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I’ve been afraid to re-visit a lot of the hip-hop records that I chewed my teeth on in the late 80’s and early 90’s for fear of disappointment. In 2003, I was at a Savers and found a bin full of classic tapes that I rocked endlessley growing up. I grabbed Leaders of the New School’s “A Future Without a Past”, “91 Til Infinity” by Souls of Mischief and MC Lyte’s “Eyes On This”. LONS and Souls were some of the most influential records on me circa ’91/92, so I listened to them exactly… once. I doubt I even made it all the way through, it was borderline intolerable. My love affair with so-called “Golden Age” hip-hop was officially over. But, MC Lyte’s “Eyes On This” was so much better than I ever remembered. The Audio Two production was absolutely on point and I listened to that tape every time I drove around for weeks.
Lala audio player after the jump.
I’d been thinking about “Ride The Rhythm” Chill Rob G’s one and only classic album from 1990 for years but never looked for it out of fear that it wouldn’t been as good as I wanted to remember it as. But, a couple years ago Jel had that single with Wise Intelligent (Poor Righteous Teachers) and Wise spit a whole Chill Rob verse and I knew I had to find “Ride The Rhythm” once again. I went to Fifth Element after work and sure enough they had a copy. Brought it home and, man, so much better than I could have imagined. Mark The 45 King’s production is a highlight of the late 80’s. While not on the next-level s**t of The Bomb Squad it was may more complex than the standards of 1989. The title track is a tightly-layered beast. And Chill Rob G is just a king. Authoritative, charismatic, conscious without the bulls**t baggage that would become standard for 90’s, he’s easily on par with Chuck D, KRS-ONE, BDK, Rakim, et al. Actually he’s better than most of the guys.
The record bangs the whole way through, even the kind of bulls**t dance songs are listenable and are more than made up for by tracks like “Future Shock”, “Let The Words Flow” or “Let Me Show You”. After this record, Rob G more or less disappeared. He showed up some random UK stuff around 1998 (I think) but was more or less out of the picture. Apparently, he’s re-surfaced since the last time I searched him out because he’s got a MySpace with new songs.*
* Most of which is passable jut not amazing. “RedE or Not” sounds like Jaz-O/early Jay-Z, while “Blackfeet” and “N****s Draw Heat” sound like, get this—Company Flow. The latter rocking over a “8 Steps To Perfection”-like beat.
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