The 25th 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 Man Man drummer Pow Pow, who was cool enough to put this together before the band headed out on an extensive tour in support of its new album Rabbit Habits.

Man Man plays the Brickhouse in Phoenix on Sunday with Yeasayer. (Buy tickets.)

De La Soul
3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy, 1989)
It’d be best to start with this record. 3 Feet High and Rising was the first record that made me want to be in a “band” and make a record. The record was way ahead of its time. It has a constant fun & positive vibe to the entire record. There’s interludes and funny skits. There’s AMAZING beats and rhymes. It wasn’t just one MC. It was a group. It has a free “do whatever you want” kinda attitude about it without coming off as too too artsy or too abstract. It made me understand the importance of putting together a cohesive record that jumps around in styles and direction and NEVER once takes itself too seriously. It’s well thought out. It sounds like a collaboration. AND…..

Then there’s the cherry on top….. The album cover.

This record cover was the start of my obsession with fluorescent colors. I started wearing these types of colors when this record came out. Fluorescent yellow. Fluorescent pink. Fluorescent orange. I remember drawing them raw looking hippie flowers all over my schoolbooks.

[VIDEO]: 3 Feet High and Rising press kit.

Salt-n-Pepa
Push It (single, 1986)

This single was probably the 1st song that made me start playing music. The keyboard/synth lines in this song are so unbelievably catchy !!!!

Hearing it over and over again on the radio made me want to play an instrument. Period. It got me hooked on beats and melodies.

I bought a Casio SK-1 so I could learn how to play this on a keyboard. I would play back the song over and over and over and over again until I learned the melodies front to back. This was most likely when I realized I could easily teach myself how to play an instrument.

The lyrics are great, straightforward party lyrics !! I was really young when i first heard this, so it made me feel cool listening to it cause they were talking about SEXXX !!!

Salt-N-Pepa. YESSSSSS !!!!

Antipop Consortium
Arrhythmia (Warp Records, 2002)
This record is oozing creativity everywhere.

The beats on this ???!? The beats sound like nothing before it. A pleasant awkwardness. Brilliant, fun, colorful verses. A fresh new take on hip hop.

Another record that doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet is totally successful in seeking and destroying. This record has the perfect mix of glitched out beats, creative verses, catchy keyboard lines & tough ass bubbling bass.

It’s too bad they split up because this is by far one of my most listened to records and they were one of my favorite bands at the time. AMAZINGLY huge influence !!!!!

• Antipop Consortium | Ping Pong

I’m really excited to say that the 24th 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 acclaimed DJ/producer RJD2, the man behind three solo records and one-half of Soul Position.

RJ, who returns to the Clubhouse in Tempe on April 7 (tickets), answered my questions via e-mail (note: I’ve left non-capitalization as-is). He is the third artist (The Weather Underground and Pigeon John are the others) to choose De La Soul Is Dead.

• RJD2 | Get It

De La Soul
De La Soul Is Dead (Tommy Boy, 1991)

When did you first listen to it?
“maybe 1992 or 3?”

In what ways did it influence you?
“it was psychedelic, crammed with sounds, cool topics, it was slow, fast – just all over the place. it kind of was my conceptual template for a while, as far as what an album should traverse.”

Do you still listen to it?
“not really. once i’ve digested a record as much as something like that – 100’s of listens – i dont go back to em too often, unless for nostalgia’s sake. generally speaking, i just move on and let it be what it was to me at that time. records can sound very different at different times. there are a lot of movies i only watch once because they were so mindblowing the first time, and i dont want to soil the experience that it was.”

What about the record makes it stand up to other great hip-hop records?
“really what i said above, but i think most of all, there’s just a consistent level of passion on it, from the production to the writing to the execution. i guess the bottom line is that the execution of it is just so well done. the more i listen to music, and do it, the more i think that stylistic leanings aren’t what make a record interesting, it’s the ability of an artist to really tap in to their own personal voice, or way of doing things that no one else can imitate, or appropriate. in a word: execution.”

• De La Soul | A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”

BONUS:

• De La Soul | A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays” (Ladies Nite Decision)

(From Roller Skating Jam CD single.)

Related:
10 questions (via e-mail) with RJD2.

After I saw Public Enemy in its top 8 MySpace friends, I approached The Weather Underground about contributing a post for 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). The four guys – Ryan, Shoichi, Harley and Diego – put together a mix tape of sorts, each contributing entries for their favorite records.

The LA band plays Saturday at Modified in Phoenix. Read about the group at the LA Times’ The Guide.

• The Weather Underground | Neal Cassady

13. Dead Prez – Lets Get Free (2000)
I had to pick this record because, truth be told, they’re so damn articulate and intelligent. When I started this band I listened to a lot of this record and it has the same mantra and ethos that I’ve always had. Mind Sex, They Schools and Be Healthy just speak to me. “These Schools can’t teach us shit / My people need freedom / trying to get all we can get / all my high school teachers can suck … telling me White Man lies, straight bullshit!” – Harley
[VIDEO]: Dead Prez | They School

12. Tupac – Me Against the World (1995)
This record transfixed a lot of people. And Tupac was brilliant. Incredibly talented, wise, and well read. As much of an enigma he has become, his voice and lyrics on this record certainly expose those overlooked facts about the man who named Khalil Gibran and Kurt Vonnegut as influences. – Harley

11. Black Sheep – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1991)
This beat out Kool Keith by the power of vote. Perhaps it deserves to be on the list over Biggie or Dr. Octagon because it preceded them with witty lyrics, at times comical, and just a pure catchiness of that era in hip-hop. Black Elvis always seemed like the response to Black Sheep. Check out The Choice is Yours; you probably don’t even know that you already know the song. – Diego

• Black Sheep | The Choice is Yours (revisited)

10. The Pharcyde – Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)
This record was an early ’90s opus of rhymes and musicality that proved LA wasn’t only vatos and gangsters. -Sho

9. A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders (1993)
Brilliant in many ways. Especially for it’s time. -Sho

• A Tribe Called Quest | Lyrics To Go

8. De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising/De La Soul is Dead (1989/1991)
De La Soul were huge in my life. Ask anybody who grew up with me. I associate De La Soul with a very heavy time and transition in my life (moving from LA to NYC to go to high school was, initially, like going to a different planet) so they are key and very important to me. In fact I love almost everything they put out up until Art Official Intelligence – Harley

7. Eazy E – Eazy-Duz-It (1988)
A friend brought it in to my grade school and we all gathered around a set of headphones we plugged into it so the teacher couldn’t hear. I remember when they got handed to me I heard: “Then I’ll get another pussy put it in the freezer, so I can always have an on-hold skeezer.” My mom took it away. A funk and soul masterpiece. -Ryan

6. EPMD – Strictly Business (1988)
“Relax your mind let your conscience be free and get down to the sounds of EPMD.”

• EPMD | You Gots to Chill

5. Gang Starr – Step into the Arena/Daily Operation (1991/1992)
Guru’s voice has always been a source of calm and contemplation. It’s got a forcefulness but manages to stay subtle. At times they delivered a message in the same vein as Public Enemy and at other times in the same vein as NWA. The difference was Guru’s delivery. It’s like he’s explaining something and handing you knowledge, not delivering a speech or preaching to you. Sometimes, from my experience, it its perhaps the most effective way to send a message. -Harley
[VIDEO]: Gang Starr | Take it Personal

4. Eric B. & Rakim – Follow the Leader (1988)
I loved this record so much I used to fall alseep to it. And much like I do now, I would get to a place right before unconsciousness and the whole spectrum of what is happening would hit me. It’s the never-ending, passionate, effortless phrasing of Rakim. The music is dark. –Ryan

3. Guru- Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 and 2 (1993/1995)
My older brother dropped out of high school and moved out of the house when he was 16 years old. I was about 13 and would shortly thereafter move from Los Angeles to Queens, NY, when my mom remarried. When my brother would visit me he would take me out to dinner. In his car he would always have the same records in his tape player: Guru’s Jazzmatazz and Gang Starr’s Step into the Arena. We used to bond over those records for the few moments we’d spend together. – Harley

2. NWA – Straight Outta Compton (1988)
We all wanted to pick The Chronic by Dre or even Predator by Ice Cube, but we decided that this record started it all and it has some great gems in it. Fuck Tha Police, Straight Outta Compton and even the now-charming Express Yourself. A little unknown fact about TWU is that we listen to a lot of Ice Cube on tour — we’re not joking. It’s like taking a little bit of home on the road with you. Sometimes Ice Cube or Dre in the middle of a long desert drive is the most comforting voice you could ever want at that moment. -Diego

• N.W.A. | Straight Outta Compton

1. Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back/Fight the Power single (1988/1989)
When Fight the Power came out I was starting to listen to my “own” music and started going to Sam Goody and buying my own tapes. I bought it as a tape. It was a single, I think from the Do the Right Thing soundtrack, originally. There is still something I feel when I listen to this song. It doesn’t seem as tough now as it did when I was 9 years old, but with lines like “our freedom of speech is our freedom of death, we have to fight the power…”, I remember it was one of the first few records I ever bought that got me worked up. Really motivated me. That lead me to later get PE’s previous release, their second record, the seminal It Takes a Nation of Millions. For me it is perhaps one of the most influential records (let alone hip-hop records) of my life. It always goes back PE for me and though some will disagree (even within our own band) this has to go down as one of the most influential records. Channeling poverty and broken home through anger was nothing new, but singing along to this in the garage was a cathartic release that followed me for a large part of my life no matter what I listened to at any respective age. – Harley

• Public Enemy | Fight the Power

The 22nd 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 Mike Bell, one-half of electronic-pop duo the Lymbyc Systym. Bell and his brother Jared, based in Austin by way of Phoenix, released Love Your Abuser last year on Mush Records. A remix version of the album – featuring the Album Leaf, Daedelus, the One AM Radio and more – will be available March 1. Each disc will be numbered and feature handmade packaging. Check the group’s site for pre-order information on Feb. 1.

• Lymbyc Systym | Truth Skull

Madvillain
Madvillainy (Stones Throw, 2004)

Madlib and Doom’s masterpiece Madvillainy changed the way I think about hip-hop. Not only did it breathe fresh air into what I considered to be a stale genre, but inspired me to start producing hip-hop beats and collaborating with mc’s.

I absolutely adore Madlib’s production. I had read an interview with him in which he said he makes an album’s worth of material every day. Whether this is an exaggeration or not, this guy is way prolific and inspiring. His use of rag-tag funk and soul samples, coupled with strange vocal samples provides for a great experience when listening to records he’s produced.

Madlib’s also a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, and a pretty skilled one at that. He always adds his own touches to his loops, be it a bassline, rhodes part or chopped drum groove.
In my mind, Madvilliany is Madlib’s best work. It captures the essence of everything I mentioned above. I have a feeling he was so inspired to work with an mc as talented as Doom that he chose his freshest unused beats to use on the record. When listening to Madvilliany I hear the friendship between Madlib and Doom, a level of excellence that could only come from a unique collaboration between friends. I love looking at photos from the sessions on stonesthrow.com … pictures of Madlib and Doom laughing, recording and taking bong hits on the roof. I see great times, just as i hear when bumping this record.

Often times I’ll listen to a record and say “hey, i could do that”, and i definitely had one of these moments when listening to Madvilliany. I was so inspired to try my hand at taking samples from old records and adding my own touches with rhodes, bass guitar, synth and drums. Since then I’ve amassed a library of hours of beats and snippets, which will eventually be whittled down into a hip-hop record with my lyrically gifted good friend and desert dweller, Future Lord aka Michael Busse from Chronic Future and Back Ted N-Ted.

One last thing I love about Madvillainy and Madlib in general is how the craftsmanship is taken quite seriously, while the mood and vibe can become quite silly and light hearted, a far cry from the shoot-’em-up, booty- and money-driven sounds of most commercial hip-hop. There are hilarious chopped dialoges from Fantastic 4 cartoons placed as interludes throughout. On Shadows of Tomorrow Madlib’s high-pitched alter ego Quasimoto chimes in to give love to weed and Sun Ra and on America’s Most Blunted Madlib digs out some awesome sample of some goofy white boy talking about making music while high … it’s just so freakin laughable, yet so innovative and so well produced.

• Madvillain | Money Folder
• Madvillain | Shadows of Tomorrow

The 21st 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 Eso Tre, one-half of Los Angeles-based hip-hop duo Substance Abuse, whose 2006 record Overproof features MF Doom and Kool Keith, among others.

Brand Nubian
In God We Trust (Elektra, 1993)

I remember writing an essay for my 10th grade English class comparing a poem written by Countee Cullen to a track off of Brand Nubian’s In God We Trust called It Ain’t No Mystery, a song criticizing the abuses of religion and people’s reluctance to sway from conventional modes of spirituality. Nothing can erase the memory of my forty-something teacher reciting Sadat X’s lyrics in front of a bunch of honors students, and then asking them if any of them had heard of Brand Nubian. None of them had.

Of course, my friends and I knew this group all too well. I remember sitting through Yo! MTV Raps in eager anticipation of seeing what would become my favorite video of all time, Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down. The simplicity of this video was it’s power: three guys who embodied that quintessential early 90’s New York hip hop, kicking rhymes in the subway and occasionally administering a beat down to anyone who might question whether or not “the Nubian reign had fallen”. As the forthcoming album would prove, it definitely had not.

Part of what makes this album so great and timeless was that sense that these guys had something to prove. With the man who had for a long time been considered their front man conspicuously absent from the equation, Lord Jamar and Sadat X were put in the daunting position of proving both that they could evolve musically as a group and that their charisma as a duo was legitimate. And as dope of an album as One for All was, Brand Nubian’s sophomore effort made it seem as if their classic first album almost obscured the undeniable chemistry between these two emcees.

With solid production provided by the group from beginning to end (with exception of Diamond D’s contribution with Punks Jump Up…), In God We Trust stands with so many other great works of this period that strove to present a unifying vibe and theme, even if at times the leitmotiv seemed to be challenging image of the group that One for All had established. What we hear in the second effort is that the ideology is much the same, but the means of effectuating it is now much more militant, as evidenced by hard hitting cuts like Pass the Gat and Black and Blue. Both rappers sound more polished the second time around, and display an intensity that I have yet to see rivaled by another group.

• Brand Nubian | Pass the Gat
• Brand Nubian | Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down

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

The 18th 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 DJ A-Trak, a champion turntablist who now works with Kanye West. I cornered A-Trak at the 2006 Pitchfork Festival to ask him about his favorite hip-hop record.

Pharcyde
Labcabincalifornia (Delicious Vinyl, 1995)

I love Bizarre Ride (II the Pharcyde) but Labcabin was really my joint. They grew a lot on that album and they got darker. That progression makes me think of De La going from 3 Feet High to De La is Dead. Some people still love the first album. Just me working with Kanye … I saw that with Late Registration where a lot of people love College Dropout for its innocence, but I really like the second album for just being more grown-up and deeper and a little more complex. And Labcabin was one of those albums I listened to to death because, I mean, that came out in ’96 (’95 actually) … I started DJing a year earlier.

For many reasons I really love that record. Just on some straight hip-hop shit – just beats and rhymes, everything was on point. And that’s one of the records where I first heard Jay Dee (J Dilla) and Jay Dee is my favorite producer. That was one of the albums I first heard his production and I was floored by everything.

You know when you’re talking about a good record … where on some aspects you can really break it down to many elements. And on other aspects you can say it was just dope period. There’s some records you could be like, it’s got good beats and good cuts. But by the end of day it might not be your favorite joint. Other albums you like it but it might not necessarily satisfy every one of your urges. That record (Labcabincalifornia), I feel as a DJ, I love all the scratches. It’s not even on some technical shit. It’s just really tasteful, everything just sounded good.

Runnin’ is probably my favorite song ever.

What drew you into that song?
It’s just everything … I think something you can say about Pharcyde, you can’t really pinpoint it down to one mood. It’s a song that’s really open and kind of candid but without being over the top, without being oversensitive to the point where it feels awkward in the hip-hop context. It still bangs as a hip-hop beat. I love the cuts in it. It’s got kind of an eerie vibe to it with the sample. It’s not too jazzy … it’s a jazz sample that sounds a little eerie and just right. The lyrics are awesome. One thing with Runnin’ as a producer that always bugged me out with that song … is the drum programming. It’s crazy to me. The drum pattern always sounds just right, but you can never predict where it’s going to fall. I think it’s at least like an eight-bar pattern. You know on a lot of songs you just know the drum programming, you can sing out the drum patterns. To this day, I can’t remember, where the next kick is gonna land. But it always sounds like it’s supposed to be.

I love Bizarre Ride … it’s one of the records I got into hip-hop through. But Labcabin, it aged really well. It left an impression on me. Just from the depth of it. I like stuff that’s a little darker, too.

It’s funny because I don’t even listen to it all the time. But I know I can go back to it and get into it.

• The Pharcyde | Runnin’

BONUS:

• The Pharcyde | Runnin’ (Jay Dee remix) (vinyl rip from Drop 12-inch)

Hey, when it rains it pours. The 17th installment – and third in about a week – of I Used to Love H.E.R. comes from Chris Schlarb, founder/owner of Sounds Are Active record label and a member of experimental/indie-jazz duo I Heart Lung, which is playing TONIGHT at Stinkweeds in Phoenix with Bizzart and James Fella at 8 p.m.

• I Heart Lung | If I Were a Young Man Now

Omid
Beneath the Surface (Alpha Pup, 1998)

“The last iPod I had was possessed by Beneath the Surface. The opening flute lines of the title track would creep out of the miniature jukebox even when turned off. Phoenix Orion’s voice would then bleed out from the speakers with an announcement of the genius/genus to follow.

“By 1998 I had already ingested some of the best of what the East Coast had to offer: Midnight Marauders, Blowout Comb, Illmatic, Do You Want More?!!!??!, et al. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, as Ice Cube recycled every Parliament vamp, Omid Walizadeh (then OD) was sampling Iranian folk music, melodic jazz vibes and “Swelling Itching Brain”-ish keyboard basslines. Having come of age listening to King Crimson, Genesis, Run-DMC and Arrested Development, I found in Beneath the Surface something that both provoked and reassured me.

“With his production revered by all MC’s at the legendary open mic spot Goodlife, Omid then participated in the classic hip-hop quid pro quo: you rap for my beat and I’ll produce a beat for your raps. He quickly assembled a diverse cast of hungry and highly experimental lyricists unfettered by hip-hop’s lineage. Absent are the Spoonie Gee or Funky 4+1 name drops indigenous to East Coast raps, the MC’s assembled here are more concerned with meta-African folk-tales (“When The Sun Took A Day Off”) or running together hominid-centric pop culture references as done on Circus’s hilariously brilliant four minute verse which ends stunning “Farmer’s Market of the Beast.”

“Like all masterpieces Beneath the Surface is burnished by repeated examination. From the brutal “Night and Day” which samples Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “The Barbarian” to the quintessential L.A. chill-out back beat of “Line Posting In ‘Pedro,” Omid balances melody, avant-garde composition and extrasolar lyricism with seeming familiarity: you think you’ve heard something like this before.

“For connoisseurs of underground hip-hop this album also happens to be an underground Rosetta Stone of sorts: Freestyle Fellowship, Awol One, 2Mex, Global Phlowtations (featuring a young Adlib who would later produced Saul Williams under his own name, Thavius Beck), Rakaa Iriscience (of Dilated Peoples) and Radioinactive among many, many others. When confronted with Omid’s powerful production each rapper rises to the occasion; attempting to both complement and out do one another.

“Beneath the Surface is a document of the L.A. youth consciousness at the turn of the century. Full of paranoia and community pride, God and the LAPD, rocking shows and self doubt. Interestingly it would prove to be greater than the sum of its parts and many of the MC’s involved would never make kind of lasting impact that they collectively manifest here.

“I never did figure out what was wrong with my iPod. My only guess is that, as with me, something Beneath the Surface took over. At any given moment you might recollect a drum break or lyric and then suddenly, as P.E.A.C.E. illuminates, you are in its clutches. Word is bondage indeed.”

• Omid | Line Posting in ‘Pedro
• Omid | Farmers Market of the Beast

Beneath the Surface can be had at eMusic.

The 15th 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 King Krash, a record producer/remixer/beat creator who was kind enough to e-mail me to thank me for a previous post. Krash raps succinctly about one of his favorite hip-hop tracks.

Buy his Hambone Sessions album here.

• King Krash (with Handsome) | Hambone

UTFO
“Roxanne, Roxanne”
(off 1985 self-titled album on Select Records)

“I think my older brother bought the single when I was 5 or 6 and I quickly made it mine. At that age I would just put on a song 100 times in a row. I had one of those kids suitcase style record players, the needle did wonders for the records, and at that age you’re up at like 6am everyday. So 6am till breakfast and again till lunch. Killin’ my 6 year old dance moves and memorizing all the words. I think they were the first to use the “Big Beat” break plus those cuts are branded in my brain. Anyway to this day both my brothers know the whole song by heart I played it so much and they laugh now but they hated it when it was happening. I still have the 12″. If you can put up a pic of the cover peep the outfits. Swords!? I fucking love it.”

• UTFO | Roxanne, Roxanne