FLASHBACK

hip-hop's dismantler?
I'm doing research for an essay I'm prepping and I'm reading this Jan 1991 issue of The Source. Some tidbits to share:

1) Funda-mental Hip-hop
by Bill Stephney

(This was an essay on how commercialism in hip-hop was threatening the music/culture. Just goes to show: things go in cycles.)

"Most of America sees Bill Biv Devoe, Hammer, and Vanilla Ice as the future of rap music. Hip-hop with a 'pop feel appeal' may be the worst threat rap music has faced thus far.

Is rap now too commercial for longtime fans of hip-hop?

Bobby Brown was Stage One in the Dismantling of Rap Domination. Stage Two was the importation of that musical drug of 1989: the Soul II Soul 'Club Classics Vol. 1' album.

As we go into 1991, it's important that we all take some time, and truly analyze where this music is going. With idiot record label execs still throwing money at a music they will never understand, we will see even more artists that continue to mean nothing, and continue to push rap/hip-hop closer to the 'disco purgatory' that seems to be its destiny."

2) The Mind Squad's Top 10 (1990)

Albums:
1) Ice Cube: AmeriKKKa's Most
2) LL Cool J: Mama Said Knock You Out
3) ATCQ: People's Instinctive Travels
4) BDP: Edutainment
5) Kool G Rap: Wanted Dead or Alive
6) Eric B and Rakim: Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em
7) PRT: Holy Intellect
8) Three TImes Dope: Live From Acknikulous Land
9) Nice and smooth: Nice and Smooth
10) X-Clan: To The East Blackwards

Singles:
1) PE: Brothers Gonna Work It Out
2) Kool G Rap: Streets of NY
3) Main Source: Lookin at the Front Door
4) ATCQ: Bonita Applebaum (Hootie Mix)
5) King Tee: Ruff Rhyme
6) LL Cool J: Jinglin Baby
7) BDP: Love's Gonna Get 'Cha
8) DU: Humpty Dance
9) 3rd Bass: Gas Face
10) De La soul: Buddy (remix)

(How dated do I feel that most of those singles are in my "party crate" for records I bring with me when I spin out?)

3) Record/singles reviews

(I just want to note, in this issue, there were 11 single reviews but only 4 album reviews. Remember those days?)

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Next, I'm reading through a Feb 1994 issue of Rap Pages and in their review section, the lead review goes to...Nefertiti's L.I.F.E. (it got a 4/5). In the #2 position? Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang which netted a 5/5, aka "Oh, Yeah!...A Rap Masterpiece." I appreciate the reviewer's enthusiasm in the following opening graf but seriously, exclamation points in a rap review are never a great look:

"This Wu-Tang joint is the whip! They comin' at cha straight from the swamps like shell-shicked Vietnam Vets. It's mo' heads in the Wu than they gots lettuce at the produce stand (it's about eight of dem muthaphukkas!). I ain't gon' front, when I first heard they name, I wasn't sure what was gon' be happ'nin'. But, low [sic] and behold, these Gods are all in. This is a crazy def tape, mad original on all levels, each one of the tunes (and MCs) standing on they own."

(I just realized, this was also the Rap Pages issue with the infamous Wu-Tang article with the bad cartoon representations of the Wu members that got author Cheo Coker (who had nothing to do with the artwork) a beatdown from the Clan.)

--O.W.