FROM DA BRICKS

Founded in 1991, Ninja Tune has long been the record label of choice for the UK head interested in straight up rap music as well as more abstract beats. I have little concept of how much of the label’s catalogue has been exported, but if you’re feelin’ hip hop then trawling through their discography is well worth the effort.

Some of their releases are a little too leftfield for me, delving into the realms of electronica and downtempo beats that have grown away from the label’s foundation in hip hop. However, The Herbaliser are a UK crew that have managed to stay firmly rooted in the culture whilst adding interest that takes them beyond some of the more superficial rude boy UK hip hop that I have discussed before (see my post on Lewis Parker). ‘Very Mercenary’, the group’s third studio album saw the outfit find their feet, combining elements of hip hop and more left of centre influences that also features some tasty guest spots in the form of What What (now Jean Grae), Blade, Roots Manuva, Bahamadia and The Dream Warriors.

Core members Jake Wherry and DJ Ollie Teeba clearly pay their respects to the foundation of the culture with this release, particularly with tracks like ‘Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks’ which mashes together various breakbeats and features a vocal sample from ‘Style Wars’. Elsewhere the album focuses on straight up hip hop that has a spacious and atmospheric vibe. Both of the cuts featuring What What are excellent, the relatively slow tempo and warm basslines complementing her flow well. Ollie Teeba also demonstrates his ability on the ones and twos in the outro sections to both of these cuts with some tight scratching that completes the tunes with genuine style. I also highly recommend ‘Starlight’ which features one of my favourite UK MCs Roots Manuva. Manuva’s voice is relatively unique and the content of his rhymes is well thought out and exceptionally well delivered.

The album also has a choice selection of instrumental tracks which are complex enough to stand alone without the need for rapping over the top. ‘Goldrush’ has a drum track that drives the song forward with real momentum, and the string and guitar loops work well together to create an eerie yet relatively upbeat vibe. ‘Shattered Soul’ is along a similar line, but is more laid back than the aforementioned track featuring some more of those atmospheric strings as well as a dope horn track that was arranged by a live orchestra. There are in fact several tracks that utilise live instrumentation, the effect being a sense of warmth and depth to the album that is sometimes missing in more contemporary hip hop.

To wrap up: ‘Very Mercenary’ will not necessarily blow your mind, but it is a complete album that rarely warrants you reaching for the skip button. If you’re in the mood for something rowdy then look elsewhere, but in my opinion this is a fine example of how soulful and intelligent UK hip hop can be.

It’s crazy some of the things that you sleep on. Despite Afu-Ra’s status as a protege of Jeru and production by Primo, Da Beatminerz and Muggs, ‘The Body Of The Life Force’ slipped under my radar for a considerable period of time. I would not say that this is an outstanding album, but it is a demonstration of the fact that hip hop still had something left to give post-millenium as this was released in late 2000. Having said this, perhaps the key to its success is that it sounds like it could have emerged from the scene in the mid-’90s, with instantly identifiable Premier beats and Afu’s rhyme style that covers notions of consciousness as well as more stereotypical braggin’/maintain’ content.

Much in the same way that Jeru was brought up by Gangstarr, Afu’s come-up was aided by his closeness with everybody’s favourite dreaded hip hop MC. Making appearances on both ‘The Sun Rises In The East’ and ‘The Wrath Of The Math’ introduced him into the hip hop conscience, and with 1998’s ‘Whirlwind Thru Cities’ he looked all set up to break into the scene with vigour. The album as a whole rarely reaches the standard set by his first 12” release, but there is enough here to keep your average head interested with a well-timed skip here and there.

‘Defeat’ is a bangin’ track that could not have been produced by anyone but Premier and Afu’s intelligent wordplay twinned with a relatively aggressive delivery suits the production well. ‘D&D Soundclash’ utilises a skanking guitar and roots-style vocal sample paired up with a heavy drum track and is a fine example of how when done well, the two genres can be combined to great effect. ‘Mic Stance’ and ‘Equality’ are two of the other Premier joints on the album and as you would expect are highly enjoyable. I particularly like the Ky-Mani Marley vocal on ‘Equality’ which continues the rap/reggae crossover feel that permeates some of the album with real flava. In fact, given that I feel that these are the strongest cuts on the album, I realise that it is essentially Primo’s presence on ‘The Body Of The Life Force’ that really makes it.

I wouldn’t really call any of the tracks genuine skipping material, but there are a handful of cuts here that when sat next to the stronger selections on the album feel a little weak. Still, this is well worth a purchase and is an album that will have you boppin’ that head and refuting the notion that hip hop died somewhere in the mid-’90s. For that fact alone it is a work that demands coppin’. Copy and paste the link, hit return and enjoy.

Although I am not a massive fan of latin rap, there are still of course a few groups that it is impossible to front on. Undoubtedly, hip hop’s most famous latin rap outfit are the creators of such killer cuts as ‘How I Could Just Kill A Man’ and ‘Insane In The Brain’: Cypress Hill. The albums from which these joints came managed the dual success of commercial viability as well as underground credibility, no mean fit in a genre which so often substitutes one for the other. Although ‘Temples Of Boom’ may not have managed the same achievement to quite the extent of their previous two releases, it is still a quality example of weed-induced stoner rap and features some of the best tracks that the group have ever made.

The cover art alone hints at a change in style from both their self-titled debut and ‘Black Sunday’. A solitary monk walks a long, stone staircase towards a temple that looks like it could have been a propsective location for an Indiana Jones film, and this dark and moody monochrome image is reflected in the sound created by the group over the course of the album. Cypress Hill have little intention of covering up their heavily blunted image, with ‘Spark Another Owl’ featuring a list of the various strains avaliable of every weed smoker’s favourite sticky green substance. This album opener sees the group emerge from a cloudy haze of smoke to deliver a seriously head noddy track that I rate as one of the highlights on the album.

The other choice selections for me include ‘Illusions’ and ‘Boom Biddy Bye Bye’, both of which are variations on the same heavily stoned theme. I once remember seeing an interview in which B-Real stated that the crew did not want to be known simply as the go-to guys for every discerning pothead, but this assertion seems slightly short-sighted given their consistent and positive representation of marijuana consumption. Unsurprisingly, this release is best enjoyed late at night with spliff firmly in hand, the beats perfectly complementing an exceptionally chilled vibe (although the evil weed needn’t be a prerequisite for enjoying the album).

In my opinion, the album is marred by a lack of consistency, and beyond the aforementioned tracks and ‘Everybody Must Get Stoned’, I do not feel that this is a particularly strong work. Even though they might try and argue to the contrary, Cypress Hill are at their best on ‘Temples Of Boom’ when sticking to what they so obviously know best: the creation of beats that are intrinsically linked to ‘high times’. Sit back, grab your nickelbag and lose yourself in the weed-induced highlights of one of hip hop’s most successful crews.

Shure M44-7

In my continuing series of equipment that is essential to hip hop, I’m sticking with the ones and twos today. The Shure M44-7s are to the cartridge world what the Technics are to the ever expanding range of turntables available in today’s market: an industry standard. Given their endorsement by the Piklz, there is little doubt about the quality of these needles; if they can handle the punishment that Q-Bert must give them then you know they must be all that. I love the industrial, no frills look of these cartridges in the same way that I appreciate the simple yet classic design of the 1200/1210s: they are there to do a job and they do so better than any other piece of equipment available on the market. If you watch any DMC competition it is almost guaranteed that 50% of the competitiors have got these running through the grooves of their battle wax, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them skip in competition (I’m happy to be proven wrong). Of course, there are other cartridges out there that would in truth perform as effectively, but there seems to me an essence to the M44-7s that is distinctly hip hop.

More to come in the equipment series very soon: hope you’re feelin’ it.

Onyx’s vision of the realities of inner city life are amongst the grittiest and most terrifying ever laid down on wax. As a collective, they are paranoid, incredibly angry and have resigned themselves to the fact that in all likelihood they are going to die imminently as a result of their lifestyle choices. To add to this, they don’t give a fuck. The album begins with a short skit in which one man convinces the other to kill himself, despite the protestations of the soon to be dead, whimpering man with a gun pointing at his own head. The philosophical conclusion here is that ‘you’re better off dead’, and this theme is essentially continued throughout the duration of ‘All We Got Iz Us’, with various allusions to suicide, guns, drug dealing and murder.

In my opinion, this incredibly hardcore aesthetic cannot be successfully carried over the course of a whole album and it is for this reason that ‘All We Got Iz Us’ falls down. Interestingly, I really rate the first half of the album and feel that the second half is significantly weaker. Perhaps this is simply because I can’t make it beyond ‘Shout’ before feeling that I have to reach for something else to lighten the mood and remind myself that life is in fact worth living. As with ‘Poverty’s Paradise’, this is also one of the first albums that I ever owned on tape as a young fan of the genre. It is no wonder that my parents struggled to see the appeal of rap music with ‘All We Got Iz Us’ blaring out of my bedroom, with Sticky Fingaz and co. roaring and growling over neck snapping beats.

Despite its shortcomings there are some standout cuts here that make the album worth owning. ‘Shout’ is an almost carbon copy of ‘Slam’, adopting exactly the same structure in composition and with the same message: Onyx are the best that the genre has to offer and you need to get off your sorry arse and unleash your frustrations like there’s no tomorrow. I actually prefer this to ‘Slam’ although this is probably due to the fact that the group’s signature tune has been overplayed somewhat and lost some of its original impact. ‘Last Dayz’ is moody and brooding, transporting the listener to the metaphorical dungeon in which the MCs dwell painting their pictures of violence and the rest of society’s ills. Sticky Fingaz’s verse demonstrates the recklessness with which the group’s on-mic personas handle a ghetto lifestlye, throwing all humanity to one side and embracing the darker side of living in the city:

Thinking about taking my own life,
I might as well,
‘Cept they might not sell weed in hell,
And that’s where I’m going ‘cos the Devil’s inside of me,
They make me rob from my own nationality.

I also like the track ‘All We Got Iz Us’ which features a warm bassline, drums and little else beyond the snarl of the MCs over the top with more details of their experiences on the streets of New York. ‘Purse Snatchaz’ also comes recommended, featuring some nice strings and more hard hitting drum programming. These four songs are the best on the LP, and because I can’t really bring myself to listen to more than fifteen minutes of the album in any one sitting, these are the tracks that I come back to whilst the remainder of the work has drifted away from me somewhat.

In some ways I have to laugh at some of the lines because as a nice middle-class boy from north London, hip hop doesn’t come much further away from my own experiences of life. Still, therein lies the appeal of the group. I don’t listen to Onyx to engage in a world that I know, I listen to it because it transports me to a fantasy world in which every man fends for himself and faces the world around him with an unerring sense of rage and brutality. Pull your fiercest screwface, raise your hands to the sky and jump around to one of hip hop’s darkest and most unforgiving outfits. You might not last more than five minutes, but you’ll have a damn good time whilst doing so.

The thing that I have enjoyed most about this blog is that it has forced me to look back through my collection and listen to albums that have been out of rotation for a long time. As with ‘Labcabicalifornia’, ‘Poverty’s Paradise’ may not be deemed classic material in the sense that the group’s earlier releases are, but personally I regard this as the most consistent and dopest of Naughty’s output.

Naughty By Nature are the perfect hip hop crossover group. Catchy hooks and a lyrical focus on the benefits of a good party keep the casual listener happy, but there is also a grittiness to their beats which complements their highly accomplished flow and engages the more serious hip hop fan. The light seems to generally fall on the first couple of albums due to the presence of the classic party anthems ‘O.P.P.’ and ‘Hip Hop Hooray’ and as a result ‘Poverty’s Paradise’ does seem to get overlooked somewhat despite a Best Rap Album Grammy. It still has it’s fair share of hits with ‘Craziest’ and ‘Feel Me Flow’ which build on the groundwork made by earlier hits, but there literally isn’t a bad track on here which is perhaps more than can be said for their self-titled debut and ’19 Naughty III’.

I love the opening to the album which features a brief excerpt from a live show followed by a piano based cut that introduces the theme for the album. This is followed by ‘Clap Yo Hands’, a sensational cut featuring a sample from a Sam and Dave song and some slammin’ snares. ‘World Go Round’ features a loop from Michael Jackson’s version of ‘People Make The World Go Round’ sped up and laid over the top of some more dope drum programming and ‘Respect Due’ is also an absolute belter with more of the same: big beats and dope rhymes. Generally the production is excellent, retaining a strong street feel but whilst keeping a sense of the soulful dusty grooves that went into the construction of the songs.

Treach and Vinnie’s flows are amongst the best that the genre has ever seen, varying in tone and intonation with forays into some lines that feel almost as if they are being sung. Clever wordplay and similes mean that they not just a success because of their style of delivery; there is content here to match. The main focus remains the same as earlier releases: parties, women, street narratives and braggin’ but it is done with such quality that like all great MCs they forge an incredibly strong sense of their own identity. I can only imagine how great it would have been to see the group at this point in time, with Treach and Vinnie ripping through classic after classic and getting the crowd properly hyped: real live hip hop.

This was also one of the first hip hop albums that I ever bought, and it takes me back to when I was thirteen finishing my homework and playing ‘Lemmings’ on the PC whilst listening to my ‘Poverty’s Paradise’ tape to death. I loved it then and I love it now, a true indicator of the fact that although I didn’t really know it at the time, I had tapped into something that epitomised quality hip hop of the era. As with yesterday’s post, this personal history obviously taints my objectivity when approaching the album but I don’t care: this is undeniably dope.

Keep locked into FDB over the weekend as I have a couple of special compilations in mind as well as a little bit more stuff on some of the technology that has been so important in the world of hip hop. See you then.

After posting the Dilla/J Rocc mix I was drawn back to The Pharcyde’s sophomore release ‘Labcabincalifornia’. I had forgotten how much I get out of this album despite its slightly lukewarm reception in comparison to ‘Bizarre Ride II’ and controversially I think I actually prefer this to their first effort. What the first album did so effectively was hark back to how fun hip hop could be with hilarious lyrics and upbeat party rockers. The criticism levelled at ‘Labcabincalifornia’ seems to revolve around the fact that the group got more introspective and serious on this album, losing the aforementioned sense of unadulterated fun that characterised the first release. This has never posed a problem for me and I personally feel that this album has subsequently been slept on a little.

I remember being in a friend’s older brother’s flat in Camden when I stumbled upon the ‘Runnin” CD single. I guess I might be exposing the fact that I have been involved in hip hop seriously for a much shorter time than other bloggers out there, as I had heard nothing of The Pharcyde until this point. That tune went on repeat for the rest of the night and remains one of my favourite cuts of all time. It is amazing the impact that music can have in that early stage of discovery where it can sound so fresh and new, and your feelings towards it are uncomplicated and totally free of cynicism. ‘Runnin” struck an instant chord with me with it’s guitar loop, crispy snares and sung chorus hook. The overall jazziness of the tune coupled with the MCs newfound maturity towards life and the industry still gets me to this day, and it is a classic for both myself and my circle of friends who have all found the same allure in its production and lyricism.

I could talk about ‘Runnin” all day, but there are other highlights here as well. ‘Devil Music’ lyrically explores issues surrounding the ownership of the band’s music when engaged in the modern music industry and is backed by a slammin’ beat. Other high points include ‘Groupie Therapy’ which is produced by Diamond D and features some dope xylophones that form the backbone of the tune and ‘Moment In Time’ which is a seriously laid back track where the group ponder the nature of our time on this planet. Granted, the MCs do seem slightly jaded over the course of the album but they aren’t bitchin’, they have simply gained experience and knowledge of the world around them in the three years between this and their first album and they deliver this knowledge with eloquence and style.

This is not to say that this is a totally consistent album and I do find myself skipping a few tracks here and there. However, the strength of individual joints carries the album for me and I am confident that I will come back to this and still enjoy it in the future. I simply cannot separate ‘Labcabincalifornia’ from a stage in my life when the whole of hip hop was laid out in front of me, waiting to be discovered and cherished. Wouldn’t it be great to go back to that time when you got your hands on an album that genuinely changed how you felt about music and perhaps even your perception of the world around you. This represents that phase in my introduction to real hip hop and for that reason it will forever remain a personal classic. I can sit here and deliberate about the pros and cons of albums until the cows come home, but you can’t be totally objective about everything can you?