1. Root Down (Free Zone Mix) 2. Root Down (LP) 3. Root Down (PP Balloon Mix) 4. Time To Get Ill 5. Heart Attack Man 6. The Maestro 7. Sabrosa 8. Flute Loop 9. Time For Livin' 10. Something's Got To Give - - - [ [ mp3 @ VBR / Lame 3.98 (HQ)] ] - - - OR
Lords of the Underground rattled off five great singles in a row between 1992-1994, all of which helped make Here Come the Lords one of the best rap debuts of 1993. "Psycho," "Chief Rocka," "Flow On," "Here Come the Lords," and "Funky Child" (with that wildly searing horn line) feature spare productions with crisp drum breaks and bone-rattling basslines, most of which glean from the catalogs of Blue Note and James Brown. "Flow On" boasts the inimitable touch of Marley Marl and assistant K-Def, and yet it's hardly the most infectious of the batch. There's nothing lacking about the actual production , it's just that MCs Dupre "Doitall" Kelly and Mr. Funke are on top of their game when they're at their most uninhibited, as heard on "Funky Child." And who could forget the image of a diapered Doitall and a ridiculously afro'd Mr. Funke in that song's video (which played a big role in the album's success)? The remainder of the album has its share of middling moments, but the five singles and some other scattered flashes of greatness are more than enough to make for a record that stands alongside many of the other hallowed rap albums from the era.
A1 - Beware Of The Rampsack (Rugged Boyscout Extended Mix) (Dirty)
A2 - Beware Of The Rampsack (Boyscout Acapella Mix) (Radio Edit)
A3 - Beware Of The Rampsack (Rampsack Acapella Dub Mix) (Dirty)
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Side B:
B1 - Beware Of The Rampsack (Danger Zone Rampsack Remix) (Radio Edit)
B2 - Beware Of The Rampsack (Smak-U-Bak Rampsack Mix) (Dirty)
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A childhood friend of Busta Rhymes while the two were growing up in Brooklyn, Rampage again hooked up with his old pal in the Flipmode Squad, the loose collective of rappers (also including Spliff Star, Lord Have Mercy, Rah Digga, and Serious) centered around Busta Rhymes for his first solo album, 1996's The Coming. When the album proved a hit, Rampage earned his own solo deal the following year. The two had begun playing music together while listening to Rampage's musician-father, and though Busta later moved out to Long Island and formed Leaders of the New School, the pair remained friends. Rampage gained his own record deal with Rowdy Records in 1994, releasing his debut album, Ramp Sack, but later leaving the label for their lack of hip-hop how-to. Later that year, both Rampage and Busta Rhymes contributed to the legendary 1994 remix of Craig Mack's "Flava in Ya Ear" (which broke the Notorious B.I.G. and re-launched LL Cool J), also appearing together on four tracks from Busta's The Coming. After signing with Elektra/Asylum, Rampage released Scouts Honor...By Way of Blood, in July 1997, with several tracks including the Flipmode Squad.
- 1. Intro 2. Oodles Of O's 3. Talkin' Bout Hey Love 4. Pease Porridge 5. Skit 1 6. Johnny's Dead Aka Vincent Mason (Live From The BK Lounge) 7. A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays' 8. WRMS' Dedication To The Bitty 9. Bitties In The BK Lounge 10. Skit 2 11. My Brother's A Basehead 12. Let, Let Me In 13. Afro Connections At A Hi 5 (In The Eyes Of The Hoodlum) 14. Rap De Rap Show 15. Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa 16. Who Do U Worship? 17. Skit 3 18. Kicked Out The House 19. Pass The Plugs 20. Not Over Till The Fat Lady Plays The Demo 21. Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) 22. WRMS: Cat's In Control 23. Skit 4 24. Shwingalokate 25. Fanatic Of The B Word 26. Keepin' The Faith 27. Skit 5 - - - On their notorious second album, De La Soul went to great lengths to debunk the daisy-age hippie image they'd been pigeonholed with, titling the record De La Soul Is Dead and putting a picture of wilting daisies in a broken flowerpot on the cover. Critics and fans alike were puzzled as to why the group was seemingly rejecting what had been hailed as the future of hip-hop, and neither the reviews nor the charts were kind to the album. It isn't that De La try to remake their sound here -- Dead keeps the skit-heavy structure of the debut, and the surreal tone and inventive sampling techniques are still very much in evidence. But, despite a few lighthearted moments ("Bitties in the BK Lounge," the disco-flavored "A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'"), a distinct note of bitterness has crept into De La's once-sunny outlook. On the one hand, they're willing to take on more serious subject matter; two of the album's most powerful moments are the unsettling incest tale "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" and Posdnuos' drug-addiction chronicle "My Brother's a Basehead," both true-life occurrences. Yet other tracks betray a brittle, insular state of mind; one running skit features a group of street thugs who ultimately throw the album in the trash for not having enough pimps, guns, or curse words. There are vicious parodies of hip-house and hardcore rap, and the single "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)" complains about being harassed into listening to lousy demo tapes. Plus, the negativity of the bizarre, half-sung "Johnny's Dead" and the hostile narrator on "Who Do U Worship?" seemingly comes out of nowhere. Dead is clearly the product of a group staggering under the weight of expectations, yet even if it's less cohesive and engaging, it's still often fascinating in spite of its flaws.
"We don't have bar mitzvahs," raps Brother Ali on "Room With a View," "we become men the first time our father hits us." There's a lot of anger and pain behind the sophomore (and first CD) release by the self-described "urban Norman Rockwell," but Brother Ali chooses not to wallow in self-pity. Instead, his carefully observed lyrics draw on his Muslim faith and his personal experiences, including the self-esteem issues he has faced as a heavy-set albino, to convey a positive message of transcending rage and overcoming self-doubt. Brother Ali is an articulate MC with a strong technique and an appealing personality; he's introspective, righteous, and proud without seeming humorless, self-righteous, or overbearing. You'll hear some braggadocio on this album, but Brother Ali demonstrates in "Win Some Lose Some" that he's willing to admit when he got his ass whooped. He also critiques male possessiveness in the ironic, laid-back "Prince Charming," which features a smooth-talking narrator who reveals through his own words that he's really a creepy stalker. Other tracks address topics such as spiritual power, domestic abuse, and, of course, wack MCs and shady promoters. Producer Ant (Atmosphere) blends soul, blues, and jazz to create sick beats that skillfully complement Ali, ranging from the the perky guitar that enhances the deliberate smarmimess of "Prince Charming" to the ominous trumpets that underpin the drama of "Room With a View"; some songs could have benefited from more changes and catchier hooks, but for the most part the music is compellingly straightforward. Slug (Atmosphere) is guest MC on two tracks, the battle rap "Blah Blah Blah" and the short (under two minutes) "Missing Teeth."
After helping create the West Coast underground scene with his 1991 debut, Del tha Funkee Homosapien made a radical departure with 1993's No Need for Alarm, eschewing the familiar G-funk of his debut for a jazzier, more sophisticated sound more akin to East Coast acts like Black Moon and Main Source. The thematic and lyrical content of Del's work underwent a considerable change as well, with No Need for Alarm largely avoiding the endearing comic vignettes and blunted utopian vision of his debut for a never-ending string of battle raps. Del's loopy sense of humor remained intact, but without the structure and pop savvy of I Wish My Brother George Was Here, No Need for Alarm feels a bit aimless, even if it does contain some of Del's best work to date. "Catch a Bad One" showcases Del's new direction to the best effect, driven by Casual's sinister, hypnotic, string-laced production and some of the fiercest and most potent battle raps of Del's career. When No Need for Alarm works, it's terrific -- funny, skillfully produced, and wonderfully propulsive. Unfortunately, it only works about a third of the time. Critics have taken Del's debut to task for having a fairly generic P-funk-dominated sound more in line with executive producer Ice Cube's work than Del's unique sensibility, but Del has always functioned better when paired with strong collaborators. Sure, it could be argued that I Wish My Brother George Was Here and Deltron 3030 reflect the sensibilities of producers and co-producers Ice Cube and DJ Pooh and Dan the Automator as much as they do Del, but working with strong-willed peers has a tendency to temper the artist's tendency toward self-indulgence and bring out the best in him. Without a strong sense of direction, No Need for Alarm is frustratingly uneven, rich and transcendent one moment and aimless and repetitive the next. Still, it's a challenging, unique, and uncompromising follow-up, one well worth picking up for anyone interested in either the evolution of West Coast hip-hop or just the evolution of one of its most talented, eccentric, and gifted artists.
2 Live Crew's infamous - record store clerks were actually arrested for selling the album -- and double platinum -- a great example of how being banned can increase sales -- As Nasty As They Wanna Be may be more talked about than listened to, but it's actually a thoroughly entertaining effort and as solid a album as the trashy party rap genre could have hoped for. In the first moments a sampled voice asks, "What do we get for ten dollars?." In a sleazy slow tone that might make Ron Jeremy blush, a hooker answers, "Everything you want" as the album begins to deliver on this street corner promise with the legendary "Me So Horny" ("me love you long time"). With a sample of Full Metal Jacket's Vietnamese hooker, a cheap drum machine, a fat bassline, and a simple set of rhymes that are filled with every cuss word, innuendo, and misogynist, knuckle-dragging reference to women imaginable, "Me So Horny" is the reason 2 Live Crew should exist. Nothing they or their leader Luke (Luther) Campbell recorded afterwards sounded as lean, as hook filled, and so instantly grabbing as the single. From the inner city strip clubs to the headphones of teenagers in the suburbs, the track was a massive guilty pleasure, one that could also fill the dancefloor in a second. The album that follows repeats and repeats this cheap and silly porno formula and miraculously stretches it as far as it can go. Divided into four sides -- one for each member, the only reason anyone remembers their names -- Nasty keeps it rolling with tracks that capture "Horny"'s energy, ("Put Her in the Buck"), its cleverness ("Dirty Nursery Rhymes"), and a whole bunch that are just as hooky. "The F**k Shop" is the best example of the latter with its easy to grasp chorus and wicked use of a loop from Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love." Other smart samples like Kraftwerk for "Dick Almighty" and Jimi Hendrix for "My Seven Bizzos" keep the album alive, while interludes lifted from Andrew Dice Clay, Rudy Ray Moore, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor give away its true inspirations. A couple amusing left turns -- the 12-bar "2 Live Blues" and the dancehall party "Reggae Joint" -- round out the album, and suddenly the full-length that doesn't seem like it could ever suffer an injustice gets sold short by history, at least when it comes to remembering what a grand porno achievement Luke and his crew created. -
Returning to the deft, cerebral sound invented on Tragic Epilogue, Anti-Pop Consortium's first full-length for Warp Records is by far the group's best work to date and takes a strong stride in the fusion of "out" hip-hop and electronic music. Released only six months following the somewhat understated The Ends Against the Middle EP, this completely new group of songs pushes the boundaries of musical structure while still basking in hip-hop authenticity. While the easy comparison would reference Anti-Pop as the Sun Ra of rap, the group's musical sophistication manifests itself as a genuine expression of the limitless possibilities within its composition -- without seeming like an attempt to outsmart the commercial rap competition. So dropping a beat over a ping-pong ball on "Ping Pong" and then rhyming on top comes off as par for the course rather than contrived abstraction, while ironically, the improvement in production and skill here might lead the group into a higher hip-hop strata. Using voices like soloing instruments and orchestrating more chorus-like samples and loops than on previous works, Anti-Pop's sound reverberates quality with each listen to Arrhythmia, a feat of clever artistic strength.
Boston's Edan has scored the hip-hop triple crown, rapping, programming and sampling at a masters level on his second full-length. As an MC, he bows down while hyping himself up on the wink-nudge titled "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme," giving extended shout-outs to the history of hip-hop, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash through to Ultramagnetic MC's and Prince Paul, all over a break as dusty and faded as an episode of Carnivale. "Polite Meeting" offers a beat and sample collage on par with the current work of DJ Shadow and RJD2, and one is left to really ponder at the possibility of Edan trying to perform the beats and vocals live. Def Jux bright star Mr. Lif makes a guest appearance on the heavily psychedelic "Making Planets," which leads into a full-on Hendrix-inspired freaky-blues interlude. Percee P and Insight also drop by to flow over some of Edan's time and space warping musical beds (to call these "beats" would be an immense oversimplification) but Dagha guests on the grittiest rocker, "Rock'N'Roll" which manages a full-on Marshall stack set to ten, and a guitar assault that somehow avoids all of the failings of rap-rock. If hip-hop had existed in the days of the Filmore, Woodstock and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Edan would have been right on the bus.
Putting the name of the genre right there in the name of the album is a bold move. While it helps record-store clerks file the CD correctly it also means you'd better be good at whatever genre label it is you're adopting or, as in this case, naming. Fortunately MC Frontalot happens to be the best there is at what he does and what he does is rap about being a Poindexter. Nerdcore Rising is not only the fledgling nerdcore hip-hop subgenre's defining statement and manifesto, but its best release. This album alone is the argument for why people who played Dungeons & Dragons should be not only allowed, but encouraged to rap.Abandoning the blatantly unauthorized samples hijacked from the likes of Fiona Apple and Clyde Stubblefield that he attribute to DJ CPU in his demos, with Nerdcore Rising Frontalot has found a producing partner (and sometimes keyboardist) in Baddd Spellah and a crew of like-minded geeks to fill in on drums, bass, tuba, and other instruments. This musical accompaniment is tilted to suit the subject matter so that "Goth Girls", which is about being too uncool to date girls in black, has eerie cello and washes of dirgey guitar while "Pron Song" has appropriately glitchy beats for a tune about being addicted to Interrnet pornography. As well as quirky topics like those, Frontalot's also capable of tackling more mundane rap fare, although it's done in his personal style. After Public Enemy's Revolverlution track "Son of a Bush" there were plenty of MCs ready to take political potshots over the Iraq War, but their earnest sentiments were often couched in naïve imagery. Frontalot's "Special Delivery" is a remedy to that, a political track that makes its points with intellect rather than resorting to vague conspiracy theories. "Braggadocio is a boast track in which he compares himself to the Karate Kid and claims "I stand 77-feet tall/I got eight balls/all y'all are subject to my thrall/I act appalled/when in receipt of less than the highest honor/someday I'll be both revered and passé, like Madonna." If rap fandom can take the endless boasting, thuggery, cosmic ramblings, booty worship, gun-talk, and revolution-talk of traditional hip-hop seriously, Nerdcore Rising makes a solid case they should add self-deprecating geekishness to that list of encouraged subjects.
Foreign Legion began in the late '80s in San Jose, CA, where layabouts Prozack and DJ Design would amuse themselves by stealing bicycles and making rhymes. Years later, after meeting and collaborating with Marc Stretch, the duo became a trio, and Foreign Legion's cynical, lyrical take on underground hip-hop was born. Full Time B-Boy, the group's debut 12" single, was issued by ABB Records in 1999; the Nowhere to Hide 12" followed a year later on Insidious Urban.With Marc Stretch and Prozack's call-and-response choruses and the quirky beats of DJ Design, the songs were an instant success. By now, Foreign Legion had established its headquarters in San Francisco, the home of likeminded artists such as Del tha Funkee Homosapien and DJ Shadow. In September of 2000, the group's debut full-length, Kidnapper Van: Beats to Rock While Bike-Stealin', was released on Insidious Urban. The album presented Foreign Legion as a rap crew that wasn't afraid to poke fun over dope beats; favorite targets included themselves and the state of hip-hop music in general. After a brief hiatus, the trio returned in late 2002 with the Happy Drunk and Voodoo Star 12"s, which led up to Playtight, Foreign Legion's second sophomore full-length effort for Insidious Urban.
On Step in the Arena, DJ Premier and Guru hit upon their mature sound, characterized by sparse, live jazz samples, Premier's cut-up scratching, and Guru's direct, unwavering streetwise monotone; but, with Daily Operation, the duo made their first masterpiece. From beginning to end, Gang Starr's third full-length album cuts with the force and precision of a machete and serves as an ode to and representation of New York and hip-hop underground culture. The genius of Daily Operation is that Guru's microphone skills are perfectly married to the best batch of tracks Premier had ever come up with. Guru has more of a presence than he has ever had, slinking and pacing through each song like a man with things on his mind, ready to go off at any second. Premier's production has an unparalleled edge here. He created the minimalist opening track, "The Place Where We Dwell," out of a two-second drum-solo sample and some scratching, but is also able to turn around and create something as lush and melodic as the jazz-tinged "No Shame in My Game" without ever seeming to be out of his element, making every track of the same sonic mind. For an underground crew, Gang Starr has always had a knack for crafting memorable vocal hooks to go with the expert production, and they multiply both aspects on Daily Operation. Every song has some attribute that stamps it indelibly into the listener's head, and it marks the album as one of the finest of the decade, rap or otherwise.
Kool Moe Dee resented the fact that in the mid- to late '80's, most of rap's founding fathers were enjoying little attention. But Dee himself was one of the few exceptions, and the old-school survivor had a major hit with his sophomore effort, How Ya Like Me Now. He would have done better to devote more time to storytelling and less time to boasting, but he definitely brings plenty of soul and spirit (as well as technique) to this material. Though not as strong as his first album, it definitely has its share of classics, including "Wild Wild West," a reflection on the nitty-gritty environment that surrounded rap during its early years; his denunciation of materialism "No Respect"; and the infectious title song, which was clearly inspired by Dee's feud with L.L. Cool J. A few years later, much of the rap world was sick to death of hearing about the feud, but in 1987, it was a major topic of conversation in hip-hop.
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