LINER NOTES: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HIP HOP, VOL. 2 [1989-90]

1.     Fade to Black – L.A. Star

2.     Brothers Gonna Work It Out – Public Enemy

3.     Footprints – A Tribe Called Quest

4.     Verbs of Power – X Clan

5.     Untouchables – Eric B. & Rakim

6.     One Time Gaffled Em Up – Compton's Most Wanted

7.     We're All In The Same Gang – West Coast Rap All-Stars

8.     Untouchable – Above The Law

9.     Come on Let’s Move It – Special Ed

10.   La Raza – Kid Frost

11.   Untitled – Hardnoise

12.   Black and Proud – Intelligent Hood
13.   Me and the Biz – Masta Ace (featuring Biz Markie)

14.   Rock Dis Funky Joint – Poor Righteous Teachers

15.   Slipping Into Darkness – Queen Mother Rage

16.   Crumbs on the Table – D-Nice

17.   Music Man – Masta Ace

18.   Mr. Sandman – Three Times Dope

19.   We Go Subsonic (Underwater Mix) – Subsonic 2

20.   Streets of New York – Kool G Rap & Polo

21.   Black Man in Effect – Boogie Down Productions

22.   Wisdom (Single Version) – The Sindecut

23.   Step Right On (Vocal Dub Mix) – Young Disciples

24.   Welcome to the Story (Peace Go With You Mix) – Galliano

This second volume of my anthology reminds me of the 1990 World Cup, the lead up to it, and my burgeoning fondness for Italian football. That might seem an odd connotation but in 1990 Beats International wore various Serie A football shirts on Top of the Pops, so I obviously wasn't the only one associating Italian football with electronic music. 'Fade to Black' by L.A. Star is particularly evocative of this period, and a very strong tune.

The sense of anticipation that awaited Public Enemy’s third album, Fear of a Black Planet, was not dissimilar to the hype that built up ahead of the World Cup in Italy. In contrast to the football tournament, which didn’t meet expectations, Fear of a Black Planet would not disappoint. (Italia 90 was very exciting as an event but many of games were played defensively, England v Germany being one of the few exceptions.) Jeff Young dedicated a show to the album, with Chuck D and Flavour Flav in attendance to discuss its imminent release, but was playing tracks from it long before that. 'Brothers Gonna Work It Out'– eventually released as a single in June 1990 – is the first tune proper from the album. The instrumental outro to 'Let’s Go Crazy' by Prince is sampled way down in the mix, looped throughout, descending into a crescendo of white noise at the end of every bar. There’s bits of George Clinton, James Brown and Otis Redding to be found in there too.

I cannot say at what point I started editing the recordings I made of National Fresh into formal compilations. I do remember, though, that when I did the track I used to introduce National Fresh Volume 1 was 'Push it Along' by A Tribe Called Quest. I wouldn’t have done this by virtue of the fact that it also kicks off People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, because that hadn’t been released yet. When it was there were at least six tracks – 'Push it Along', 'Luck of Lucien', 'After Hours', 'Footprints', 'Youthful Expression', 'Description of a Fool' – I would have deemed worthy for inclusion on one of my compendiums. This would have defeated the object, for my mix-tapes were derived exclusively from my radio recordings. Actual albums were to be listened to independently. Unfortunately, appended to 'Push it Along' comes a large portion of dialogue that cannot be separated from it in its digital form, so instead I've gone with 'Footprints' which quickly became a favourite of mine.

Where Public Enemy formed sound collages out of disparate snatches of funk and soul, A Tribe Called Quest borrowed more melodious, often jazz-based phrases, which engendered a warmer listening experience. I didn’t buy the album, my brother did. I couldn’t really afford to purchase that many records, which made National Fresh all the more vital. 'Can I Kick It?' – the tune that made the Tribe’s name – wasn’t released until October 1990, so for a while all this felt under the radar.

X Clan were interested in the more mystical (5%) elements of Islam. They wore African tribal dress, would talk about ‘the red, the black, and the green’ (the colours of Pan-Africanism) and make cryptic allusions to keys, crossroads and Egyptology, which was an emerging trend in rap music at the time. 'In The Ways of The Scales', 'Funkin’ Lesson', 'Verbs of Power'… Jeff appeared to be quite the fan and played them all. I acquired a vinyl copy of the album To the East, Blackwards some years later, but I believe it was 'Verbs of Power' that I included on the attendant cassette back in the day.

Eric B and Rakim were integral to hip hop's development, maybe even the seminal act of the genre's golden age. Unfortunately their first two albums were before my time – or maybe my hip hop loving cadres weren’t as knowledgeable as I thought they were. Yet I was aware of the duo’s reputation when Jeff started dropping tracks from their forthcoming album, Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em. He played 'In the Ghetto' and 'Untouchable', although the tune that really seemed to excite him was the '45 King Club Mix' of the album’s title track (see Bonus Beats).

All three of these albums were released in April 1990 but in my mind date back to the previous year. Whether the BBC received promotional copies as early as ‘89 is possible. In any case, for the sake of continuity, Volume 2 of my anthology represents my fourth year at school – September 1989 through to the summer of 1990 – for my memories from this time are beholden to the academic calendar.

I don’t recollect my fourth year at school as clearly as my third. I know that our form room was in D-Block, rather than the purgatorial portacabin it had been the year before, but I don’t recall who my form tutor was or of spending much time there. (I do have vague memories of bags being thrown out of the third-storey window, and of their contents being emptied onto the floor and kicked around a bit, but that could just easily have occurred in my third and fifth years.)

1989 was the year I embarked upon my GCSEs, dropping chemistry, geography, music, art and Latin and electing to pursue history, physics, biology, design and communication, and business studies. (Maths, English language, English literature and French were compulsory, as were religious studies and the waste of time that was general studies.) I wasn’t remotely interested in business studies and would have preferred to carry on with geography, but the timetable wouldn’t allow for it. I tried to drop physics to make room for geography but the school insisted that everyone study at least two sciences, and I rather enjoyed biology, didn't like chemistry. As it turned out, my physics teacher, Mr. Harrington, was a lovely man and I got on with it, whereas the geography department was never the school’s strongest suit. Where I think I did go wrong was dropping art for design and communication. The art department wasn’t all that either but it would probably have been more fun. Instead I was taught to draw technically, by a man who bore a vague resemblance to the comedian Jasper Carrot but shared none of his humour, and not much else.

The teachers of the compulsory subjects were a mixed bag. Mr. Bowden taught English, and if he caught anyone napping he’d launch a blackboard rubber in their general direction, leaving a chalk dust imprint upon the unsuspecting pupil's torso. I liked Mr. Bowden very much. Mr. Sanderson took French and possessed a dry sense of humour; appropriately, he looked a bit like Victor Meldrew circa One Foot in the Grave. Unfortunately I never paid his teaching the same respect I did his comedic monologues.

The rotating cast responsible for directing general studies is barely worth a mention. A guy who looked like the actor Alan Alda taught religious studies and was all right. My maths teacher, however, was a total burk, a pompous fellow who I disliked strongly. I don’t believe he even knew me by name. In my fifth year, in the lead up to our actual exam, he was signed off sick for about three or four months and ineffectual supply teachers deployed in his place. In the event, I passed the exam and doubt I’d have done any better if he’d been around.

Youth is indeed wasted on the young. The idea of going to school now seems like heaven. I responded well to teachers I liked (Mr. Sanderson excepted, which I regret) and lost interest where I didn’t, but generally I found school to be a drag. I had better things to do with my time, like playing football, watching football, reading The Football Grounds of Europe by Simon Inglis, designing imagined football strips and trainers, and putting together new mix-tapes.

The next eleven compositions were all included on the original mix-tape I put together over the summer of 1990: National Fresh Volume 2. Compton’s Most Wanted probably saw themselves as contemporaries of N.W.A. and the rest of the hard-bitten L.A. scene, but to my ears they sound more like EPMD, which is no bad thing. 'One Time Gaffled Em Up' is notable for incorporating censorial beeps into the rhythm of the track. This means MC Eiht had to time his curses so as not to disturb the metre to maintain the flow of the thing.

'We're All In The Same Gang' by the West Coast Rap All-Stars is a collaborative work intended to deter black-on-black gang violence, inspired by the East Coast scene’s similarly motivated Stop The Violence movement. It has a particular resonance for me because it is the only track that I remember recording that involves Ice T, and I like Ice T. Other contributing artistes of note include Digital Underground, N.W.A. and Above the Law.

Above the Law were genuinely the contemporaries of N.W.A. and as surely responsible for developing the West Coast G-funk sound as Dr Dre’s mob. 'Untouchable' is built around a sample from Young-Holt Unlimited’s version of 'Light my Fire' by The Doors. I possessed a copy of the affiliated album Livin' Like Hustlers but the recording was so bad that I could barely stand to listen to it. (My brother kindly gifted me a secondhand copy on vinyl some years later.)

Special Ed hailed from Brooklyn but 'Come On Let’s Move It' has a jagged edge that could have come straight out of Compton. (Perhaps Special Ed and Compton’s Most Wanted were swapping notes?). Bobby Byrd’s 'I Know You Got Soul' provides the foundation, 'Miss Broadway' by French disco act Belle Epoque the vocal flourishes.

The Latino rap of Kid Frost paved the way for the likes of Cypress Hill, and 'La Raza' was the track that broke the mould. I actually find Frost’s delivery a bit reedy, but he’s got good flow and the Spanish lingo makes for good rhyming.

Not being native to London at the time, I couldn’t reliably inform you how and when Britcore came about (by and large it was a metropolitan phenomenon). I was unaware of the epithet when listening to Hijack, Demon Boyz, MC Duke, etc. back in 1988 and probably none the wiser in 1990. However, I could certainly identify the style that the term Britcore is supposed to encompass: the hard, fast and rough manner evinced by acts such as Hijack (by way of their 'Hold No Hostage/Doomsday' of Rap 12” released in 1988, for example), Silver Bullet and Hardnoise. Hardnoise split up after two singles, but 'Untitled' could reasonably be described as the genre’s archetype.

'Black & Proud' by Intelligent Hoodlum received much airplay, sampling 'UFO' by New York post-punk group ESG. The number of artists who’ve sampled this song is legion, but I’m not sure if it’s ever been as pronounced as it is here. The track’s lyrics are also evidence of the growing preoccupation with black, and sometimes ancient, history: 'Find your ancestors and what they did, ‘cause intelligent blacks built pyramids. Seek and obtain, you'll find descriptions, pyramids were built by Egyptians.' Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King and Marcus Garvey are also mentioned.

I regret turning down the opportunity to purchase a copy of Poor Righteous Teachers’ Holy Intellect when I came across it in a record store in Soho during the early 2000s. I must have been short on disposable cash because the ‘Rock Dis Funky Joint’ would have justified every penny. Like X Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers were Five Percenters, but musically they came off more like Brand Nubian or KMD. Queen Mother Rage was into it too. As a member of the Blackwatch Committee – a political and musical collective led by X-Clan’s Professor X – she released the album Vanglorious Law in 1991, which featured contributions from the aforementioned organisation.

Boogie Down Productions affiliate D-Nice with 'Crumbs on the Table', a solid tune that exemplifies my leanings at the time: punchy beats off-set with a left-of-field staccato sample of indeterminable origin. Masta Ace’s 'The Music Man' adheres to a similar format. I believe Jeff Young played these two tunes together during the summer of 1990 – or at least I placed them together on the tape I pulled together. Both had albums out in July of that year.

National Fresh Volume 3: These remaining tunes, starting with the Chubb Rock EP track 'Treat 'Em Nice' (which would we be re-released to great acclaim in 1991), all made it onto the same cassette. Much of the material was lifted directly from the same, very successful edition of National Fresh. I've been unable to track down whichever show it was - there is limited information on the net, and the BBC will only grant access to their archives if you're working on a commercial project - but I guess it would have been around September of 1990.

'Mr. Sandman' by Philadelphian act Three Times Dope borrows substantially, and very cleverly, from the weird and wonderful 'Funky Worm' by the Ohio Players. My mate Ed liked their baggy, corduroy trousers. I don’t remember hearing anything else from Three Times Dope, which doesn't mean that I didn't.

Jeff Young described Subsonic 2’s 'We Go Subsonic' as one of the better singles he’d received that week, 'in their thousands.' I picked up a copy of the Nottingham duo’s debut cassette, Include Me Out, after finding it on sale in Our Price. It’s not a bad record by any means but the album version of 'We Go Subsonic' is nowhere near as good as the Underwater Mix that had so impressed me and Jeff.

Kool G Rap & Polo’s 'Streets of New York' takes a darker turn. How’s this for a stanza:

A little kid says yo,

I’ve got a colour TV, CD player and car stereo.

And all I want is a castle.

I’ve also got a .38, don’t give me no hassle.

The tune samples 'Got To Learn How to Dance' by The Fatback Band and sounds accordingly upbeat. The same cannot be said of 'Bad to the Bone', which was the other track Jeff liked to play from Kool G Rap & Polo’s affiliated album Wanted: Dead or Alive [August 1990]. This was not uncommon of the man; if he took to a particular artist he’d find time to play a number of tracks from their latest work, helping the listener to get a feel for what they were about.

'Breath Control' by Boogie Down Productions featured on National Fresh Volume 2, while the Levantine tinged 'Black Man in Effect' appeared on Volume 3. Trying to be concise, I’ve gone with the latter. I was intent on buying the album, Edutainment [August 1990] but it proved impossible to track down in Plymouth and my relatives couldn’t find a copy in Bristol. Moreover, my tape ran out about half way through recording 'Black Man in Effect'. Anyway, this is the third number on this volume to mention Egypt. I doubt KRS-One is much of an authority on the subject, but I take his point: that history has been distorted by whites to the detriment of blacks.

The Sindecut were from North London and occupied the same space as groups like the Young Disciples, Dodge City Productions, maybe Cavemen. This sort of thing had more in common with the Bristol Scene of Massive Attack, or even Soul II Soul. That said, 'Wisdom' is very much a rap track, and a hugely underrated one. The group’s only album, Changing the Scenery, was another that I’d fail to get my hands on, although I did eventually succeed in finding a 12” copy of 'Tell me Why?' with 'Wisdom' on the B-side.

When I finally acquired a turntable in May 1992, the first two records I bought were the first two instalments of a series entitled The Rebirth of Cool. These compilations incorporated a number of tracks I’d heard played on National Fresh; for instance, 'Step Right On' by Young Disciples and 'Welcome to the Story' by Galliano, tunes that sample Roy Ayres and The 24-Carat Black, and John Coltrane and Stevie Wonder respectively. Both groups were signed to Talkin’ Loud, a label more closely associated with that strange hybrid known as Acid Jazz. As with The Sindecut, neither Galliano nor the Young Disciples were pure rap acts, but the tunes I’ve included here are as good as anything recorded by groups that were.

[Listen to here.]