Arguing that hip hop was better in the early nineties than at present is like saying the original Star Wars films are better than the prequels in that only children disagree. My shield against sounding like an old man talking about an era when payphones cost a dime and when it was easier to get a woman to make you a pot-roast than give you blowjob, is the fact that music has run this cycle often enough to have substantiated the fact that a genre is always more interesting when it’s attempting to find itself, and always grows a little stale once it has.
Back when the hip-hop was an open source phenomenon, a generation of producers and emcees raced to define it, having no roadmap to mainstream success and an industry still sceptical of what they had dismissed as a fad. Eventually this acceptance came, as did the cash, and with that came a sort of groupthink that made the music sound as if it were governed by focus groups, providing about as much diversity with their sound as the different national fast food chains do with their hamburgers.
The following is a selection of cuts from the days when rap was like freshly poured concrete waiting for street kids to leave a mark that would last forever.
Public Enemy – Brother’s Gonna Work It Out (Remix)
Naughty By Nature – Uptown Anthem
Showbiz & AG – Party Groove
Black Sheep – The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)
KRS-One – Outta Here
A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario
Ahmad, Ras Kass & Saafir – Come Widdit
Das FX – Real Hip Hop – Extended Version
Smif-N-Wessun – Sound Bwoy Bureill (Remix Vocal)
Black Moon – I Gotcha Open (Remix)
Mobb Deep – Shook Ones Part II
Brand Nubian – Word Is Bond
Jeru the Damaja – Come Clean
Gangstarr – Mass Appeal
Nas – Represent
Raekwon feat Wu-Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M.
Wu-Tang Clan – Bring Da Ruckus
GZA feat. RZA, Ghostface, and Killah Priest – Liquid Swords (Remix)
D.I.T.C. – Da Enemy
Funkmaster Flex feat. Fugees – Freestyle
The D.O.C. – The Formula
The Roots – Double Trouble
Big Daddy Kane, Freddy Foxx, LL Cool J, KRS-One, MC Lyte, Queen Latifa, Run DMC – Heal Yourself
Digital Underground feat. Tupac – Same Song
The Brand New Heavies feat. Pharcyde – Soul Flower
Tha Alkaholiks – Only When I’m Drunk
Souls of Mischief – 93 ‘Til Infinity
Pete Rock & CL Smooth – They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
Electric Adolescence – Golden Age Hip Hop (right click to download) 60 mins/ 320 kbps/ 137 MB
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
