Brett's Hip Hop Thru' The Years

[Brett]

Hip Hop Thru' The Years

This will be a review thread for Hip Hop albums throughout the years. However "thru the years" is not just a term of phrase. I will be starting in 1991 and listening to the top 40-50 albums of that year as well as any additional requests once I get to those final, iconic albums of that given year. I will save the requests until we get to a point where it seems as though I had not covered an album that you would be interested in me checking out. I am going off lists from multiple sites that rank the albums in a given order. I will not be going in order of release, that's just too much work and I want this to be as palatable for me as it is the reader.

I've been an avid fan of rap since I was a wee little boy and I realized a bit ago that my commute to work is about the perfect length to dive in to a full length album (between 50-60 minutes). While I would love to hop around the genre and not have the constraint of a specific year, I think there is a level of nuance that comes with diving into a specific year and really getting a feel of what the music was of the time and how it compares to it's contemporaries. Listening to a Gangstarr album and then checking out a Future album is like having a peppermint Lifesaver before drinking a glass of orange juice.

Of course with a review will be a grade. I have decided on doing the simple 0.0/10 scale. Yea so.... I'm a just get to reviewing.

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[King Kong Booty]

You can do this but can’t do the hip hop album of the week club with your boys?

 

[Brett]

D-Nice - To Tha Rescue
Released on November 26, 1991

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As I said in the opening post, these are albums I am resourcing from a few sites that list rap albums from that given year and of course we are starting with 1991. I chose this year because I will be honest, I am not the biggest fan of the hippity hop, nursery rhyme era of the 80s and did not want to bog myself down with that era of music. Naturally I chose a year that really kicked hip-hop off into it's (my opinion) golden era of the 90s.

I'll be honest at the first 808, I was thinking I was getting into just that, but boy was I wrong.

I never heard of D-Nice. Never heard of this album. And boy does this excite me for this series, that I have found this absolute gem.

D-Nice's style and sound has so obviously inspired rappers who would later rise to either critical or commercial acclaim during the middle-to-late parts of the 90s. I say this with all humbleness towards Mr. Nice, but he was clearly setting the tone for guys like Jay-Z, Big L (specifically), and Nas to go ahead and fuck shit up.

The smoothness of the 80s mixed with the rawness of the 90s is a picture perfect blend that D-Nice demonstrates on this entire album. Heavy percussion, smooth jazzy basslines, and real raw ass bars will forever be undefeated.

Sonically, the production is quite good on this album. Nothing too abrasive, nothing too tame. Not too many record scratches, not chop heavy, really just well blended basslines with 80s style percussion.

Lyrically, I love the concept of this album. It's anti-gangster, while being so fucking gangster at the same time. It's clear D-Nice is a fairly secure man at this point in his career as he addresses how most people in his position like to boast about toting guns and getting bitches, but he doesn't want to use his mic powers for those things. This can come off as super corny and genuinely is not easily done. People fall on their face all the time doing it and again, is not an easy task to pull off.

"Someone called me a thief to put me in a clutch
But since I know that I′m not, it didn't matter much"

I don't know why this lyric hit me as much as it did, but it's such a great disposition to have when the majority of rap culture of the time was if people are slinging shit at you, you need to sling it back. Being secure in who you are and not worrying about what someone else says is genuinely one of the more mature bars I have heard.

Also the Too Short feature on this album is so fucking good. The whole song is about avoiding gold diggers and groupie women and is genuinely a funny ass track, while also keeping a lot of hard truths in there as a young man getting fame, money, and acclaim from the rap game.

I can't lie, I don't have a single weakness or flaw to point out from this album. I was waiting to hear a song that maybe didn't hit or was a skip, but their genuinely wasn't. A great experience front to back with this album and honestly a sneaky inspirational positive rap album that doesn't come off as corny in the slightest.

Grade: 9.1 / 10
Notable Songs: "No, No, No" "Check Yourself" "Straight From Tha Bronx"

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[Brett]

You can do this but can’t do the hip hop album of the week club with your boys?

 

[King Kong Booty]

D-Nice was KRS-One's DJ in Boogie Down Productions I have the Cassette single of "Call Me D-Nice"
when I was in college we had a hip hop show and I chose the name J-Nice as tribute
that was a few years before JakeYourBooty was developed

 

[King Kong Booty]

also if you're looking for albums from 91 let me know...cuz I was in the thick of my hip hop love at that time

 

[Brett]

Stetsasonic - Blood, Sweat, & No Tears
Released on July 1, 1991

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A hip.... hop, a hip to the hop, and you don't stop. Eat your heart out Furious Five, Stetsasonic are here to take the mantle of the hippity hop genre. Okay, but honestly, this album and Stetsasonic themselves very much are influenced by that Run DMC / Kurtis Blow Mid-80s cadence and while it def plays, A whole album of it can be a bit tiring.

The production on this album is excellent. If Pete Rock and DJ Premier had a baby, that is what you are looking at. Nonetheless, an album like this can very much be too cohesive where almost every song kind of sounds the same. I think this album is best digested on a hot day where your sitting out on the street in a beach chair, bumping it from a loud speaker. I'd classify it as positive, hype, party boom bap, where you are not getting much substance from the lyrics, but it really is just meant to serve as nothing more than a collection of party anthems. With an undertone of some of that buck the system, Public Enemy sentiments; which are apparent in the tracks listed below.

Also one hilarious thing, one of the guys in the rap group legit sounds like The Rock rapping and I can not unhear it.

There are some great tracks on here and, of course, they are the songs that differentiate from the majority of the style you are seeing on the album. Those include the titular track as well as "Walkin in the Rain" and "Ghetto is the World".

This album for sure is a matter of taste thing. I personally am not the biggest fan of this style of New York Boom Bap, but I absolutely get the audience it serves and how much of a product of it's time it is.

Grade: 7.8/10
Notable Songs: "Blood, Sweat, and No Tears", "Ghetto is the World", "Walkin in the Rain"



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