The 20th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums (read intro), comes from Eriksolo, one-half of the eclectic indie hip-hop duo Meanest Man Contest, a recent gem of a discovery thanks to its 7-inch release on Gold Robot Records. MMC also released the Some People EP this past September on Plug Research. You can pick up two tracks from the new Partially Smart EP at RCRD LBL. Eriksolo kindly uploaded the track below, which he calls one of his favorite MMC songs.

• Meanest Man Contest | I Was Only Kidding

Redman
Whut? Thee Album (Def Jam, 1992)
For me, Redman’s debut, Whut? Thee Album, perfectly typifies the sort of early ‘90s hip-hop that was both unabashedly “underground” but also great for, like, parties and just having fun. Whut? was not only big with the rap fans at my school, but also the skaters, the stoners, the jocks, the weirdos, the taggers, and the kids who liked to dance. The first albums by Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Cypress Hill (which both came out not too long before Whut?) also fall into this category, in my opinion. They’re odd and inventive, but totally unpretentious.

Lyrically, Redman came out of the gate on top of his game. He’d only been on record a few times before this (as a guest on some EPMD tracks), but he already sounds like a vet. His rhymes on Time 4 Sum Aksion are funny and loose. He’s sharp and clever on Blow Your Mind. Meanwhile, How to Roll a Blunt is, well, incredibly detailed in its instructiveness.

(A little aside: At a gathering I went to during my first year of college, I overheard a very tool-ish dude tell two girls who lived in my dorm that he learned everything he needed to know about smoking weed from listening to Redman. One of the girls replied with the most drawn-out and smoked-out “Whoooaaa, thaaat’s deeeeeep” imaginable. The way she said it was ridiculous to the point of parody, and it sounded like she was making fun of the stupid-ass thing he’d just said. But in actuality, I’m sure she was serious. This was a freshman party at UC Santa Barbara, after all. Anyway, the whole exchange makes me laugh whenever I think of it.)

Beat-wise, Whut? finds producer Erick Sermon at his best. He’s completely confident, playing around and experimenting with the sound he’d been perfecting on the previous few EPMD records. Although the sample sources (P-Funk, James Brown, the Gap Band) are generally pretty standard, E-Double layers loops upon loops and cranks the bass up super high, resulting in uniquely thick, chaotic tracks that are the perfect backdrop for Red’s unpredictable flow. Plus, Def Jam hooked up a Pete Rock beat (for the aforementioned How to Roll a Blunt), and you can never go wrong with one of those.

Redman is the rare dude who has been in the game for more than 15 years and has never really come out corny. (He’s even managed to do things like act in a Chucky movie and hawk deodorant on TV without looking like too bad of a cheeseball.) He’s just a straight-up great no-frills rapper who makes dope record after dope record. You gotta respect that.

• Redman | Blow Your Mind

The 19th installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums (read intro), comes from multi-instrumentalist/producer Cassettes Won’t Listen (aka Jason Drake), who is currently offering a free ’90s covers EP called One Alternative at his Web site. (See recent post.)

Ice Cube
Death Certificate (Priority Records, 1991)
If I were stranded on a deserted island, hip hop would actually be the genre I’d love to be “stuck with”. I grew up listening to hip hop, and it’s always had a huge influence on my songwriting and production. Some of the first albums that come to mind when thinking of my all-time favorite are The Pharcyde’s Bizarre Ride II, Digable Planets’ Reachin’, Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique and Wu’s Enter The Wu-Tang. Although the latter is possibly my favorite (I’m a huge early Wu-Tang fan), I would have to take it back to my roots and go with Ice Cube’s Death Certificate.

I was born in LA and grew up around California until 1994, and so it was inevitable that G-funk and gangster rap would seep into my subconscious. Production is what got me into the genre, and when I first heard beats by Dr. Dre, The Bomb Squad, J-Swift, and Prince Paul, among others, I realized that this was the music I wanted to be a part of. I used to write rhymes and record them over instrumentals from 12″s that I would buy at the nearest thrift store for 25 cents. My lyrics would reflect the life I wished I were living: driving cars with hydraulics and daytons, selling drugs, making money, talking shit about other rappers and starting beef with everyone. Gangster rap was very prevalent in my early rhyme books. Honestly, my rap skills were sub par, and so I decided to gravitate towards what first sparked my love for hip hop: production.

So let’s get to Death Certificate.

Ice Cube, before all the family movies, was ridiculously ill back in the early ‘90s. You can’t really talk shit about someone who was spawned from one of the most influential rap groups in history and started his own successful solo career. Death Certificate, Ice Cube’s second solo album, was released in ’91, when I was 12 and in 7th grade. Back when people were laughing nervously in sex ed class, I was speculating what the “nappy dug out” was like and what Ice Cube meant by not using “vaseline”. My all-time favorite track from the album, entitled “My Summer Vacation”, was not only named after my favorite time of year, but it encapsulated everything I loved about the music with stories of gang life set to Parliament Funkadelic samples. It still sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it.

Ice Cube’s pissed off delivery has always been harsh — making the recent venture into PG-rated movies that much more surreal — and sits nicely with strong, hard-hitting production. Before I got into the playfulness of J-Swift and Prince Paul, there was The Bomb Squad, Death Certificate’s (and Dr. Dre’s cousin) Sir Jinx, Boogiemen, and Cube himself. I don’t think that The Bomb Squad made an appearance on the album, but all of these producers combined heavy-hitting drum hits and claps with classic funk and rock samples that complimented Ice Cube’s flow very well. This album would not have been possible without the heavy-weighted samples; I couldn’t imagine Ice Cube trying to ‘Steady Mob’ over Digable Planets “The Art of Easing”. The album would have tanked quickly.

The production acted as an anchor and compliment to Ice Cube’s storytelling of life and death. The well-balanced nature of beats vs. emcee is the reason I’d be more than happy to sit on an island with nothing but myself and a boombox. I may need to ask for suntan lotion, as well; I wouldn’t want to end up ‘Burnin’.

• Ice Cube | My Summer Vacation