements of purpose in hip-hop. It leaves no doubt that Mama Said Knock You Out was intended to be a tour de force, to regain LL Cool J's credibility while proving that he was still one of rap's most singular talents. It succeeded mightily, making him an across-the-board superstar and cementing his status as a rap icon beyond any doubt.



Eric B. & Rakim- Paid In Full (All Music)



One of the most influential rap albums of all time, Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full only continues to grow in stature as the record that ushered in hip-hop's modern era. The stripped-down production might seem a little bare to modern ears, but Rakim's technique on the mic still sounds utterly contemporary, even state-of-the-art -- and that from a record released in 1987, just one year after Run-D.M.C. hit the mainstream. Rakim basically invents modern lyrical technique over the course of Paid in Full, with his complex internal rhymes, literate imagery, velvet-smooth flow, and unpredictable, off-the-beat rhythms. The key cuts here are some of the most legendary rap singles ever released, starting with the duo's debut sides, "Eric B. Is President" and "My Melody." "I Know You Got Soul" single-handedly kicked off hip-hop's infatuation with James Brown samples, and Eric B. & Rakim topped it with the similarly inclined "I Ain't No Joke," a stunning display of lyrical virtuosity. The title cut, meanwhile, planted the seeds of hip-hop's material obsessions over a monumental beat. There are also three DJ showcases for Eric B., who like Rakim was among the technical leaders in his field. If sampling is the sincerest form of admiration in hip-hop, Paid in Full is positively worshipped. Just to name a few: Rakim's tossed-off "pump up the volume," from "I Know You Got Soul," became the basis for M/A/R/R/S' groundbreaking dance track; Eminem, a devoted Rakim student, lifted lines from "As the Rhyme Goes On" for the chorus of his own "The Way I Am"; and the percussion track of "Paid in Full" has been sampled so many times it's almost impossible to believe it had a point of origin. Paid in Full is essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in the basic musical foundations of hip-hop -- this is the form in its purest essence.



N.W.A.- Straight Outta Compton(Rolling Stone)



Decked out in identical utility gear and sporting enough lyrical artillery to frighten all of middle America, N.W.A quickly upended hip-hop tradition with Straight Outta Compton. One of hip-hop's crucial albums, it was a bombastic, cacophonous car ride through Los Angeles' burnt-out and ignored hoods. Dr. Dre's busy funk production lent the proceedings a carefree, unhinged air, and the lyrics, mostly written by Ice Cube, were powerful audio verite, especially on songs such as "Fuck Tha Police," "Express Yourself" and "Dopeman." N.W.A's broad influence became apparent three years later, in 1991, when Billboard adopted SoundScan technology only to learn that the top slot on the pop album charts didn't belong to Paula Abdul but to these Compton, California, thug arrivistes (sans Ice Cube, who'd left the group due to financial differences). Niggaz4life wasn't quite the barnstormer its predecessor was -- it was less textured both sonically and politically -- but its success showed that the boyz in the hood weren't to be taken lightly ever again.



Slick Rick- Great Adventures Of Slick Rick(Rolling Stone)



There's much to like about rapper Slick Rick and his debut album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. It's a tremendously imaginative record, especially for a debut: Cross rhythms fly by and startle the listener, smartly chosen samples enliven the proceedings, and Rick's sly Brit raps are trenchant and angry.

The popularity of these raps is a good sign for hip-hop, as they foretell a return to the hardheaded social consciousness that brought trailblazing acts like Melle Mel, Run-D.M.C. and the Rake to fame (something that has been lost recently with the rise of softheaded stars like Tone-Loc and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince). Also, Rick's careful deployment of obscenities makes sure that the language of his raps is grounded in real life, without the four-letter words calling attention to themselves.

The considerable strengths of The Great Adventures of Slick Rick notwithstanding, this is a truly hateful record. The foulmouthed, foul-minded sexism of tracks like "Treat Her Like a Prostitute," "Indian Girl (An Adult Story)" and "Lick the Balls," among others, is vicious and unrelieved. There's certainly nothing wrong with rapping frankly about sex and relationships, but the degree and prevalence of the woman-hating raps on this record undermine its ample strengths. Worse, the raps also reinforce stereotypes that should have been broken down long ago.



The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die (HipHopDX)



The West Coast is running the hip-hop charts. Death Row Records, powered by Dr. Dre's potent brand of g-funk, has become a leading force in the recording industry. Artists from New York, the birthplace of hip-hop, have taken a backseat to their left-coast brethren and seen their dominance fade. This is the climate that the Notorious B.I.G. enters in 1994 when he unleashes his Ready to Die. Undoubtedly serving as B.I.G .'s defining work, the album is as reflective as The Wonder Years, only it's filled with painful recollections instead of fond memories. It has been designated everything; the album that brought the East Coast back and one that redefined the mid-90's sound. But the only description that fits is its most noble – classic.

The first of several seminal songs together, DJ Premier put his stamp of approval on the young rapper and laced him with Unbelievable. The song lives up to it's title as it is not only one of Primo's finest sampling exploits, but displaying Big's awe-inspiring flow like no other. The Hitmen, a production squad that lives up to its name, sets the musical direction for Ready to Die. Their skillful use of samples and interpolated music is deceptively low-key with a subtle flair, much like Biggie. As he morbidly raps, "I'm ready to die and nobody can save me," on the title track, Easy Mo Bee complements the dark mood with a concoction of funky drums and layers of eerie, disappearing strings. Mo Bee also mans the boards on several of the album's best tracks, including The What, which features the Notorious and Method Man trading lines like two men who have worked together for years.

Though the Brooklyn-Shaolin connection is a natural fit, B.I.G.'s best collaborator is himself. Using well-placed tonal changes and vocal inflections, he creates stellar songs like Gimme the Loot, a schizophrenic salute to armed robbery. He reflects the thought process of two identities looking to prosper the ski-mask way on this ultimate stick-up anthem, displaying his creativity and knack for dramatic storytelling. That same talent remains throughout the album, especially on Warning, where he gruesomely promises, "There's gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing/If my burglar alarm starts ringing." More than just grandstanding, Biggie Smalls' intimidating conviction adds some grit to Slick Rick's orating abilities. It's become standard for emcees to talk about violence, but he's anything but standard. His seamless transition between moods and characters makes listeners believe that they are sitting on a stoop, listening to a friend relay a story about past exploits, a skill few artists have duplicated since.

Biggie delivers chilling lyrics in which he wishes for death ( Everyday Struggle) and then poetically follows-through on that desire (Suicidal Thoughts). But in spite of his persistent depression, he's capable of dusting off the dirt that surrounds him. The celebratory Juicy remains one of Frank White's greatest and most-revealing songs. Part-autobiography, part-declaration-of-success, it rekindles the funk of Mtume's Juicy Fruit to document the star's transition from Brooklyn knucklehead to magazine cover story. Though the Jamaican-tinged Respect also describes his rise from poverty, Juicy is more expressive, and summed-up with great simplicity: "Birthdays was the worst days/Now we sip champagne when we thirsty/Uh, damn right I like the life I live/'Cause I went from negative to positive and it's all… (It's all good)."

Juicy and the lady-enticing Big Poppa help humanize the gun-crazy artist. The songs chip away at his self-depreciating loser portrayal, so he's no longer an angry teen looking to rob a subway train or push crack. Though Ready to Die is deeply-rooted in his uncaring attitude towards life and violence, Notorious B.I.G.'s personable nature takes away from that Bad Boy image. That's the reason so many emcees have tried in vein to reignite his ability to simultaneously hold the respect of their peers and a sway over the listening public. Most of all, it's the reason that we'll always love Big Poppa.


Jay-Z-Reasonable Doubt (All Music)



Before Jay-Z fashioned himself into hip-hop's most notorious capitalist, he was a street hustler from the projects who rapped about what he knew -- and was very, very good at it. Skeptics who've never cared for Jigga's crossover efforts should turn to his debut, Reasonable Doubt, as the deserving source of his legend. Reasonable Doubt is often compared to another New York landmark, Nas' Illmatic: A hungry young MC with a substantial underground buzz drops an instant classic of a debut, detailing his experiences on the streets with disarming honesty, and writing some of the most acrobatic rhymes heard in quite some time. (Plus, neither artist has since approached the street cred of his debut, The Blueprint notwithstanding.) Parts of the persona that Jay-Z would ride to superstardom are already in place: He's cocky bordering on arrogant, but playful and witty, and exudes an effortless, unaffected cool throughout. And even if he's rapping about rising to the top instead of being there, his material obsessions are already apparent. Jay-Z the hustler isn't too different from Jay-Z the rapper: Hustling is about living the high life and getting everything you can, not violence or tortured glamour or cheap thrills. In that sense, the album's defining cut might not be one of the better-known singles -- "Can't Knock the Hustle," "Dead Presidents II," "Feelin' It," or the Foxy Brown duet, "Ain't No Nigga." It just might be the brief "22 Two's," which not only demonstrates Jay-Z's extraordinary talent as a pure freestyle rapper, but also preaches a subtle message through its club hostess: Bad behavior gets in the way of making money. Perhaps that's why Jay-Z waxes reflective, not enthusiastic, about the darker side of the streets; songs like "D'Evils" and "Regrets" are some of the most personal and philosophical he's ever recorded. It's that depth that helps Reasonable Doubt rank as one of the finest albums of New York's hip-hop renaissance of the '90s.



Scarface- The Diary(Rolling Stone)



So crushing was the DreSnoop power play in 1993 that their G thang all but obliterated the competition. Any hardcore rap save the loping-beat West Coast kind got sidelined. But only temporarily. In 1994, southeast Houston's Scarface, for one, bounced back fighting. A full-blooded member of the Geto Boys (a true PMRC nightmare and one of the first crews to toss word bombs so explosive as to alienate all but their faithful), Scarface kicks unrepentantly on this third solo set – and still effectively. Classical piano punctuates the tracks, but it's the only thing pretty on The Diary. An update of the Geto Boys' 1991 breakthrough, "Mind Playin' Tricks 94," "Hand of the Dead Body" (a rap with Ice Cube) and "The White Sheet" are notes from underground that ring terrifyingly and all too true.

Milder, but not by much, is the debut from Method Man. Moonlighting from the Wu-Tang Clan, this summer's hottest rappers, MM shares their scratchy, low-tech street sound (check the title tune's woozy bass, a novel counterpoint to rap's usual booming bottom). He's also capable, with "All I Need," of something almost resembling a love song. Getting his female backups, Blue Raspberry, to nasty up Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" ("Release Yo' Delf") is likewise sharp. But it is with its heaviest numbers – "What the Blood Clot" and "P.L.O. Style" – that Tical delivers the primo goods.



Snoop Dogg- Doggystyle (Rolling Stone)



If "The Chronic" were a city, Nihilism would be mayor, and Hope and Faith would roll up the windows and lock the doors. After that hip-hop Nevermind, it fits that the follow-up finds Snoop cursing fame: As Nirvana's Kurt Cobain groans, "I do not want what I have got," on In Utero, Snoop opens Doggystyle talking about giving up his kingdom. But Snoop is no disaffected suburbanite whose millions are messing up his artistic credibility. Snoop's nihilism was born of generations of poverty, but his biggest problem now is the high price of black dreams.

Doggystyle is filled with verbal and vocal feats that meet its three-mile-high expectations. "Some of these ******s is so deceptive/Using my styles like a contraceptive/I hope you get burnt," Snoop rhymes on "Doggy Dogg World." On "Lodi Dodi," he covers Slick Rick's classic "La-Di-Da-Di," sounding like young Miles Davis interpreting Thelonious Monk's jazz standard "Round Midnight."

But more stunning is that Snoop's pain appears so often. On "Serial Killa," Dogg Pound member Daz rhymes about ******s around the way asking him about Snoop: "Is that nigga Snoop all right?/Ay, yo, what's up with the crew?/Is the nigga in jail?/I heard the nigga's through." Daz says everything's all right, but it doesn't sound like it. As Snoop begins Doggystyle's first song, "Gin and Juice," "With so much drama in the LBC/It's kinda hard being Snoop D-o-double-g."

Dre tries to cover up for Snoop. The Chronic's slow, heavy beats were a sonic representation of angry depression as accurate as Cobain's feedback blasts; Doggystyle is leaner, with its high-tempo Isaac Hayes- and Curtis Mayfield-derived tracks. The sound-lyric tension peaks on "Ain't No Fun" as a quietstorm groove swirls and Snoop and his homies sing and rap about gang fucking. It's a funny song if you don't think about how the woman 2Pac and his homies allegedly sodomized might feel about it, but most hip-hop fans are so used to the ethical deadening hip-hop routinely demands that they won't. Pray that "No Fun" isn't misinterpreted by some sick fan, like Nirvana's "Polly" was, as an encouragement to rape.

But Dre's production can't hide Snoop's lurking paranoia. Most of Dre's hooks and nearly all his beats refuse to linger, as if the songs themselves are nervous, fearful of exposure, restless to get offscreen. Doggystyle speeds through 55 minutes of constant talk as if on a suicide hot line. Snoop knows his life looks enviable to those living vicariously through albums and videos, but what he's really living is a multidimensional life that's in genuine danger.

Ice Cube is also in danger, albeit musically: The most interesting question surrounding Lethal ********* is, has any rapper ever fallen off as hard as Cube? A modern Richard Wright, Cube made or helped make three hip-hop classics – Straight Outta Compton, Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate – as he crafted a Bigger Thomas as vivid and provocative as the original. Now he spends too little time on his music and too much as St. Ides' Uncle Tom. That's wrong.

The light funk sound of "It Was a Good Day" pervades Vaccination Shot, as do boring, predictable rhymes – "Out like a boss/With a half-pint of sauce/Got this sewed up like Betsy Ross" – and a cliché-laden, painfully long "One Nation Under a Groove" rip-off called "Bop Gun (One Nation)" where Cube ruins the George Clinton classic as thoroughly as Whitney Houston destroyed Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman."

Once a major social critic, Cube no longer sparks national debate as he did with "Black Korea" and "Fuck tha Police." "Cave Bitch" is planted for that purpose, but the song boils down to "White Bitches Ain't Shit." All that close listening to Mosquito Bite may reveal is the focus of Cube's nickname the Nigga Ya Love to Hate shifting from white people hating him for being a political thorn to black people hating him for being a crap-music-making prick. Mr. Stay True to the Game has, like the Fresh Prince and Queen Latifah before him, chosen to become a multimedia hip-hopper at the expense of his music.

Where Cube's success has cost him his music, Snoop may one day pay for his success with his life. The irony of the Doggystyle moment, when two men recognize Snoop, drive up and shoot him ("Murder Was the Case"), heightens as Snoop's real murder case makes it clear that fame has made him a target. Snoop's personal drama gives Doggystyle a thematic complexity rarely seen in pop but saddles the man with a tangled life. In September, Snoop told me, "The same way it meant a lot in value when a white man shot Martin Luther King and killed him or when a white man killed John F. Kennedy, it would sound hella good, according to the streets, to kill me." That's the American dream?

[YounG AleX]

One of the cornerstones of the New York hardcore movement, The Infamous is Mobb Deep's masterpiece, a relentlessly bleak song cycle that's been hailed by hardcore rap fans as one of the most realistic gangsta albums ever recorded. Given Mobb Deep's youthful age and art-school background, it's highly unlikely that The Infamous is drawn strictly from real-life experience, yet it's utterly convincing, because it has all the foreboding atmosphere and thematic sweep of an epic crime drama. That's partly because of the cinematic vision behind the duo's detailed narratives, but it's also a tribute to how well the raw, grimy production evokes the world that Mobb Deep is depicting. The group produced the vast majority of the album itself, with help on a few tracks from the Abstract (better known as Q-Tip), and establishes a spare, throbbing, no-frills style indebted to the Wu-Tang Clan. This is hard, underground hip-hop that demands to be met on its own terms, with few melodic hooks to draw the listener in. Similarly, there's little pleasure or relief offered in the picture of the streets Mobb Deep paints here: They inhabit a war zone where crime and paranoia hang constantly in the air. Gangs are bound together by a code of fierce loyalty, relying wholly on one another for survival in a hopeless environment. Hostile forces -- cops, rivals, neighborhood snitches -- are potentially everywhere, and one slip around the wrong person can mean prison or death. There's hardly any mention of women, and the violence is grim, serious business, never hedonistic. Pretty much everything on the album contributes to this picture, but standouts among the consistency include "Survival of the Fittest," "Eye for a Eye," "Temperature's Rising," "Cradle to the Grave," and the classic "Shook Ones, Pt. 2." The product of an uncommon artistic vision, The Infamous stands as an all-time gangsta/hardcore classic.

[YounG AleX]

With its stylish, sonically detailed production, Dr. Dre's 1992 solo debut, The Chronic, transformed the entire sound of West Coast rap. Here Dre established his patented G-funk sound: fat, blunted Parliament-Funkadelic beats, soulful backing vocals, and live instruments in the rolling basslines and whiny synths. What's impressive is that Dre crafts tighter singles than his inspiration, George Clinton -- he's just as effortlessly funky, and he has a better feel for a hook, a knack that improbably landed gangsta rap on the pop charts. But none of The Chronic's legions of imitators were as rich in personality, and that's due in large part to Dre's monumental discovery, Snoop Doggy Dogg. Snoop livens up every track he touches, sometimes just by joining in the chorus -- and if The Chronic has a flaw, it's that his relative absence from the second half slows the momentum. There was nothing in rap quite like Snoop's singsong, lazy drawl (as it's invariably described), and since Dre's true forte is the producer's chair, Snoop is the signature voice. He sounds utterly unaffected by anything, no matter how extreme, which sets the tone for the album's misogyny, homophobia, and violence. The Rodney King riots are unequivocally celebrated, but the war wasn't just on the streets; Dre enlists his numerous guests in feuds with rivals and ex-bandmates. Yet The Chronic is first and foremost a party album, rooted not only in '70s funk and soul, but also that era's blue party comedy, particularly Dolemite. Its comic song intros and skits became prerequisites for rap albums seeking to duplicate its cinematic flow; plus, Snoop and Dre's terrific chemistry ensures that even their foulest insults are cleverly turned. That framework makes The Chronic both unreal and all too real, a cartoon and a snapshot. No matter how controversial, it remains one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop albums of all time.

[YounG AleX]

Imbibe my MTV, but when I desire hip-hop, I spell relief T-H-E-B-O-X. Called Video Jukebox in some regions, this cable station is programmed completely by viewers, meaning you see artists – especially hip-hop artists – who don't often get on the big-brother network. In Brooklyn, N.Y., right now and extending back a few months, the reigning fave is the Wu-Tang Clan, who are to the channel what Guns n' Roses are to MTV.

The eight-man Wu-Tang crew is one of the hottest in hip-hop, but you won't see them on BET's Video Vibrations (the B is for Bourgie) or the cover of any major hip-hop magazine. That's because Wu-Tang make underground rap: low on hype and production values, high on the idea that indigence is an integral part of blackness. This is hip-hop you won't find creeping up the Billboard charts but you will hear booming out of Jeep stereos in all the right neighborhoods.

Underground remains largely uncelebrated, because its rappers come without the glossy packaging that deifies Snoop, Treach and 2Pac. Underground images are crude, and the most distinguishing feature of the music is low-budget-sounding production, a holdover from early-to-mid-'80s rap. It's as though the artists feel that it's not enough to rhyme like have-nots and look like have-nots. They've got to sound like have-nots, too.

Black Moon and Kurious Jorge aren't minimalists, but Enta da Stage and Constipated Monkey are far from the million-dollar sound of Dre, Ali Shaheed Muhammad or Pete Rock. Black Moon – rappers Buckshot Shorty, 5Ft. Excellerator and DJ Evil Dee, all from Brooklyn – got noticed last summer when their jazzy "Who Got the Props?" hit DJ turntables. Buckshot promised, "I'm grab the mic/Flip the script/And leave 'em stunned/Buckshot's the one that gets the job done" – and Enta da Stage has stunned some with the tension between his hard-edge voice and the smooth tracks. But in either trying to be cool or simply not being imaginative enough, the trio's album becomes prosaic. Enta's precisely constructed songs lack the spontaneity to be explosive: If these were paintings, you would be able to see the numbers and the lines.

Many Puerto Ricans influenced hip-hop in the '70s, but until now only California Latinos – B. Real of Cypress Hill, Mellow Man Ace and Kid Frost – have made an impact on the modern game, making Kurious Jorge hip-hop's first major Puerto Rican rapper. With Constipated Monkey's uptempo beats and jazzy horns, Kurious sounds capable of starting a party with every song. Unlike many of his black brothers, Kurious refuses to reduce himself to a stereotype, instead demanding that we focus on getting the jam jumping.

But the most interesting of the undergrounders is, of course, the massive Wu-Tang Clan of Staten Island, N.Y. – Prince Rakeem, a k a the RZA; the Method Man; U-God; Rebel Ins; Shallah Raekwon; Ghost Face Killer; Ol' Dirty Bastard; and the Genius, a k a the GZA. With its dirty, minimalist beats, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) sounds more like BDP's classic Criminal Minded than KRS-One's Return of the Boom Bap.

The beats make room for lyrics that focus on urban life, karate and blunts but almost never women. The Wu don't say they "don't love them hos" as Snoop does; they just rarely admit their existence. There is also a ribald skit where they describe the tortures they would like to perform on each other's dicks and assholes, which makes the Wu fraternity sound perversely – and repressively – homoerotic.

Still, underground rap's ignorance of image making leaves a large void in a music in which personality – character, not caricature – is an organic part of the sound, in which the artist is the art. Save the charismatic Method Man, Wu-Tang, Black Moon and Kurious are more ciphers than masterful creations. In refusing to commodify themselves, they leave blank the ultimate canvas – the self. That's a shame, because to kids hungry for stars, what the price of a cassette really buys is a hero for the collective wall of fame.

[YounG AleX]

In 1995 it was easy to confuse comrades and collaborators Nas and AZ, so similar in style were their street-schooled lyrical concerns and their austere, lazy-eyed rhyming styles. AZ, in fact, first came to the attention of the rap scene by contributing a verse to the former's classic 1994 single "Life's a Bitch." To compound the resemblance, he called upon Pete Rock to produce a couple tracks ("Gimme Your's" and "Rather Unique," both stellar) on this introductory recording, just as Nas had on his classic debut. The two albums are very much the twin sides of the same double-headed coin. They are so closely connected, in fact, that it's difficult to pinpoint where Doe or Die's points of departure are located. Many of its character sketches (the Buckwild-produced "Ho Happy Jack"), urban-caked admonitions ("Mo Money Mo Murder," on which Nas, in fact, turns up to return the favor, the equally hard-hitting title track), and gritty expressions of love ("I Feel for You," a pumped-up "One Love") are every bit as meditative and literate, peppered with authentic, incisive documentary detail. Ultimately, AZ's album is not quite as compact and consistent, and, unlike its mirror-image, its focus lapses right toward the end. But while Doe or Die is not quite on an artistic par with, not quite the free-flowing masterpiece as, the landmark Illmatic, it is not at all far behind in terms of quality, either. Certainly it was one of the strongest, most promising debut efforts of 1995, and probably one of the year's strongest rap albums period. And as with Nas, he would have a difficult time following up on this early juggernaut.

[YounG AleX]

Among moviè roles, music-video cameos and court appearances, Tupac Shakur remains a frustrating yet fascinating character because it's obvious that the 23-year-old rapper has decided to make his journey for self-discovery open to the world. His personality seems split right down the middle – one half collected and reflective, the other coiled and venomous, waiting (like the "shining serpent" contained within the meaning of his African name) to strike out at anything in his path.

The same man who is capable of poignant paeans to black women like "Brenda's Got a Baby" and "Keep Ya Head Up" is the next minute fuckin' and chuckin' "hos" in "I Get Around" of lickin' off shots at everyone from the cops to that jealous brutha down the block. Imagine his debonair face screaming "Thug Life," gat in hand, spliff in pocket, lashing out at a society that he blames for his rage and the impoverished condition of his people, often without looking at his own contribution to that misery. Hoochie-coochie man, nationalist revolutionary, smoky-eyed thug – he has juggled all three roles, and as a result, his two previous albums, 2Pacalypse Now and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., were plagued by convoluted thematics that proved distracting if you wanted to think about the ideas beyond the beats.

Most of the songs on Me Against the World, 2Pac's third and best album, demonstrate that underneath his hardened postures is a method. Sure, the thug still hangs around, remorseless and defiant, but for the first time since "The Streetz R Deathrow" and "Papa'z Song," 2Pac lets the listener look at the roots of his anger. With less thuggin' clouding the picture, 2Pac examines some of the results of the gangsta lifestyle: paranoia, the promise of death and a combative relationship, with a higher, all-powerful authority.

Stylistically, "If I Die 2 Nite" is Shakur's most acrobatic turn at the mike since the Warren G-produced "Definition of a Thug Nigga." Producer extraordinaire Easy Mo Bee (Notorious B.I.G., Craig Mack) lays the beat low and thick while 2Pac drops his alliterative maxims: "They say pussy and paper is poetry, power and pistols/Plottin' on murderin' muthafuckas 'fore they get you/Picturing pitiful punk niggas coppin' pleas/Puffin' weed as I position myself to clock Gs.... Been seeking psychotics/Society/Somebody save me/Addicted to drama so even Mama couldn't raise me." Like his cohort B.I.G., 2Pac asks if there is a special part of heaven reserved for castaway thugs who commit despicable deeds sometimes with the best of intentions.

The album is at its sharpest when 2Pac avoids formulaic, radio-friendly material ("Me Against the World," "Temptations") and raps from the heart over slowed-down tracks. The powerful "So Many Tears" finds an almost vulnerable 2Pac not only dealing with the senseless violence that marked his childhood but with the internal demons that threaten to consume him, snapping at his conscience like hellhounds on a bluesman's trail. "Lord Knows" is similar, depicting him running to the bottle and the spliff to medicate himself: "Even though I know I'm wrong, man/Hennessy make a nigga think he strong, man.... I smoke a blunt to take the pain out, and if I wasn't high, I'd probably try to blow my brains out." "Dear Mama" is a heartfelt, sometimes harsh dedication of love for his mother that deals with the trials and tribulations each has put the other through.

Me Against the World – by and large a work of pain, anger and burning desperation – is the first time 2Pac has taken the conflicting forces tugging at his psyche head-on. Whether he leaves prison with a new sense of direction or is consumed by the same forces that chased him as a ghetto child running wild remains to be seen. But love him or hate him, 2Pac remains one of the most compelling characters in black popular culture – and a stint in jail is unlikely to change that.

[YounG AleX]

Yo! Bum Rush the Show was an invigorating record, but it looks like child's play compared to its monumental sequel, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, a record that rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could do. That's not to say the album is without precedent, since what's particularly ingenious about the album is how it reconfigures things that came before into a startling, fresh, modern sound. Public Enemy used the template Run-D.M.C. created of a rap crew as a rock band, then brought in elements of free jazz, hard funk, even musique concrète, via their producing team, the Bomb Squad, creating a dense, ferocious sound unlike anything that came before. This coincided with a breakthrough in Chuck D's writing, both in his themes and lyrics. It's not that Chuck D was smarter or more ambitious than his contemporaries -- certainly, KRS-One tackled many similar sociopolitical tracts, while Rakim had a greater flow -- but he marshaled considerable revolutionary force, clear vision, and a boundless vocabulary to create galvanizing, logical arguments that were undeniable in their strength. They only gained strength from Flavor Flav's frenzied jokes, which provided a needed contrast. What's amazing is how the words and music become intertwined, gaining strength from each other. Though this music is certainly a representation of its time, it hasn't dated at all. It set a standard that few could touch then, and even fewer have attempted to meet since.

[YounG AleX]

Criminal Minded is widely considered the foundation of hardcore rap, announcing its intentions with a cover photo of KRS-One and Scott La Rock (on his only album with Boogie Down Productions) posing with weapons -- an unheard-of gesture in 1987. BDP weren't the first to rap about inner-city violence and drugs, and there's no explicit mention of gangs on Criminal Minded, but it greatly expanded the range of subject matter that could be put on a rap record, and its grittiest moments are still unsettling today. Actually, that part of its reputation rests on just a handful of songs. Overall, the record made its impact through sheer force -- not only KRS-One's unvarnished depictions of his harsh urban environment, but also his booming delivery and La Rock's lean, hard backing tracks (which sound a little skeletal today, but were excellent for the time). It's important to note that KRS-One hadn't yet adopted his role as the Teacher, and while there are a few hints of an emerging social consciousness, Criminal Minded doesn't try to deliver messages, make judgments, or offer solutions. That's clear on "South Bronx" and "The Bridge Is Over," two of the most cutting -- even threatening -- dis records of the '80s, which were products of a beef with Queens-based MC Shan. They set the tone for the album, which reaches its apex on the influential, oft-sampled "9mm Goes Bang." It's startlingly violent, even if KRS-One's gunplay is all in self-defense, and it's made all the more unsettling by his singsong ragga delivery. Another seminal hardcore moment is "P Is Free," which details an encounter with a crack whore for perhaps the first time on record. Elsewhere, there are a few showcases for KRS-One's pure rhyming skill, most notably "Poetry" and the title track. Overall it's very consistent, so even if the meat of Criminal Minded is the material that lives up to the title, the raw talent on display is what cements the album's status as an all-time classic.

[YounG AleX]

A serious contender for the title of best Wu-Tang solo album (rivaled only by the Genius' Liquid Swords), Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is also perhaps the most influential, thanks to Raekwon's cinematic imagination. If the Genius is the Wu's best overall lyricist, Raekwon is arguably their best storyteller, and here he translates the epic themes and narratives of a Mafia movie into a startlingly accomplished hip-hop album. Raekwon wasn't the first to make the connection between gangsta rap and the Cosa Nostra (Kool G Rap pioneered that idea), but he was the one who popularized the trend. Cuban Linx's portraits of big-money drug deals and black underworld kingpins living in luxury had an enormous influence on the new New York hardcore scene, especially Mobb Deep and Nas, the latter of whom appears here on the much-revered duet "Verbal Intercourse." The fellow Clan members who show up as guests are recast under gangster aliases, and Ghostface Killah makes himself an indispensable foil, appearing on the vast majority of the tracks and enjoying his first truly extensive exposure on record. Behind them, RZA contributes some of the strongest production work of his career, indulging his taste for cinematic soundscapes in support of the album's tone; his tracks are appropriately dark or melancholy, shifting moods like different scenes in a film. Cuban Linx's first-person narratives are filled with paranoia, ambition, excess, and betrayal, fast rises and faster falls. There are plenty of highlights along the way -- the singles "Criminology" and "Ice Cream," the gentle "Rainy Dayz," the influential posse cut "Wu-Gambinos" -- and everything culminates in "Heaven & Hell" and its longing for redemption. Like the Genius' Liquid Swords, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx takes a few listens to reveal the full scope of its lyrical complexities, but it's immensely rewarding in the end, and it stands as a landmark in the new breed of gangsta rap.

[YounG AleX]

For better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

One Jerome David Salinger, in response to his audience’s queries regarding what had already become an extremely slow-to-come future work, hypothesized that he would keep on writing stories about his pet project, the Glass family, provided that plot and convention did not “disappear entirely” within his excessive prose idiosyncracies. Unfortunately, the erratic “Seymour: An Introduction” and even stranger, as-yet-unpublished-between-hard-covers “Hapsworth 16, 1924” showed the author doing just that. (The latter, an unbelievably lengthy and barely readable letter from a bubbling-over-with-precocity eight-year old to his parents at summer camp, seemed to hint that Salinger had long abandoned plausibility as a necessary factor in the writing of fiction, or wildly—dementia could be the culprit here—overestimated his readers’ ability to suspend disbelief.) We think that Salinger, as stated, has continued to create work of this bizarre nature, yet refuses (perhaps with good reason) to publish it. Here the analogy with, say, Kevin Shields presents itself, though I’d much rather hope that Shields is just a perfectionist, if to an obsessive and damaging degree, than this sort of lunatic. A second analogy, then, is in order: the Wu-Tang Clan. Opaque slang? Check. Eccentricities in spades? Check. Lengthy absences from the industry? Well...

Well, the Wu have released all their missteps, is the thing. Even diehards began to see chinks appear in the solo-album-spawning juggernaut by the release of 1997’s Wu-Tang Forever, which some of us may have now forgotten began with a hilariously overlong burst of Five Percenter doctrine by Poppa Wu, contained an awful ersatz slow-jam in “Black Shampoo” and a lot of sloppy, subpar production by RZA’s soundalike, 4th Disciple. Even RZA himself sounded a bit weary denouncing “shark niggas” (a.k.a. biters) on the second disc’s introductory rant, and by the time, a few anemic solo discs and spin-offs later, his Bobby Digital alter-ego appeared amid talk of what seemed to be a hopelessly muddled movie—I’m really pretty sad that this never materialized—many had begun to write him off. Of course, for all this, there have been great singles and albums, among them Ghost Dog’s soundtrack, Supreme Clientele, and selected tracks from The W (by this time, though, I’m thinking that of its scattershot aspect as a very different kind of genius; I recall The Onion A.V. Club saying it seemed “infected” by the same delirium possessed by Nigga Please).

A scratchy kung-fu film sample from Liquid Swords’ “Duel of the Iron Mic”: “At the height of their fame and glory, they turned on one another, each struggling in their fame for ultimate supremacy. In the passion and death of their struggle, the very art that raised them to such Olympian heights was lost. Their techniques vanished.” For me, few other words could sum up the story of the Wu, after this album—a solo outing for the GZA which I sometimes think rivals the group’s debut for sheer ambience and invention, and which I hasten to say is their recorded pinnacle. Sure, why not? It’s a difficult masterwork, though, one that could be easily described as alienating. It’s often simultaneously difficult and shamelessly ham-fisted, dark and hilarious, murky and delicate, full of well-constructed rage. It’s got superb lyrics (GZA is known for difficult internal rhyme schemes which somehow work beautifully, even when they shouldn’t), but it’s got some awful ones (“Bitches puttin’ airport keys in their vaginas”? What? Don’t get me started on the stilted table-read quality of the “Do you know a Mr. Don Rodriguez?” skit, but know that I secretly love it as much on anything else on the album). The rest, the part we can’t easily explain, is patched together from the pop-culture detritus that lurked under the pop-culture detritus everyone else salvaged: out-of-place, off-key digital synths, bits of old Stax/Volt soul records and what has to be a sample from some sub-Switched-On-Bach Moog-gone-classical album (“Killah Hills 10304,” I’m looking in your direction), and taped-from-the-TV dialogue belonging to movies with titles like Kung Fu of Eight Drunkards.

Things kick off with a lengthy introduction from some afternoon ninja film, then segue awkwardly into the title track. RZA says he’s about to take us back to “the source, the knowledge,” and he soon does. A comical, menacing keyboard line ascends and descends while the Genius tell us that “I represent from midnight to high noon / I don’t waste ink, nigga, I think / I drop megaton bombs more faster than ya blink.” Lyrically, he’s on point, smooth and fierce, with no chorus or anything beyond a three-second pause to get in the way. “Duel of the Iron Mic” maintains the first track’s momentum and wackness-will-be-punished-with-death themes, this time with intricate, exotic splashes of piano, a minimal beat, and a brilliant (albeit brief) ODB cameo on the chorus, as well as appearances from Masta Killa and the usually underrated Inspecta Deck. “Living in the World Today” features a lurking, bizarrely melodic, Eastern-tinged bassline and some eerier-than-usual sound effects added to what it’s clear by now is a winning formula often raised to exhilarating heights. (A lyrical highlight is this terse sucker-punch: “Now who could ever say they heard of this? / My motherfuckin’ style is mad murderous!”)

“Gold” features a dissonant, low-budget soundscape pieced together from hard-edged snares, a good deal of tossed-together incidental grime, what sounds like a theremin, and some live keyboard. The smoother, near-pop “Cold World” (boasting an R&B chorus, even) may be the most instantly ear-pleasing track, but its violins and mournful electric piano are desolate indeed, to say nothing of its lyrics; “Labels” is a classic threat to all other rap purveyors that manages to string together the names of, well, many record labels (it’s my second favorite song to diss Herb Alpert’s A&M, after The Fall’s “C’n’C Smithering”). These two tracks are perhaps a shade unexceptional, but any doubts the listener may have about the power of this album are set to rest with “4th Chamber”: after another long stretch of sampled film dialogue, a pitch-bent keyboard squeal issues a threnodic warning as to what’s coming up next, and the electric-guitar-laden beat slams in with unholy intensity. (For another of the most thrilling, maniacally repetitious beats I’ve heard, check “I Gotcha Back,” with its looping, feverish horn line.) An ultimate posse cut led off by Ghostface Killah’s metaphysical probing (“Why did Judas rat the Romans while Jesus slept?”), it soon gives way to an even more astonishing, hyperactive RZA verse, rich in breathless they’ve-got-documents-on-it-locked-away but-they-know-we’re-onto-them and-they’re-coming-for-us paranoia with a righteous-anger, gnomic undertone. It doesn’t make much sense, but it sure is amazing. And much the same could be said of this album.

The final third of the album is considerably more finely-tuned and lucid, enthralling in an entirely different manner. Let's leave the baffling final track, "B.I.B.L.E.," out of this. It's the fourth to feature workmanlike, but more or less unexceptional, Wu hanger-on Killah Priest (though he did have a wonderful, lysergic verse on one of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Greyhound" remixes), and some slightly unfortunate too-clean guest production; this doesn't really seem like the sort of album that should end on an upbeat death-is-not-the-end note. I'm much happier with the wonderfully-produced "Swordsman," with its looming, dense, and, well, liquid beat (maybe even the album's strongest) and wondrously spiteful potshots at both black academica and white Christianity. "Shadowboxin'" pairs GZA and Meth to stunning results; the former's precision and the latter's laid-back drawl complement each other perfectly.

The stately "Investigative Reports" nearly tops "A Better Tomorrow" from Forever, which is no easy feat. And here's the part of the review where I talk once again about how the Wu actualy never did top this album's mix of pirated Asian cultural referents, been-there-done-that noir, rugged, terse, no-bullshit lyricism, and wild-card catchphrase loopiness: like one who tries to catch lightning in a bottle again, they never yet managed to make anything this memorable, otherworldly, and strangely beautiful again.

[YounG AleX]

Having made a name for himself as a guest MC on D.I.T.C. (Diggin' in the Crates) projects such as Diamond D.'s Stunts, Blunts & Hip-Hop and Showbiz & A.G.'s Runaway Slave, the flamboyantly gifted Lamont Coleman (aka Big L) dropped his debut in early 1995. A product of the mean streets of Harlem, L made his bones in the rap game with his rapid fire freestyle delivery and clever punchline-peppered rhymes. A patchwork album with a few outstanding cuts, Lifestylez fails to package the lightning-in-a-bottle talent of this cut-above MC. The album showcases L as a master of the lyrical stickup undressing his competition with kinetic metaphors and a brash comedic repertoire. The lead track, "Put It On" produced by Kid Capri, is a party cut with a criminal attitude. "M.V.P." snatches a brief segment from DeBarge's "Stay With Me" (later aggrandized on the Notorious B.I.G.'s popular remix of "One More Chance"). "Da Graveyard" features a young Cam'ron (here Killa Kam) and most notably a superb verse from a pre-Jigga Jay-Z (at the outset of his solo career). With better production and marketing, Big L might have found himself with a platinum album but instead he settled for platinum respect. This album captures the dynamic potential of a street legend, a legend who would later be gunned down in his prime.
Tracks

[YounG AleX]

................................

[DesDevious]

nice.........PROPZZ!!!!!

[AftermathBWS]

some cool albums right there!!

[AftermathBWS]

Me against the world def pacs best album makaveli is cool 2though

[AftermathBWS]

Originally Posted by YoungAl3xG

Having made a name for himself as a guest MC on D.I.T.C. (Diggin' in the Crates) projects such as Diamond D.'s Stunts, Blunts & Hip-Hop and Showbiz & A.G.'s Runaway Slave, the flamboyantly gifted Lamont Coleman (aka Big L) dropped his debut in early 1995. A product of the mean streets of Harlem, L made his bones in the rap game with his rapid fire freestyle delivery and clever punchline-peppered rhymes. A patchwork album with a few outstanding cuts, Lifestylez fails to package the lightning-in-a-bottle talent of this cut-above MC. The album showcases L as a master of the lyrical stickup undressing his competition with kinetic metaphors and a brash comedic repertoire. The lead track, "Put It On" produced by Kid Capri, is a party cut with a criminal attitude. "M.V.P." snatches a brief segment from DeBarge's "Stay With Me" (later aggrandized on the Notorious B.I.G.'s popular remix of "One More Chance"). "Da Graveyard" features a young Cam'ron (here Killa Kam) and most notably a superb verse from a pre-Jigga Jay-Z (at the outset of his solo career). With better production and marketing, Big L might have found himself with a platinum album but instead he settled for platinum respect. This album captures the dynamic potential of a street legend, a legend who would later be gunned down in his prime.
Tracks

Very underrated album in my opinion!! classic though!!

[AftermathBWS]

The D.O.C. :: No One Can Do it Better :: Ruthless Records
** RapReviews "Back to the Lab" series **
as reviewed by Steve 'Flash' Juon
Almost every rap album (and in truth a good majority of rock and metal albums) sold these days has that oh-so-familiar "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" sticker on it. In fact between this reviewer and you the reader, I think we can both agree that it's become something of a joke. I can't imagine most of today's parents would be shocked at hearing the word "shit" come out of their teenager's mouth let alone from the music they're listening to. Free porn is on the internet, XM satellite radio is totally uncensored, and that video game Jane bought Johnny for Christmas probably has more gunplay than a Cuban revolution. These days there's nothing an "advisory" can advise parents or kids of that they don't already know. Back in 1989 when the uproar over the content of urban music was just starting to gain steam (three years before "Body Count" was pulled from shelves and then censored) the move Ruthless Records made was much more sly by today's standards. Even though the warning label was first introduced in 1985 and quickly became an industry standard, Ruthless chose not to put the warning anywhere on the front cover of The D.O.C.'s "No One Can Do it Better." Instead, in small print on the back cover below track 13, the words "Explicit Lyrics - Parental Advisory" are displayed.

Pretty slick move if you think about it. Ruthless Records could effectively argue that they did actually warn parents since it is mentioned on the packaging, but without the actual advisory sticker on it that parents were already familiar with thanks to the PMRC, many might mistakenly believe that this album was "kid safe" and either let them buy it or purchase it for them. And by all accounts "No One Can Do it Better" did sell very well. For years it was just a few thousand units short of going platinum, although Yahoo! News seems to confirm it did finally cross the threshold. Let's not get it twisted though, that has nothing to do with whether the album had a clear advisory or not, although back in those days it probably didn't hurt. What really made the album sell was two factors of equal importance: the production work of Dr. Dre, and the lyrical skills of The D.O.C. himself. Out of the Ruthless family, he may have been the strongest of them all in rhymes, although he was often overshadowed by Ice Cube. Vocally though he had an impeccable flow sharpened through years of rapping in his adopted home of Dallas, Texas (he was born in Houston) with the Fila Fresh Crew. Ruthless brought the group in, but when they disbanded and fell to the wayside D.O.C.'s star continued to rise, and it's clear why listening to the opening track "It's Funky Enough":

"I am not illiterate, no not even a little bit
Nothing like an idiot, get it?
You want the record, cool, I'm with it!
Let the rhythm take you, shake it cause it makes you
As I turn the knob to the door you escape through
Go in like a knot, don't be a puff
And I let it play cause Dre's gettin funky enough
[...]
If, you want another reason, why it must be funky
Yo I am not a jackass, meaning not a donkey
So I will play the game, like it should be played
Drop the funk into the mix so the place will never fade
Ship it - ship it the the stations, in your jurisdiction
Brothers say I'm dope, and the others say I'm bitchin
No crowd can avoid, the D-O to the C
When I'm P-E-R-F-O-R-M-I-N-G"

Even if you've never heard this song before, you've heard this song before. What? Yes you have. Not only is D.O.C.'s opening line "One, and in comes the two to the three and four" one of the most sampled in rap history (ranks right up there with some snippets from Biz Markie and Slick Rick), the bassline was so mind-numbingly dope it got jacked a thousand times or more. Ba boom, BA DOOM; ba boom, BA DOOM. It's mesmerizing, it's hypnotizing. When D.O.C. starts spitting over the track with his slight hint of reggae stylee, it's like someone cast a line and the fish hook landed straight in your ear. CAUGHT! You can't escape it. The song is habit forming, and may even be bad for your health. You can listen to D.O.C. spit the shit ten times in a row and not even START to get tired of it. The amazing part is there are still twelve tracks and forty-four minutes of "No One Can Do it Better" left to go, and few people in rap's history have ever lived up to that motto so well. He doesn't even let up for a second on the following track, aptly titled "Mind Blowin'":

"A little something for the bretheren with intellect to truly understand it
It's like a message from the one who's gettin candid
Making a mark on the strength with rhyme ain't like nuttin
when you're pumpin, somethin that's bumpin
Did it, cause it's like I had to make one
Better than the last one, cause a mistake? None!
But somethin new, was needed in the mix to
make it as lethal, so lethal that I would think you
couldn't be made to invade certain areas
No other jurisdiction, but that was fiction!
As you progress, and you're enlightened
And the better you're writin by never bitin you're excitin
to the crowd, club, congregation, or gatherin
Homies in the street they'll be thinkin you O.G.!
Smooth, wordy example of how I'm livin
By gettin this prime, pumpin records that'll blow your mind"

Let me cut right to the chase here - NOBODY was spitting like this in '89. The only people who might even come close are KRS-One, Kane or Cube on a good day, maybe Kool G. Rap. That's not to say he was the most powerful orator or most influential MC - guys like Chuck D and Rakim held that title. When you look at how D.O.C. constructed his lyrics though, it's as if you were standing behind Picasso watching him paint a masterpiece. Perhaps it's no coincidence then that The D.O.C. had a song on his album TITLED "Portrait of a Master Piece":

"A musical massacre of inadequate noise
by the new authority; cause the majority
of peers who hear will award superiority
To those who know you knew now it's inevitable
I laid the track and it's simply unforgettable
Time has told me better than gold, I sold
And in front of a group or soul is a new episode
So like see if you can grasp upon yet another one
Take it to the everyday like it's done to sun
Words connected, up to another degree
And every artist who painted this, portrait of a masterpiece
It's unquestionable
The lyrics used the D.O.C.'s a professional
Nothing exquisite to prohibit you from listening up
Crisp and clean, but I don't mean 7-Up
I preside illest dope but don't get frantic and panic
I'm just a man on a mission with somethin more in the attic
than just the ordinary.."

D.O.C. broke all the conventions and rules for rhyming at the time. He interweaved his rhymes in and out of lines, ran off beat at will without MISSING a beat, and never once insulted the listener by giving less than a full dictionary's worth of verbals. D.O.C. wasn't just dropping phrases like "a little something for the bretheren with intellect" to be smug or using words like "jurisdiction" because they were full of syllables - D.O.C. fully expected the audience to either understand where he was coming from or pick it up from the context. Great orators can do that, because their speech and breath control is so fluid and their voice is so commanding that you tune in and you catch on. D.O.C. doesn't stumble over big words or flub his lines and mistime his rhymes. Therefore you get the sense that how he speaks comes naturally to him. He was born with the gift of gab but he didn't rest on his laurels - he practiced the craft until it became high art. D.O.C. couldn't dumb it down if he tried - he operates on a higher level by nature. The best part of that is that even though The D.O.C. was a naturally gifted MC, he never purposefully goes over your head to rub it in your face - he stays gangsta. That's why when listening to him rap, he epitomized the phrase coined in one of his song titles - a "Whirlwind Pyramid":

"Amplified by a microphone, my point is known
So yo, leave the pad at home
I'm down with the sound so much that I can feel it
If there's a deal to be dealt, then I'll deal it!
I'm on a roll, that's word to the father
Chumps want to break, but I'm tellin 'em don't bother
Char the, memory of all who saw the
last who concerned, I burn like lava
So in sum you break, you broken
And I'm smilin.. but not jokin
Secrets are told, fold, I never did
With the knowledge as strong as a whirlwind pyramid!"

It's hard to adequately describe how much of an unbelievable pleasure it is to listen to "No One Can Do it Better," an album that not only exceeds the expectations anyone had for D.O.C. at the time but which goes down as an unqualified classic in the history of hip-hop. The beats are a throwback to an era when everything Dre touched was a smash, and with D.O.C.'s superb lyrical ability they became the best raps money could buy. Unfortuantely this album is as tragic as it is triumphant. After getting in a car wreck which threw D.O.C. through a windshield, his vocal chords were severed to the point that his golden-toned voice would never return. Every scratchy voiced wino heard on an N.W.A. skit is D.O.C. When compared to the magnificence of this album, it makes one want to weep for what was lost. Still this one album has been forever preserved for posterity, and had his accident not taken him out of the booth he might be spoken about today as one of the all time greats. One thing's for sure though - his voice may have bene broken but his mind wasn't. Any time you hear an unbelievably tight rhyme coming out of Dr. Dre's mouth, chances are that D.O.C. was the ghostwriter behind the scenes who came up with it and coached Dre to spit it. After all Grand Puba did it for Pete Rock. "No One Can Do it Better" - an album that not only lived up to but EXCEEDED the billing of it's title. If you don't own it, go get it. NOW.

Music Vibes: 10 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 10 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 10 of 10

[AftermathBWS]

Ice Cube :: AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted :: Priority Records
** RapReviews "Back to the Lab" series **
as reviewed by Steve 'Flash' Juon
Ice Cube is one of hip-hop's most recognizable faces, but these days it has more to do with movies like "Barbershop" and "Friday After Next" than it does his rap records. Before O'Shea Jackson was Hollywood's urban hero, his reputation as the "angriest man in rap" was already cemented by his pivotal role in the rap group N.W.A. The fact he was the ghostwriter behind Dr. Dre and Eazy-E's raps was hip-hop's least well kept secret; that aside, it was when he spit his own writtens that he shined the brightest. Ask "Straight Outta Compton" fans what they remember best about the album and you'll undoubtedly hear a recitation of one of his verses, from the gruff "Fuck Tha Police" to the verbally dexterous "Parental Discretion Iz Advised" to the simple yet powerfully evocative "Gangsta Gangsta," a narrative rap that firmly established him as the group's leader with just one line: "To a kid lookin up to me, life ain't nothin but bitches and money."

Blunt honesty was Ice Cube's calling card, but shady dealings were the calling cards of Ruthless Records' Eazy-E and Jerry Heller. The tales of how Jackson was exploited are damn near urban legend; some suggesting his entire payment for writing and performances on "Straight Outta Compton" was little more than a new car, while the label pocketed millions upon millions in profits. Whatever the arrangement was, Cube clearly realized he was a rap superstar not being given a star's treatment. As the first to defect from N.W.A. he had two guillotines hanging over his head: one ready to slice him if the lyrics weren't up to par with his previous product in the group, the other ready to dice him for anything less than the funky beats provided by music maestros Dr. Dre and DJ Yella. His answer to the critics on the latter was somewhat shocking: Sir Jinx from his own production crew The Lench Mob shared dutied throughout Cube's debut LP with Public Enemy's infamous beat posse The Bomb Squad. It was unheard of in 1990 - a West coast, L.A. rapper flowing over East coast beats.

While his concept for beats may have surprised the rap nation, "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" had a far greater influence on the U.S. at large right off the bat with it's provocative title. Cube, like many in the genre of so-called "gangsta rap" was advocating serious message of social unrest mixed in with his urban narratives that was largely being ignored by critics who placed the focus on the wrong things. To such critics, the appeal of gangsta rap and it's practicioners was based solely on the shock value of the profanity and "living vicariously" through a ghetto experience. In response, Cube placed himself at the front of a visually limitless array of black men rolling backwards for blocks on the album cover, clearly putting himself at the fore as the leader of a movement much as Malcolm X and Huey Newton has been the visible face of their own respective organizations. The message of the photo and the album title was clear even before listening to the music: I'm here to fuck shit up for racist white America, and you can't stop me.

If that statement alone didn't wake people up, Cube wasn't going to take any chances that the point would be missed. The album's first full length song, "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate" portrayed him as a destabilizing force so dangerous that he had earned the singular ire of the entire populace. True or not, he was not going to let that stop him from saying what he wanted, when he wanted:

"They try to keep me from runnin up
I never tell you to get down, it's all about comin up
So what they do, go and ban the AK?
My shit wasn't registered any-fuckin-way
So you better duck away run and hide out
When I'm rollin real slow and the lights out
Cause I'm about, to fuck up the program
Shootin out the window of a drop-top Brougham
When I'm shootin let's see who drop
The police, the media, and suckers that went pop
And motherfuckers that say they too black
Put 'em overseas they be beggin to come back
They say we promote gangs and drugs
You wanna sweep a nigga like me up under the rug
Kickin shit called street knowledge
Why more niggaz in the pen than in college?
Because of that line I might be your cellmate
That's from the nigga ya love to hate!"

Cube correctly surmises that yellow-bellied journalists blame him and his fellow hardcore rappers for "promoting gangs and drugs" while failing to note that his real danger to AmeriKKKa was his willingness to question why more prisons are built than schools. To the hip-hop listener with a fine tuned ear for lyrics, Cube's choice of the Bomb Squad on beats suddenly made perfect sense as a way to emphasize his political views the same way they did for Chuck D in P.E. To further emphasize this link, Cube and Chuck shared the spotlight on the song "Endangered Species" in a rap about the nationwide decimation of black men:

"Every cop killer goes ignored
They'll just send another nigga to the morgue
A point scored; they could give a fuck about us
They rather catch us with guns, and white powder
If I was old, they'd probably be a friend of me
Since I'm young, they consider me the enemy
They'll kill ten of me to get the job correct
To serve, protect, and break a nigga's neck
Cause I'm the one with the trunk of funk
And 'Fuck Tha Police' in the tape deck
You should listen to me cause there's more to see
Call my neighborhood a ghetto cause it houses minorities" - Ice Cube

"Standin in the middle of war, every minute we flex
When we die, then we'll make +Jet+
+Ebony+ can't see to the lightside
The term they apply to us is a nigga
Call it what you want, cause I'm comin from the corner
Sayin my rhymes with a Ph.D.
Who's black - don't wanna roll
Sells his soul, watch his head go rollin
Who the fuck is they foolin?
Nobody knows, but I suppose the color of my clothes
matches the color of the one on my face
as they wonder what's under my waist" - Chuck D

Often times, Cube's message is not so obvious. When giving a recitation of daily events in his neighborhood such as on "What They Hittin' Foe?" he's not just telling a story but underscoring the lives of the disenfranchised trying to cope in a country that was (and even today often is) set up to make anyone not in the majority a second class citizen. As such, gambling on a dice game serves both a social release of pent up tensions and the allure of "the come up" out the ghetto on any big jackpot. Of course, some aren't content to take the inherent unfairness of random rolls of the dice in a manly fashion, which is why when you're Ice Cube you've always gotta carry some protection:

"Poppa need brand new shoes and a sweatshirt
Fool, you can't even FUCK with that
And now that I'm winnin, I gots to get my gat
Cause I see your homies startin to look
And broke motherfuckers, they make the best crooks
And I'm feelin like a baller
Buckin fools, now the circle's gettin smaller
Now you wanna go and scheme
Punk niggaz like you just love to triple-team
So I pick up my money and start walkin
Cause now I let the gat start talkin; now
Since y'all lost, you wanna go out like a sucker
Take that motherfuckers!"

The most controversial part and misunderstood part of this album was one single line from the song "You Can't Fade Me." In his typically blunt honest fashion, Cube was describing how some women misuse their own wombs as a ticket out of poverty; in other words, conceiving a child for the sole purpose of collecting child support and welfare. That concept alone may have been too much for the Christian conservative, but they really took up arms over this quote:

"Cause all I saw was Ice Cube in court
Payin a gang on child support
Then I thought deep about givin up the money
What I need to do, is kick the bitch in the tummy"

Taken out of context the lyrics are grossly misogynistic, but the right-wing and the feminists who were so quick to condemn him for it undoubtedly never heard the two lines that followed:

"Naw cause then, I'd really get faded
That's murder one, cause it was premeditated"

In a flash of anger Cube considering exacting revenge on the woman with shocking brutality, then immediately realized the harsh consequences of such actions. And how many of us have not felt murderous rage against someone who did us wrong at one point in our lives, only to wisely conclude the act immoral and the penal consequences too costly? This lyric's widespread misinterpretation though just proved Cube's point though that he was "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate." The more the critics tried to shut him up though, the stronger his appeal became. Cube even found some unexpected crossover success with the Sir Jinx & Bomb Squad co-produced "Who's the Mack?" featuring music from the JB's. With a jazzy swing of flutes, horns and saxophones, the song carried a mellow groove while Cube's rap illustrates the lengths people will go to just to get a dollar:

"Who's the mack? It is that fool that wanna pump the gas
Give you a sad story and you give him cash?
He start mackin and mackin and you suckered
Quick to say, I'm down on my luck and
you give a dollar or a quarter and he's on his way
Then you see his sorry ass, the next day
Are you the one gettin played like a sucker?
Or do you say -- get a job motherfucker?
Every day, the story gets better
He's wearin dirty pants and a funky-assed sweater
He claims he wants to get somethin to eat
But every day you find yourself gettin beat
He gets your money and he run across the street
Don't look both ways cause he's in a daze
And almost get his ass hit for the crack
Now ask yourself - who's the mack?"

Not every song on the album has a subtext or social message. "I'm Only Out For One Thing" featuring Flavor Flav is all about the joys of sex, "Rollin' Wit the Lench Mob" is a braggadocious ode to his crew with a sly diss to being TOO PREACHY in your raps ("Some rappers are heaven sent, but 'Self Destruction' don't pay the fuckin rent"), and "It's a Man's World" is a battle of the sexes where Yo-Yo makes her national debut by putting Cube is his place and effectively saying, "Hey it's a woman's world too!" These songs balance out the more blunt offerings like "Turn Off the Radio," where a fed up Ice Cube recognizes that only happy non controversial pablum will ever get played in a national top ten:

"Turn on the radio take a listen what you're missin
Personally, I'm sick of the ass-kissin
What I'm kickin to you won't get in rotation
Nowhere in the nation
Program directors and DJ's ignore me
Cause I simply said FUCK top forty
And top thirty top twenty and top ten
Until you put more hip-hop in
Then I might grin but don't pretend that you're down with the C
And go and diss me in a magazine
How could you figure the brother could dig ya
DJ face down in the river
No it's not a threat but a promise"

It's hard to really put into context just how revolutionary this album was. Like Boogie Down Productions' "By Any Means Necessary" and Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" before it, the album combined the hardest of hardcore MC's with dope beats while the messages offered hope against a corrupt system within a decaying social fabric. To the hip-hop nation it was straight up truth, while conservatives blasted the violence and profanity and completely missed the point. For the younger generation, black white and otherwise, it wasn't hard to get the message. Even if they were turned on by Ice Cube's "Gangsta Gangsta" persona and "fuck you" attitude, they discovered that the fiery rapper was also breaking down hard facts in digestible and highly quotable chunks of hardcore rap. The lyrics alone would be among the best Cube has written in his career, and the beats alone would be among the best Sir Jinx or The Bomb Squad has ever made, but the potency of the two together make "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" a watershed album. Now that it's been digitally remastered with the "Kill at Will" EP included as bonus tracks at no additional cost, you owe it to yourself as a hip-hop fan to put this album in your collection if you don't own it already; and if you do it's worth investing in the upgrade. On a short list of the most controversial, most funky, most lyrically intense rap albums ever made, this album is easily top ten. More than that, it's one of the most important records released in the 20th century in ANY genre. If anyone ever says to you, "Rap is simple shit, I can do that" just play them this album and dare them to write something better -- none of them ever will.

Music Vibes: 10 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 10 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 10 of 10

Originally posted: April 8, 2003
source:

[woodman]

Repped

its tha infamous Mobb!

[hiphop4lyfe4ever]

repppp good klookin