Olas un Bekons

Digital [Big Batch] Cratediggin' With OuB [Day 21]

Added 2020-12-29 17:29:54 +0000 UTC

Greetings everyone,

Just a few days until the end of 2020, and this been a rough one. I won't dive into specifics because we all already know that. Anyways, I just hope everyone is allright and healthy, and ready to live the best of their lives next year. Of course, the pandemic won't swipe itself away starting 2021, but we can hope our collective effort, understanding and a bit of luck will eradicate it as soon as possible.

To brighten up your day I have decided to end the year with the heaviest batch yet. Took me few days to compile, won't say it's 100% random, but most bits are. First time I go over 100 posts per batch so given the future uncertainties, there might not be a batch for at least a week. So what's inside this time?

Nominating 3 entries out of 100+ is incredibly hard - few are household names, but many are relatively unknown. Don't be too harsh if I don't go with some classics. The nominations aren't meant to be necessarily better than all others. They are my subjective highlights of what I feel to mention at the moment, so let's start:

1) when somebody asks me about artists that are known by hip-hop fans, but still kinda underrated, Jungle Brothers usually come in mind... Of course, they were a part of Native Tongues afro-centric conscious supergroup (ATCQ, De La Soul, Queen Latifah...) and many have heard about them. Still, in comparison to their Native Tongues contemporaries, they failed to deliver commercially and thus their legacy might not be perceived as wide as others'. So, yeah, their 1st album (Straight Out The Jungle) was released on independent record label Warlock. It failed to deliver commercially, but in spite of that, Warner Bros. Records soon signed the group and released Done By the Forces of Nature in November 1989. The album was a critical smash at the time, though it has since been largely ignored by hip-hop critics in favor of the similarly acclaimed alternative hip-hop album 3 Feet High and Rising (by De La Soul), released the same year.

After that JB's have dropped albums rather sporadically. In 1993 they released J Beez Wit The Remedy (I find this one another hidden masterpiece - not as strong as their 2nd, but still I love it pretty much). Actually, they had been working on another album prior to this, called ''Crazy Wisdom Masters'' which remained shelved. It was officially released just this year in web platform, however there were few leaks and one 10'' prior to that. Here's the back story and interesting review (from 2009 i think) on this unreleased project:

One of the holy grails of lost hip-hop albums would have to be Crazy Wisdom Masters by the Jungle Brothers. The story goes that following their under-appreciated sophomore classic Done By The Forces Of Nature, the JB's hooked up with an out-there young MC then-named Torture (currently known as Sensational), roped experimental dub maven Bill Laswell into the picture, and created an infamous acid-trip of an album called Crazy Wisdom Masters. Of course, being on a corporate entity like Warner Brothers, this was not to be, and the label predictably ordered the group to deliver something more easy-to-swallow for mainstream tastes. This being an era before labels like Definitive Jux and groups like Dalek made experimental hip-hop a more acceptable forum, Crazy Wisdom Masters was retooled into the scatter-brained and more often than not heavily watered-down J. Beez Wit The Remedy. Sadly, according to various accounts, the CWM tapes were destroyed/stolen/lost, leaving a potentially classic slab of bizarro genius to languish in infinite obscurity. Thankfully, a while back, Black Hoodz resurrected a couple of these gems (how, I don't know) onto vinyl. Two tracks ("Hedz At Company Z" and "Spittin' Wicked Randomness") actually made the final cut of J. Beez Wit The Remedy untouched and sounded head-scratchingly out-of-place amongst trite party jams like "Simple As That." Both songs are gems and proof that the legendarily demented CWM sessions really were all they've been made out to be over the years. Two never-before-heard sessions "Battle Show" and "Ra Ra Kid" will further stupify and delight those enthralled by the JB's detour into near-insanity. Overall, all four songs (well, "Spittin' Wicked Randomness" was actually split into two tracks on Remedy) are an avant approximation of splattered beats, metaphysical wordplay, eerie sonics, and all other sorts of out-and-out weirdness. This isn't just a weird platter for hip-hop, it's very, very strange in general, and it's safe to say that it's even more out-there than a lot of self-consciously "experimental" music. Who knows if Crazy Wisdom Masters will every actually see the light of day, and if this EP is any indication, it will be a depressing lose if the rest of these sessions are really buried forever more.

So Crazy Wisdom Masters was the early manifestation of JB's abstract tastes that were slowed down and suffocated by their record company interested not in the development and diversification of hip-hop but in their mainstream success. After that JB's have remained sporadic and released few rather forgettable albums if you're either an underground rap fan or pop-rap fan. Four albums (1997; 1999; 2002; 2006) were followed by their return in 2020 with KEEP IT JUNGLE. When the album dropped half a year ago I was excited to hear it. It's been many years since their last album after all. I liked most of it and remember agitating my friends to listen to it. Some answered that they're not interested because stopped caring about them after their 3rd or even 2nd album.

So why is that? Jungle Brothers have always been innovative, never tried to hide away from something new. Heck, their I'LL HOUSE YOU in 1988 is known for being the first hip-house record recorded outside of the Chicago scene, which was a club hit that drastically changed the way the hip-hop and dance-music industries worked. Most pleasant JB's stuff to comprehend for pure hip-hop heads are their 1st and 2nd albums when they were kickin' with Native Tongues and contributed to many deep conscious afro-centric anthems that are still highly relevant today. Maybe their fight for their true identity was too much to handle as their struggled to deliver. In my opinion, if they had chosen to stay either with conscious hip-hop (as Brand Nubian for example), or had taken the house/hip-house sound, we would be talking about fundamental legends in one or another section. Of course, there's the record label and their vision in the mixture as well. Nonetheless, Jungle Brothers in late 80's and early 90's were ahead of their time and everything they made during that era was dope and relevant. If the label had pushed through the CMW 1993, maybe we would consider JB's as the pioneers of abstract hip-hop.

2) Talking about albums and lyrics that are still relevant today, here's one more for you - GOODIE MOB - SOUL FOOD. It was released just few months after another rap act from Georgia, Atlanta, the OutKast were booed after winning winning Best New Artist at the 1995 Source Awards in NYC. At the time, the bitter East-West beef was about to explode and become tragic, and Atlanta was hardly on the rap-map. And with everyone paying attention to Death Row vs Bad Boy from coast to coast, Southern artists were left with not much of that spotlight. That's why the notion of 'this Dirty South [term at that time yet non-existent] rap as something new and great (and to be reckoned with)' was still beyond mainstream peeps' comprehension (basically that's the case with everything that's new and unfamiliar). So here were 2 of those groups that helped to pave the road for today's Southern rappers - OutKast and Goodie Mob. The latter made their debut in Outkast's debut album in 1994 and it was their time to shine in 1995 on the same LaFace Records where Outkast was signed.

So the quartet of Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, Khujo and T-Mo came with a masterpiece (in my opinion) in 1995. The success of Soul Food earned Goodie Mob the respect and praises of many. The Source's four-mike review of "Soul Food" began: "A lesson to all upcoming MC's who believe emulating every other artist represents the path to originality: be yourself."

It was on this album that the phrase Dirty South was actually coined, with a song of that same title. This great album touched on many social and political issues such as racism, discrimination, geo-politics, and gentrification. Although the album dealt with such heavy issues, some songs still carried a lighter tone, such as “Soul Food,” in which the crew expressed their love for home cooked meals. My personal favorite is Cell Therapy, it was so unpleasantly relevant that it became the main reason Goodie Mob was banned from MTV.

I love GOODIE MOB, and Soul Food is solid in my top 50 albums of all time. I love that they keep recording and releasing albums.

3) For my 3rd selection I must go with UK's underrated gems. There's a group that has released many albums but most of (even guys from the UK) haven't heard about them. They are Cantaloop. Maybe they are so unknown to rap audiences due to their tendency to mix genres between Funk-Punk-Soul-Jazz and Hip-Hop. So there's a solid chance that their albums were under FUNK or SOUL category in those British record stores. I myself own 2 albums, one is their debut from 2000, another is their Live gig from 12 years later. Both are enjoyable if you love mixed genres and some experimentation between them.

There's still a group of peeps who have heard about Cantaloop. Some of those became fans after witnessing them perform live as support group for other artists. And that's how you build an audience. But the main audience of theirs is funk heads who have stayed loyal to them after those gigs. So, why have they grown their fanbase more at the expense of live performances rather than album sales (which they have many)? I guess the performance of mixed genres sounds better on a live gig than it does on a record because the diversity contributes to the visual show. Nonetheless, the albums they have made might make a good listen to you if you don't shy away from funky melodies, mellow and medium-paced grooves, and some rhyme in between. I won't include their later albums because hip-hop in those became more and more scarce.

--- Well, that was all in a nutshell, but believe there are plenty more to explore in the batch. I will add the preview tracks below, and the fullies as always are accessible down below via those links. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021. Let's hope it will be a better one.