LINER NOTES: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HIP HOP, VOL. 3 [1990-91]

1.     Jazz Thing – Gang Starr

2.     The Lost Tribe of Shabazz – Lakim Shabazz

3.     Treat 'Em Right – Chubb Rock

4.     100 Miles and Runnin' – N.W.A.

5.     The Devil Made Me Do It – Paris

6.     Freddy’s Back – The Royal Family (featuring Daddy Freddy & Duke)

7.     Mind Of An Ordinary Citizen – Blade

8.   My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style (The Next Definition) – Dream Warriors

9.     Looking at the Front Door – Main Source

10.   All For One – Brand Nubian

11.   Black Whip – Chapter and the Verse

12.   Jump Around (Nomad Soul Remix) – London Posse

13.   Green Grass – Cash Crew

14.   Check the Technique – Gang Starr

15.   My TV Went Black and White on Me – Young Black Teenagers

16.   I Got to Have It – ED O.G. & Da Bulldogs

17.   Slow Down (Pete Rock's Newromix) – Brand Nubian

18.   Just Hangin' Out (Your Hood Remix) – Main Source

19.   Pass the Plugs – De La Soul

20.   Mr. Hood at Piocalles Jewelry/Crackpot – KMD

21.   N-41 – Son of Bazerk

22.   Legions of the Damned – Silver Bullet

23.   Good Life – Pete Rock & CL Smooth

24.   Derelicts of Dialect – 3rd Bass

My Fifth Year (Year 11 in today’s money) and we’re in C-Block, which is preferable to D-Block. The building feels lighter somehow, and more open. Humanities are taught there, rather than science, and it's where the school library can be found, as well as the staffroom. Our form tutor is a jaded and irritable geography teacher by the name of Mr. Sandercock. He is Cornish, can speak Cornish, reeks of fags and looks like he’s been pulled through a hedge backwards.

Maybe because our GCSEs are upon us there seems to be less larking about, or maybe it’s just our age – 15 going on 16. That being said, one lunchtime Jamie Slater sets off a fire extinguisher in a side room, can’t get it to stop and so shoves it behind a bookcase; I somehow manage to fit an actual printer into Mike’s bag without him noticing, which he then carries home; aware of Mr. Sandercock’s habit of throwing marked exercise books across the classroom, Jamie and I glue together a pile we find on his desk, the idea being that when he goes to launch the first one it will create a sort of concertina effect. It does, or so a third former who was present in the event tells us. Unfortunately our reputations proceed us and Mr. Sandercock intuitively knows who’s responsible. He is not impressed, although really he should be, but nothing much comes of it other than a stiff talking to. I think he’s past caring.

'Jazz Thing' by Gang Starr was written for the film Mo’ Better Blues, appeared on the soundtrack, and was also released independently as a single. I may have included it on National Fresh Volume 4 or tacked it on the end of Volume 3. This was in August 1990, around the same time N.W.A put out their EP 100 Miles and Running (co-written with The D.O.C.), their first record since Ice Cube quit the group towards the end of 1989. There must have been a censored version of the title track doing the rounds, because its littered with curses. Either that or the BBC employed a certain technique whereby offensive language was distorted to render it unidentifiable, although you could normally guess. I was more impressed with '100 Miles and Running' than I was 'Jazz Thing', but ultimately Gang Starr would win the war. Jeff was all over them. On 30 November he played two of their tracks on the same show: 'Just to Get a Rep' and 'Who’s Going Take the Weight'. Gang Starr’s album was to be released in January, as we shall see.

DHS: D-Block in the foreground

Paris was a west-coast rapper, not from LA but San Francisco. 'The Devil Made Me Do It' was his breakthrough single and he followed up with an album of the same name in December. In terms of delivery I’d have thought Paris’s primary influence was Rakim. They both employ a similarly deep tone, although Paris is slightly more aggressive with it. I like the organ sample in the chorus – origin unknown – and the general sense of menace it foments.

The British hip hop scene was a multi-faceted thing with Britcore operating at one end of spectrum, acid jazz/nascent trip hop at the other, and ragamuffin in between. In October 1990 Massive Attack released 'Daydreaming', a track that I would have liked to have included on this compilation but cannot. If Jeff Young ever played it then I must have been out that night, because it didn’t appear on any of my tapes and this anthology is supposed to reflect what was. Which is not to say that I hadn’t heard the track; I was aware of what was going on when Massive Attack temporarily rebranded themselves as simply ‘Massive’ in the wake of the Gulf War, but I didn’t get around to buying their album for some while.

Daddy Freddy isn’t strictly British, he's Jamaican, but much of his output was released through the imprint Music of Life, and he’d previously collaborated with London ragga artist Asher D (the original Asher D, not the guy from So Solid Crew). Music of Life didn’t have much clout – part of the reason why Hijack signed up with Ice T’s Rhyme Syndicate, backed by Warner Bros. – but without it 'Freddy’s Back' may never have seen the light of day.

Had Armenian-exile Blade met with commercial success would he too have felt the need to change his name? Possibly not, for Blade had no record company behind him. His material was self-financed, sold out of a bag slung over his shoulder on the streets of Lewisham. 'Mind of an Ordinary Citizen' was his second single and deserved wider recognition.

It’s at this point – late 1990 – that I embarked upon what was supposed to be the fifth instalment of my National Fresh anthology. As it turned out, Jeff Young would leave Radio 1 at the end of the year, his Big Beat Show, incorporating National Fresh, to be supplanted by Pete Tong’s Essential Selection. All appeared to be lost. Then, in April 1991, Tong began hosting The Rap Selection every Thursday night between nine and ten. This lifeline was finally severed in March '92, but it was better than nothing. In the meantime, rather than start a new series of mixtapes named after this new show, I unimaginatively followed up National Fresh 4 with Hip Hop 5. Regardless, it was one my best.

Three groups stand out from this transitional period – Main Source, Brand Nubian, and Gang Starr – and Jeff got there first. 'Looking at the Front Door' by Main Source kicked it off, and when Tong took over then came 'Live at the Barbeque', 'Just Hangin' Out' and 'Peace Is Not the Word to Play'. Their album, Breaking Atoms came out in July 1991, but not in the UK – I couldn’t even get it on import. 'Looking at the Front Door' appeared on The Rebirth of Cool Too compilation I purchased a year later, but I would have to wait another 15-odd years before I finally got my hands on Breaking Atoms. Fortunate, then, that Young and Tong stood behind them.

'All For One' is the first track off of Brand Nubian’s debut album One for All, which I acquired with ease. I very much liked the way the group presented themselves, the record's artwork and how they dressed. I really wanted a short-sleeved shirt like the one DJ Alamo wore on the album cover but didn’t know where to look. I had the pin-rolled, loose fitting jeans (Go Vicinity), paired them with a pair of Avia ARC trainers, and wore Italian football shirts in lieu. Brand Nubian also struck me as one of more lyrically accomplished rap acts doing the business – example: 'Then I get my gear and I give Trev a call, 'cause he works in the barbershop right behind the mall.'

On that same 30 November edition of National Fresh, Jeff Young played 'Black Whip' by Chapter and the Verse. From Manchester, their sound leaned towards the same sort of territory as Young Disciples or Galliano, but 'Black Whip' is straight up jazz-rap, taking its name, and the groove, from the tune of the same name by Ivan ‘Boogaloo’ Jones, as well as 'Dem Tambourines' by tenor saxophonist Don Wilkerson.

London Posse’s Gangster Chronicle is often cited as the British hip hop’s finest moment. I purchased it at the end of 1990, off the back of hearing the singles 'Money Mad' and the Nomad Soul Remix of 'Jump Around' on the radio. The latter was included on both the 2001 and 2013 extended iterations of the same album and is the version I have included here. London Posse exemplified a tendency within British rap to look towards Jamaican music for inspiration, rather than the funk, jazz and soul that formed the basis for most American hip hop (KRS-One would soon buck this trend). Bionic and Rodney P also made a point of rapping in their local vernacular, embracing their London accents.

The genius of the track 'Green Grass' is not that Cash Crew sampled Gwen McCrae’s '90% of Me is You' but how they sampled it, like it’s being played through a set of headphones on a cheap 1980s Walkman. Cash Crew performed 'Green Grass' on the programme Dance Energy, which was part of the BBC’s DEF II. In the days before the internet, Dance Energy was an invaluable resource, offering rap acts the rare opportunity to perform live on UK television. (Channel 4’s The Word would occasionally allow for it but more normally favoured indie-rock and grunge music.)

In January ’91 Gang Starr put out Step in the Arena, and I immediately set about buying it. Mike and I went to Our Price, and while I combed the shelves Mike asked the guy behind the counter for assistance: 'We’ve got Gang of Four and Gang Green but no Gang Starr.' (Incidentally, I’m now quite into Gang of Four.) It turned up somewhere – maybe in Rival Records, which was slightly more cutting edge – and I was smitten. 'Check the Technique' samples the intro to Marlena Shaw’s 'California Soul' but Gang Starr more usually borrowed from jazz. Jazz-rap was a nebulous concept because few artists relied on jazz exclusively; funk and soul and R&B were utilised with the same regularity. Indeed, most jazz-rap might also be referred to as alternative hip hop, although this term is more often used retrospectively. Nonetheless, a mellower sort of vibe began to pervade.

Young Black Teenagers were signed up to Hank Shocklee’s (of Bomb Squad fame) MCA Records’ subsidiary S.O.U.L. and it was he who gave them their name. Nothing particularly unusual about that, except Young Black Teenagers weren’t black (or teenagers for that matter). Their self-titled debut shares the same musical discord found on Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk, albeit in a slightly more restrained manner. I was ambivalent at the time, but both these albums have aged very well and are worthy of our attention now.

I procured Ed O.G. & Da Bulldogs’ Life of a Kid in the Ghetto in mid-1992, more than a year after its release. I can be sure of this because I have it on vinyl and I didn’t start buying vinyl until after I invested in a turntable. Due to the amount of time that had elapsed, Life of a Kid in the Ghetto was now reduced to £3 in HMV. 'Be a Father to Your Child' was the track that received the most airplay, but 'I Got to Have It' is for me the album’s standout track.

Pete Rock’s remix of 'Slow Down' provides an excuse to include a second track by Brand Nubian. Released as a single in March 1991, this mix appeared on the B-side. I don’t consider Pete Rock’s adaptation to be an improvement on the original necessarily, although I’m very fond of the tambourine that shakes throughout. Lyrically, it represents another tour de force. Sadat X this time: 'Now Woolie Willie got a pair of my sneakers. Wonder where he got 'em 'cause I hid 'em behind my speakers.'

De La Soul’s second album didn’t sell quite like the first one did. The received wisdom is that it’s actually the better album, although I’m not sure I would agree with that. As with Life of a Kid in the Ghetto, I picked up De La Soul is Dead on sale in HMW – maybe even the same sale. Because of De La Soul’s higher profile, Tong played more of it on his show, and so tracks like 'Pass the Plugs' featured prominently on the mix-tapes I compiled throughout ‘91.

KMD were signed to Elektra Records, the same label as Brand Nubian. Their first album, Mr. Hood, fits the jazz-rap template, although 'Mr. Hood at Piocalles Jewelry/Crackpot' is built around Eddie Floyd and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson samples, guys that played 1960s soul and 1970s blues respectively. It also samples from a language-learning record. These exerts form the basis of the character Mr. Hood, who wanders in and out of the album to humorous effect. As with Brand Nubian, the group's levity belied a more serious dimension (both groups took inspiration from the Five-Percent Nation, to varying degrees). 

The piece de résistance: 'N-41' by Son of Bazerk, built around nothing more than a simple drum beat and synthesised bassline (is it even sampled?) with the crew bickering in the background; the rumble of what sounds like an underground train pulling away from its platform can just about be made out behind it all. SOB’s debut album, Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk, exemplifies Hank Shocklee’s assertion that music is simply the ‘manipulation of noise’. There’s an abstraction to the chaos that begins to make sense the more one listens to it. But 'N-41' is tame by comparison, although no less beguiling – a Rothko set adrift among a sea of Pollacks.

Britcore was fast establishing itself as British rap’s preeminent sub-genre. Silver Bullet doesn’t get as much credit for this as he deserves. The album Bring Down the Walls No Limit Squad Returns is a frenetic beast, for sure, but it’s also a highly sophisticated piece of work. 'Raw Deal', 'Attitude Academy', 'Undercover Anarchist', 'Guns Of Mind Alone' and 'Legions Of The Damned' are all so distinct, so relentless in their sonic imposition, that one has to entertain the possibility that this may in fact be the best British hip hop album ever recorded.

After building a reputation as one of hip hop’s leading producers, Pete Rock teamed up with rapper CL Smooth to release the All Souled Out in the summer of ’91. Its opening track, 'Good Life', blew me away, or rather the trumpet sample from jazz guitarist O'Donel Levy’s version of 'I Wanna Be Where You Are' did. Pete Rock & CL Smooth would come of age in 1992, but All Souled Out was a fantastic introduction to another one of the Golden Age’s major players.

'Derelicts of Dialect' by 3rd Bass samples two tunes by obscure funk/soul outfit The 9th Creation: 'Bubble Gum' and 'Falling in Love'. I recall this track playing out The Rap Selection, Tong wrapping things up as DJs do. 'Derelicts of Dialect' was also the title of 3rd Bass’s second album, released June 1991.

[Listen to here.]