LINER NOTES: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HIP HOP, VOL. 4 [1991-92]

1.     Rise ‘N’ Shine – Kool Moe Dee

2.     Flavor of the Month – Black Sheep

3.     Transformers – Leaders of the New School

4.     Peace is Not the Word to Play – Main Source

5.     How I Could Just Kill a Man – Cypress Hill

6.     I Had to Serve You – Hijack

7.     Hangman – II Tone Committee

8.     Gettin' Looped / Dress Code – WC & the Maad Circle

9.     It’s Gonna Last – UMC’s

10.   Check The Rhime (Mr. Muhammad's Mix) – A Tribe Called Quest

11.   Sometimes I Rhyme Slow –  Nice & Smooth

12.   Pissin' on Your Steps – Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
13.   Black With NV (No Vision) – Black Sheep

14.   White Green – Funkytown Pros

15.   Shut ‘Em Down – Public Enemy

16.   Make it Happen – Ultramagnetic MC’s

17.   It’s a Boy (Large Professor Remix) – Slick Rick

18.   Ruff Ruff – Boogie Down Productions

19.   Jussummen – Das EFX

20.   Generals – Fu-Schnickens

21.   It’s Like That – Pete Rock & CL Smooth

22.   Flip the Script – Gang Starr

23.   Ya Mama – The Pharcyde 

24.   Kickin' Jazz – Outlaw

25.   Qui Sème Le Vent Récolte Le Tempo (Gang Starr Mix) – MC Solaar

Martha Gellhorn wrote that, 'summer in England is largely imaginary,' and it is possible that I have imagined the summer of 1991. GCSEs over, we had time on our hands, and a lot of it was spent outside, kicking a ball about, playing tennis in Hartley Park, pitch-and-putt in Central Park, or just wandering around town. What the weather was really doing is moot, but in my mind the sun was always shining.

'Rise ‘N’ Shine' is the perfect summer rap record. Kool Moe Dee had peaked by the time Chuck D and KRS-One agreed to lay down vocals for the track, and the accompanying album, Funke Funke Wisdom didn’t do so well. Nonetheless, anybody who can get Chuck and KRS-One on board is worthy of consideration, and 'Rise ‘N’ Shine' was worthy of their time, reaching no. 1 in Billboard Magazine’s weekly ‘Hot Rap Tracks’ chart.

The latest group causing a stir was Black Sheep. The single 'Flavor of the Month' testified to the duos’ witty wordplay, the trumpet sample from Herb Alpert’s 'In a Little Spanish Town' their musical savvy. The album A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing was released in October 1991, quickly followed by their second single 'The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)', which was massive. In 1998, US hip hop magazine The Source rated A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing as one of the ‘100 Best Rap Albums Ever’. I wonder if they stand by this now? I would like to think that they would.

Still no sign of that Main Source album, but plenty of singles. Released in October, 'Peace Is Not the Word to Play' was the fourth (and much better than the album version) but I’m sure Pete Tong was playing it a long time before that. I don’t know which of my compilations this track appeared on but the chronology suggests it could have been Hip Hop 6, which, if memory serves, was a C60, rather than the more usually deployed C90.

Leaders of the New School was another group getting rave reviews. I didn’t care for the singles 'Case of the P.T.A.' or 'Sobb Story', but when Tong played the album track 'Transformers', which blatantly lifts the driving Hammond organ off of 'I’m a Man' by the Spencer Davis Group, I sort of got it. Nobody I knew owned a copy of their album A Future Without a Past... but the reviews were good, and the group would later make a guest appearance on A Tribe Called Quest's hit single 'Scenario', which made the case for Busta Rhymes as a solo artiste.

I studied for my A-levels at the same place I took my GCSEs, yet sixth form was something of a revelation. We still had to wear a uniform but our blazers were now black, instead of bottle green. Our ties were also less conspicuous, and so you felt less like a chattel slave and more someone going about their own business. The way we interacted with our teachers changed. You there because you wanted to be, not because you had to, and were treated accordingly.

Our timetable was more forgiving. I only had one lesson on a Friday – history in the afternoon – and rather than spend all day confined to the study area, a few of us would venture into town to drink tea (cheaper than coffee) at Coffee Plus in Plymouth’s Armada Centre, and to browse through records in the newly opened Virgin Megastore on Cornwall Street. In the summer we might catch the Cremyll Ferry over to Mount Edgcumbe. Didn’t even bother attending school assemblies much. Instead, I’d find someone willing to cruise the classrooms, drawing faces and writing ‘Beard is Weird’ or ‘Por La Raza’ on as many blackboards as I could find. At the end of the day I would make regular detours via the city centre to see if Rival Records on Royal Parade had anything to tempt my fancy. It was a charmed way of living when compared to the regular school life I’d been accustomed to.

Shortly after hearing 'How I Could Just Kill a Man' on the Tong’s Rap Selection, I was delighted to find an imported American copy of Cypress Hill’s debut on the shelves at Rival Records. If there was ever such a thing as lo-fi hip hop then this surely was it, and for a while Cypress Hill was probably my favourite group. [Years later I was lucky enough to chance upon an immaculate, reasonably priced vinyl copy of Cypress Hill, either in the Music & Video Exchange in Greenwich or Reckless Records on Berwick Street in Soho. Whichever one it wasn’t may have been where I picked up an equally immaculate copy of Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk by Son Of Bazerk.]

British hip hop never made much of an impact over in the States, but for a brief moment it appeared that Hijack might buck the trend. Ice T signed them to his Rhyme Syndicate imprint, but that went belly up and Hijack were stuck with parent company Warners, a record label that didn’t much like their sound. By the time The Horns of Jericho had been cobbled together it felt like they’d lost much of the mystique that made them so appealing in the first instance. 'I Had to Serve You', though, harked back to the impenetrable image I had of Hijack back in their early days when they’d posed in Berghaus puffer jackets on derelict land. It’s an interesting track, not your usual verse-chorus type of thing, just Kamanchi Sly issuing forth a single stanza followed by some slick turntable action.

'Hangman' by Glasgow’s II Tone Committee is pure Britcore. I think Tong played this tune just once. It’s so obscure that I’ve no reason to think he’d have afforded them any more time than that. To be fair, Tong did his fair share for British hip hop, playing stuff by the likes of Gunshot, Katch 22, First Frontal Assault, Son of Noise. What would ultimately kill off this particular brand of hip hop was not neglect but dance music: the rave scene and acid house.

I don’t remember hearing WC & the Maad Circle being played on the radio, but I do know that Anthony Cambridge lent me a copy of their debut album Ain't a Damn Thang Changed. I was a little underwhelmed, until 'Dress Code' kicked in – or rather, the first bar of 'Black' by Stax Records session-band The Mar-Keys, repeated over and over. 'Dress Code' carries all the hallmarks of West Coast rap at the time: heavy bass, minimal sampling, a certain attitude.

Off the back of the single 'One To Grow On', my brother attempted to purchase a copy of Fruits of Nature by UMC’s. Unfortunately the mail-order company he ordered it from went bust and he lost his money. Anthony Cambridge stepped in with very bad recording, which was better than nowt. It is a very good record, in a similar to vein to A Tribe Called Quest’s early stuff, or Gang Starr at their most playful, very much of the moment, and 'It's Gonna Last' is sublime.

A Tribe Called Quest’s second album The Low End Theory manifested a more pared down sound than its predecessor, although there’s still plenty of jazz to be found here: Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Cannonball Aderly, Grant Green, Jack McDuff; the record was a commercial success without compromising the group’s integrity. In fact, it is regarded to this day as one of the greatest rap records of all time. Personally, I prefer their first album, as well favouring the single version of 'Check the Rhime'.

My chosen A-Levels were History, English, and Design and Technology. It was a full gone conclusion that I’d choose to study History and English, and I figured that Design and Technology would allow me to learn graphic design, which I had vague notions of pursuing. It didn’t. Mr. Morris, who was a gentle soul, taught us the theoretical stuff – engineering, I suppose – while Mr. Penton, who had taught me GCSE Design and Communication, was supposed to divulge more practical skills. Early on, myself and the four other guys in my class – including my friend Mike – turned up to a lesson only for Mr. Penton to ask what we were doing there. In fairness, we’d been lumped in with the upper sixth, who were off that day, and Mr. Penton may not have realised this, although he probably should have. Anyway, for the rest of the year, when it wasn’t Mr. Morris’s turn to instruct us, we spent most of our time, completely unsupervised, mucking about unproductively on rudimentary computers. [I took the opportunity to smuggle yet more artefacts into Mike’s bag; soldering irons, rolls of cotton wool, electromagnets, and whatever else I could find lying about. His mother later found a carrier bag full of this junk under his bed and demanded an explanation. I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome than that.]

Come half term, Mr. Morris sent us on work experience to various local manufacturing firms. It never occurred to me that something like this would be compulsory, until late on Tuesday when my parents received a call asking where I’d been for the last two days (at my grandparents’ house in Bristol, as it goes). And so on Wednesday off I reluctantly went. Having just been to Bristol, where there were more numerous and better record shops, I’d recently acquired the new album by Del the Funkee Homosapien, I Wish My Brother George Was Here, so I got stuck into that on the bus journeys out to Plympton and back. The single 'Mistadobalina' had almost charted, although Del’s record was less commercial than this implies – he was, after all, Ice Cube’s cousin. The association with an industrial estate is not one I wanted, so I’ve eschewed the popular choice for this compilation and gone for the album track 'Pissin’ on Your Steps'.

Funkytown Pros were from Los Angeles but weren’t as abrasive as many of the other acts who were. 'White Green' is a strong tune, but hip hop such as this was slowly going out of fashion. As Hunter S Thompson put it, 'with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.'

Public Enemy’s fourth album, Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black, is underrated. The sheer barrage of noise that introduces it is as powerful as anything they’d done before, and they haven’t really bettered it since. I actually prefer the opening three tracks, 'Lost at Birth', 'Rebirth' and 'Night Train' to 'Shut ‘Em Down', but they segue into each other and it’s impossible to pull them apart. The album itself isn’t has dense as its predecessors. This has to do with: the introduction of live musicians; the fact that the discs containing the material the group had been working on went missing, or were stolen; producer Gary G-Wiz joining up with The Bomb Squad; tensions within The Bomb Squad itself; the increasing cost of sampling.

Ultramagnetic MC's were old hands but they’d been on something of a hiatus when 'Make it Happen' dropped in late ’91, although the single didn’t even feature on the following year’s album, Funk Your Head Up. 'Make it Happen' juxtaposes the benign horns of 'It's Just Begun' by The Jimmy Castor Bunch with the malignant noise that begins Funkadelic’s 'Get Off Your Ass and Jam'. Add to that the eccentricity of rapper Kool Keith:

Keith is nice, Keith is dope, Keith is bad,

Keith is hype, now watch the X.

X'll get X-tra, X-tra X-trordinary

X-clusive, X-quisite,

X-amine the X flow, X-tra X-citing,

X-tremely, so dangerous,

Many can't hang with this, hmmm...

Slick Rick released The Ruler's Back in July, which spawned the single 'It’s a Boy' in November. Tong wisely opted to play the Large Professor’s remix off of the B-Side, which sounded a lot like Pete Rock had a hand in it. The sampled vibraphone of Cal Tjader compliments Rick’s soft, singsong cadence very nicely. Unfortunately, by the time it was released Slick Rick was serving time for second-degree attempted murder.

A guy I knew from around the way, called Ed, had previously made me copies of The Devil Made Me Do It by Paris, Mr Hood by KMD, and the eponymously titled Young Black Teenagers album. We didn’t consciously take turns, but my brother had been buying his fair share, and I was passing on whatever Anthony Cambridge could provide me with, so when Boogie Down Productions put out their fifth and final album Sex & Violence in February ‘92, Ed duly obliged. (My brother disputes this and reckons it was him that bought it.) The album didn’t sell so well, possibly because KRS-One had rubbed a few people in the industry up the wrong way. 'Ruff Ruff', featuring Freddie Foxxx, and 'Duck Down' are the standout tracks.

On the other side of the tape on which I recorded Sex & Violence, I made a copy of F.U. Don't Take It Personal by the Fu-Schnickens. A Tribe Called Quest co-produced this album – they were Jive Records label-mates – and Phife Dawg served up guest vocals on 'La Schmoove', the group’s second single. 'Generals' is indicative of the approach: sparse beats, fast-paced raps, and references to martial art films (way before Wu-Tang Clan made this sort of thing fashionable). Das EFX, who came slightly after, had a similar approach to rhyming but presented with a harder edge, which might explain why they're regarded as the more influential act of the two.

In 1992 my musical tastes began to diversify. I started off with my dad's old jazz records, by the likes of Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson. I then moved on to Acid Jazz – Corduroy, Mother Earth, The Brand New Heavies, Galliano. Meanwhile, I acquired a number of rap albums that failed to meet with my high expectations: Return of the Funky Man by Lord Finesse, Zhigge ‎by Zhigge, and Arrested Development’s 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... which was all right but wore thin after repeated listening (although 'Mama's Always on Stage' still cuts it).

My disillusionment was short-lived. In May Gang Starr released Daily Operation. Because it wasn’t available to buy in Plymouth, I bought my copy via mail order (along with a vinyl pressing of Brand Nubian’s One For All, despite already having it on tape). I remember the morning Daily Operation turned up and putting it on before leaving for school. I got as far as the first two tracks and could barely contain my excitement. The rest of the album did not disappoint, but the opening two numbers – 'The Place Where We Dwell' and 'Flip the Script' – are still two of my favourites. They’re minimal pieces: jazz drums, ambient crowd noise, and in the case of 'Flip the Script', two looped organ stabs lifted from the Grover Washington tune 'Lock it in The Pocket' (the keys come courtesy of James 'Sid' Simmons). It’s a travesty that neither were included on the double-compilation album Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr.

Within a couple of months, Pete Rock & CL Smooth finally issued their debut album, Mecca and the Soul Brother, which I purchased from the now defunct Replay Records in Bristol. I wasn’t sure about it at first but it quickly grew on me. It’s now one of my favourite rap albums, but my preferred track then is still my preferred track now – 'It’s Like That'.

My next acquisition was to be Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1 by The Brand New Heavies, featuring the likes of Main Source, Gang Starr, Black Sheep, The Pharcyde. I decided against including any of these collaborations here because they are live compositions recorded with actual instruments, but without this record it’s possible that I may never have purchased Bizarre Ride to the Pharcyde some five months later. Like Gang Starr’s 'Flip the Script', 'Ya Mama' is built around a single sample: Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills’ version of 'Season of the Witch', and specifically Al Kooper’s organ. Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde was/is a beautiful object – great artwork, translucent vinyl; one disc blue, the other yellow.

I acquired The Rebirth of Cool Too [sic] in May, a compilation put out on the label Fourth & Broadway featuring the likes of Gang Starr, Brand Nubian, Main Source, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Outlaw Posse. Outlaw Posse also recorded under the name Brothers Like Outlaw but are credited here simply as Outlaw. The reason for this is probably because the track 'Kickin' Jazz' is a completely different version to the one that appears on the band’s album, remixed as it is by Patrick Forge and Simon Richmond. It’s an improvement on the original and indicative of how jazz-rap wasn’t just a stateside phenomenon.

The final track on this compendium is taken from Talkin’ Loud Two, a cheap cassette designed to get people interested in the record label Gilles Peterson’s set up after leaving Acid Jazz Records. MC Solaar’s original version of 'Qui Sème Le Vent Récolte Le Tempo' was released in France in 1991, but Gang Starr’s remix was put out by Talkin’ Loud in 1992. One wonders whether DJ Premier regretted not keeping the groove for himself.

It was probably 'Jump Around' by House of Pain that set the alarm bells ringing, a truly awful tune. Then came 'Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang' by Dr Dre, which was just boring. By the time Cypress Hill released 'Insane in the Brain' in June 1993, the game was well and truly up. It would be another four years before I bought a (new) rap record (Dr. Octagon's in 1996), which is not say that I stopped listening to hip hop entirely, or that I didn’t record Ill Communication by the Beastie Boys off of my brother or listen to the Wu-Tang Clan in other people’s houses, or recognise that Nas was the real deal. Part of me thinks it’s a shame I didn’t stick with hip hop, but the excessive swearing, macho posturing, and an obsession with guns and cannabis wore thin very quickly. Moreover, as the industry became ever more litigious, sampling became harder, the music sparser and less experimental.

[Listen to here or here.]

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

1.     Jazz Thing (Movie Mix) – 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.   Pages and Pages – Caveman

14.   Green Grass – Cash Crew

15.   Check the Technique – Gang Starr

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

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

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

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

20.   Pass the Plugs – De La Soul

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

22.   N-41 – Son of Bazerk

23.   Legions of the Damned – Silver Bullet

24.   Good Life – Pete Rock & CL Smooth

25.   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 Graham Sandercock. He is Cornish, can speak Cornish, reeks of fags and looks like he’s been dragged 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 – 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. '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 even 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 in June 1991.

[Listen to here or here.]

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 – Master Ace

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 – Master Ace

18. Put the Squeeze on ‘Em – The Jaz

19.   Mr. Sandman – Three Times Dope

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

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

22.   Black Man in Effect – Boogie Down Productions

23.   Wisdom (Single Version) – The Sindecut

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

25.   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 in and of itself.

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 hazy 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. 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 or twelve 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. Contributing artistes of note include Ice T, 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. Master 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: The Jaz was once mentor to the infinitely more well-known rapper Jay-Z. Apparently, the two fell out after The Jaz refused Jay-Z’s offer of a recording contract with his imprint Roc-A-Fella Records. Before all that happened Jay-Z made a couple of guest appearances on The Jaz’s 1990 album To Your Soul (check out the video to the single ‘The Originators’ if you’re interested). ‘Put the Squeeze on 'Em’ is the only record of The Jaz that I can recall, but it’s a good one.

'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, 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.

I was intent on buying the album, Boogie Down Productions' 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 (superior) remixed versions of 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 or here.]