The dylannn (west coast hip-hop) listening club

call me when neef can do something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi1v1gP_NCM

thought I had put in for another round

you're in, I'll plug you're name in there on the next run down.

sorry I vanished, the record I was putting up was:

ABOVE THE LAW - UNCLE SAM'S CURSE

http://blackparadisemusic.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/above-the-law-uncle-sams-curse-1994.jpg

okay, that looks good.

i know a few above the law tracks like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT8q9SMYjlw

but never got into an album.

j stalin is a goofy lookin dude

i'll do mine when it's my turn but obv i won't do another above the law, i'll change

oh shit sorry man i completely missed that you were doing an above the law record!

nah man i was thinking of something else anyway

it's cool we all love ATL, and they should be listened to. And often. by someone who knows how.

tho i hafta admit I don't feel Black Mafia Life much, altho I haven't given it much of a chance. Livin Like Hustlers is so all-time that I couldn't deal w/ them moving to a more g-funk sound.

people used to be pretty relentless in hating on west coast stuff but I can just let their shit play for hours and feel no pain. I only have those first three though. I can't even decide between Black Mafia Life and Uncle Sam's Curse. I grew up in southern California one town north of where ATL's from and they do for me what I guess the Beach Boys do for some people: when I'm listening to them, I see my old home so clearly and vividly, all of it, the terrain (which is to say, streets with cars on them at all hours): Holt Mission Pipeline East End Monte Vista Orange Grove Indian Hill, all these streets that cut through Pomona and Montclair and Claremont and into Chino, all of them lined with palm trees that were originally imported by movie people and rich orange grove owners, the infinite feel of southern California summer when you're a teenager, all that stuff. They're like an instant mnemonic for some really emotional centers for me. Also, "Black Superman" is flat-out incredible and all three of those first albums play good from front to back.

x-post deej answers while I am getting corny reminiscing!

― J0hn D., Sunday, August 19, 2007 2:06 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark

this is a perfect recommendation.

actually the fourth & fifth ATL albums are pretty great as well.

the production on USC is weird (in a good way), it sounds like all the samples are playing, unadulterated, by hand

― j., Thursday, July 21, 2011 7:27 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

"set free" definitely sounds exactly like that. i love that sound. it's those weird (in a good way) descending bass sounds. that track is so perfectly crafted. all the production is great. i don't know a lot about rap production especially when it's west coast stuff but what else sounds like this?

this is one of those albums that's like... i dunno, hearing for the first time only built 4 cuban linx or some other sorta obscure classic that's been mined for ideas and sounds and phrases + it's also sounds totally original and like i said perfectly crafted (everything is on point from the production to the ad libs to the hooks) compared to what came after it because it's the record that gets traced back to and wasn't really looking back to anything
or maybe it was. what do i know.

so many great moments on this! i'm listening to it again and the part on 'kalifornia' where the beat switches ("yo man let me set it off for em, let me set it off for em, UH) for cold 187um's verse ("it's the first of the month and i just came up") into this mess of squeals and squelches.

hey are we still doing?

yeah what the hell

I'll take my turn when I get back home in a couple days if thats ok

hey shakey can i just do mine then?

rating so far

1. above the law - uncle sam's curse
2. suga free - street gospel
3. jacka/husalah - mob trial
4. b-legit - the hemp museum
5. e-40 - grit and grind
6. low profile - we're in this together
7. n. picasso - exalted
8. j stalin - prenuptial agreement
9. blackalicious - blazing arrow

go ahead, big guy.

curious what you're going to think about this. i might prefer his first album more, but this is a much more west coast album. but yeah...it's hard to say how this ages, i can't separate it from the times i heard it in - will be interesting what someone who knew ice cube more as an actor/genial presence pop culture will think about it. plus you're getting a lot of cult classics so might as go with something that was more defining of the times.

http://escobar300.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/ice-cubedeath-certificate1.jpg

"set free" definitely sounds exactly like that. i love that sound. it's those weird (in a good way) descending bass sounds. that track is so perfectly crafted.

i could play that one over and over forever

man i forgot how racist this album is in parts

not mad at that rating at all, tho i prob like j stalin more than nacho picasso

i do think prenuptial agreement ended up being the beginning of the end for j stalin tho in retrospect

Was waffling about nom'ing death certificate myself, its such an obvious canonical album

I just skip black korea fwiw

yeah but dylann should listen, it's such a time period thing, it's crazy that something like that was on a major label, big time rap record

i'm going to listen to this but major stumbling blocks to feeling it/writing about it are
-- i hate the sound of it, overall, from the beats to cube's samey stiff flow.
-- it seems kinda cold. he's not exactly overflowing with passion.
-- the lines about him taking a shit at his mom's house or girls with infected pussies bother me more than burning down korean stores.
-- i've read everything important written about death certificate and heard a good portion of it and i understand what it means or whatever but.... whatever. i can't say much about it, to be honest. it means next to nothing to me... musically, as a political statement, as a historical document or whatever... even if i know what it means to other people.
-- a lot of classic records like this i ended up tracing back from further branches off them-- like, buying a krs-one album would be like, tracing back from it was written to, say, gang starr to g rap to picking up a bdp album to return of the boom bap... but i've never been really into anyone that followed off bomb squad/cube-type music.

but let me seriously listen to it a dozen times.

yeah i guess i'm wouldn't be suprised if you didn't end up liking it

i listened to it today and honestly it doesn't have the same effect on me that it once did

why did you choose it? i seem to have deleted my copy to save space, so i can't even remember why i (apparently) never wanted to listen to it. (i like 'predator' best, 'when will they shoot?' is all-time.)

just because it meant so much to me then and it's sort of the iconic ice cube album IMO and really represents rodney king L.A. the most of anything and i wondered if it still had something to grab someone who wasn't super familiar or not?

also everyone on this thread was picking cult classics and always like dylannn's views on rap and i wanted to see him write about an all time classic

Not liking the sound of it is incomprehensible

And yeah it is the sdtk of rodney king era l.a.

i think Cube from this era is awesome. idk.

-- it seems kinda cold. he's not exactly overflowing with passion.

o_O

Yeah I dont get that either. Sounds pretty angry to me!

yeah that's weird to me

man fuck, Death Certificate STILL slays me. I have to admit shit like "Black Korea" bugs me, but damn...."The Wrong Nigga to Fuck With", "Steady Mobbin'" are bangers, "Nappy Dugout" makes me LOL (uncomfortably, but still), "Alive on Arrival" is massive...heavy message despite humor being intermingled.

"Doing Dumb Shit" made me laugh, esp the part where he thought he broke his dick when he nutted the first time.

I think based on what you have liked itt, you might like AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted a lil better (and I go back and forth between that one and DC as my fav), but the fury and focus of 90s Cube just makes me sad when I listen to his limp-dicked attempts at rapping in the 2000s on shit like "Laugh Now, Cry Later", and "I Am the West", which is him lazily punching a time card over nondescript beats.

his work with Da Lench Mob on "Guerillas in the Mist" was awesome too.

Guerillas in the mist was also on my short list of potential recs, maybe not now tho. Planet of da apes has good stuff on it too

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzXm-n5GU5wY&ei=Xfz6Ua2oBMqXiAKgxIDYCA&usg=AFQjCNHCg6inx5VMNhiwFF9Cf_LChFU1kQ

Goddamn phone

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zXm-n5GU5wY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzXm-n5GU5wY#

no vaseline is still great

Best diss record ever imho

I have a soft spot for Cube tho, because when I was 18 years old (back in spring of 1999), I had precisely one rap cd that wasn't MC Hammer or DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and that was Snoop's "Doggystyle". my mom wouldn't let me buy explicit label shit, and I didn't have a job where I could afford my own shit until I was 17, so I bought that album YEARS after I'd been a Snoop fan, as I used to always turn on the local rap station to hear his shit since that was the only way.

so I got to college and decided to dive in further and hit up "Straight Outta Compton" and "The Chronic", and then found a cheap cassette version of "The Predator" in a store and popped it in and my mind...was blown. "When Will They Shoot?" is a hell of a wet towel snap, and that was the beginning of me being a hip-hop head.

So idk, maybe like upper miss, it's a personal connection for me still too.

WWTS was certainly the LOUDEST sounding rap record I'd heard up to that point. The beat is just ma
ssive.

yeah, that beat slayed me. and Cube is in attack mode from the jump. I mean, at that point, I'd heard him in N.W.A. obv, but mostly I had been listening to laid back g-funk rap up until that point, and wasn't used to listening to a dude just flat out YELL like that.

YOU MISSED/IT DIDN'T HIT DA LENCH MOB, EITHER/GUERILLAS IN THE MIST/WITHOUT JUNGLE FEVER

stepping backwards to AMW and DC was actually a bit jarring, because Predator had obviously been more modern sounding, and the 90s had more of his old-school flare, which I wasn't as into at the time. but both grew to be favorites. never could get into Lethal Injection, tho, never heard the War disc, but the Peace disc is quite possibly the worst piece of shit he's ever attached his name to.

i remember hearing some story about eazy being in a club and they played no vaseline and the crowd kept yelling light em up burn em up flame on