Straight outta: NY

A couple of weeks ago I was on vacation in New York together with MLK, and in a post I made over there I said that I’d come back with some sort of a longer, city specific post about the birthplace of hip hop and rap, presenting some of the music that I’ve been listening to from the big apple through out the years. I’ve been stalling a bit, but here it is at last.

I might as well start by saying that I’m purposely jumping the most obvious tips (such as Ready to die, The Blueprint, Illmatic, Enter the Wu-Tang, etc.) to avoid repeating what’s already been said a hundred times before.

Also, here's a Spotify playlist with som NY rap that I've made for this post.

When I began to listen to rap in the mid 90’s, NY had been the epicenter of hip hop for over a decade and some of the greatest rappers of all time were dropping dope albums one after the other. Back then, I really was a NY-purist, and it actually took me some years to widen my perspective and accept that there were good rappers outside of the five boroughs. Anyway, a rapper that never really got the big break was Gangstarr associate Jeru the Damaja, and that despite a cool name and a nice voice. Can’t stop the prophet (Pete Rock remix) from 1994 is a true banger.



The following years, two of my absolute favourite albums were released; Dr. Octagonecologyst (1996) by Dr. Octagon (Kool Keith) and A prince among thieves (1999) by Prince Paul (I’ve already discussed the former in an earlier post). A prince among... is some sort of hip hop opera, where Prince Paul plays the role of Tariq, an upcoming rapper who’s hustling to get a record deal. The album is featured by many big names (Kool Keith among them), and should be listened to from start to ending at least once. This specific track is about dealing dope to crack fiends, played by De La Soul.




It’s no secret that I like Wu-Tang, and when it comes to the nine members’ solo projects, Ghostface has always been my favourite (even though Raekwon has had extremly high standard on the two albums he’s released) with his strange lyrics and seemingly huge imagination. All of his albums has high standard, but to mention a few; Supreme Clientel (2000) is nothing but great, and the two fish-albums (Fishscale and More fish) he released in 2006 are both really good.



Lately, NY has lost a lot of its reputation as the rap capitol of the world and hot rappers nowadays comes from all over the US. But them New York cats still know how to do it, and haven’t totally lost their touch. Consequence has been around for a while (as member of A Tribe Called Quest) and released a great album in 2007, Don’t quit your day job. Just like A prince among thieves it has some sort of plot, and apparentaly that’s something I like...



Another veteran from another (in)famous group is Prodigy (who’s apparently back in jail). 2008 he dropped Product of the 80’s which I highly recommend. Actually, I think its the best he’s made since Mobb Deep’s classic debute The Infamous.



One promising young rapper is Corey Gunz, a second generation rapper (son of Peter Gunz) with a great flow. No album releases so far, but alot of mixtapes that are making me sure it’s only a matter of time before he drops one.



I know that this post was too long, anybody still reading?