De La Soul: "3 Feet High and Rising" (1989)

The most inventive, assured, and playful debut in hip-hop history, 3 Feet High and Rising not only proved that rappers didn't have to talk about the streets to succeed, but also expanded the palette of sampling material with a kaleidoscope of sounds and references culled from pop, soul, disco, and even country music. Weaving clever wordplay and deft rhymes across two dozen tracks loosely organized around a game-show theme, De La Soul broke down boundaries all over the LP, moving easily from the groovy my-philosophy intro "The Magic Number" to an intelligent, caring inner-city vignette named "Ghetto Thang" to the freewheeling end-of-innocence tale "Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)." Rappers Posdnuos and Trugoy the Dove talked about anything they wanted (up to and including body odor), playing fast and loose on the mic like Biz Markie. Thinly disguised under a layer of humor, their lyrical themes ranged from true love ("Eye Know") to the destructive power of drugs ("Say No Go") to Daisy Age philosophy ("Tread Water") to sex ("Buddy"). Prince Paul (from Stetsasonic) and DJ Pasemaster Mase led the way on the production end, with dozens of samples from all sorts of left-field artists -- including Johnny Cash, the Mad Lads, Steely Dan, Public Enemy, Hall & Oates, and the Turtles. The pair didn't just use those samples as hooks or drumbreaks -- like most hip-hop producers had in the past -- but as split-second fills and in-jokes that made some tracks sound more like DJ records. Even "Potholes on My Lawn," which samples a mouth harp and yodeling (for the chorus, no less), became a big R&B hit. If it was easy to believe the revolution was here from listening to the rapping and production on Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, with De La Soul the Daisy Age seemed to promise a new era of positivity in hip-hop.

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CULT RECORD: PUBLIC ENEMY:" IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK " (1988)

Public Enemy is, hands down, the most influential and important group in the history of hip hop. By roughly stitching together contrapuntal noise and prophetic rabble-rousing, the avant-garde group quickly became rap's conscience. The contrasting personalities of PE's duo-- straight man and heavy-duty lyricist Chuck D and trickster sidekick Flavor Flav-- play off of one another to great effect. PE's work in toto has confronted, and at times embodied, most of the conflicts faced by young blacks over the last two decades. Racist white media and sellout black bourgeoisie. Black-Jewish relations and the woes of interracial relationships. The narrowness of black radio and the betrayal of blacks by dope dealers. Through it all, PE has maintained its integrity and vision. This even as the group's themes-- and popularity-- have had to take a back seat to the mass appeal of gangsta rap in the '90s.
From its first words-- a British voice introducing the group as if to indicate the essential foreignness of what's to come-- to its final beats, the revolutionary It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back lunges far beyond anything in rap's past to help secure its future. Just one year after Run-D.M.C.'s Raising Hell cemented rap's commercial appeal, It Takes a Nation gave the genre ideological vitality. Bombastic beats and clashing polyrhythms ferociously leap off the sound-scape, a tribute to production crew the Bomb Squad's orchestrated cacophony. On "Bring the Noise," Chuck's startling, irrepressible flow, punctuated by snippets of Flav's off-kilter commentary, strikes close to home. "Radio stations I question their blackness/ They call themselves black, but we'll see if they play this/ Turn it up! Bring the noise!" And on "Don't Believe the Hype," Chuck and Flavor rap over a repetitive shrieking noise, intermittent scratching, a ghoulish moan down the vocal scale, and a breezy bass. Chuck proclaims himself the "follower of Farrakhan/ Don't tell me that you understand/ Until you hear the man." As the song boomed out of car stereos across the US in the summer of 1988, it was clear the group's leader had truly accomplished his stated goal: "Teach the bourgeois, and rock the boulevard."

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CULT RECORD: ICE CUBE: "AMERIKKKA'S MOST WANTED" (1990)

Ice Cube's obsession lies in lyrically unearthing the horrors and subversive pleasures of the South Central ghettoes he helped cloak in rap mythology. Even when he misses the mark, the furious intelligence and rhetorical skill of his gangstAfronationalist aesthetic manages to provoke and inspire. Breaking with N.W.A at an extraordinarily young age for one who'd already given gangsta its most believable character, Cube went gone on to imprint his blunt anger over several crucial solo albums, flourishing the self-contained doomy presence that also gained him critical acclaim apart from music in the film Boyz N the Hood.
On AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Ice Cube seizes the spotlight. On "The Nigga Ya Love to Hate," he is "kickin' shit called street knowledge," demanding to know " Why more niggas in the pen than in college?" The track is bolstered by a swaggering bass line, the key to an aural assault that, throughout the album. is presided over by Public Enemy's Bomb Squad. Cube relentlessly exposes the terror of police brutality ("AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted"), yet mirrors such treatment in his own attacks on the fairer sex ("Once Upon a Time in the Projects" and "I'm Only Out for One Thing"). Cube also gets delirious joy in rattling the pieties of the black bourgeoisie; "Turn Off the Radio," a  propulsive synthesis of horns and psychedelic guitars, acerbically blasts the R&B lovers who in the late '80s crowded rap off the black airwaves.

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CULT RECORD: DE LA SOUL:"THREE FEET HIGH AND RISING" (1989)

De La Soul appeared on the scene in 1989 as the polar opposite of Public Enemy and N.W.A., proclaiming a "Daisy Age" and sampling Schoolhouse Rock, Johnny Cash, and learn-French-yourself records. The music steered by producer Prince Paul of Stetsasonic, was rooted on black pop at its most cheery and integrationist: doo-wop, '60s soul, and, most presciently, P-Funk. Fans who'd grown tired of the stereotypical crotch-grabbing, trash-talking rapper flocked to the band, though the cut "De La Orgee" is as misogynistic as anything on a Dr. Dre album and "Potholes in My Lawn" aims at sucker MCs. In fact, De La Soul's private metaphor jive and boho musicality represented a challenge to rap from within; the group remained every bit as obsessed with identity ("Me, Myself, And I") and cool ("Plug Tunin'") as anyone else in the genre. Perhaps the true difference marking 3 Feet High and Rising as the definitive arrival of "alternative hip-hop--though, race excepted, the Beastie Boys achieved the same thing first-- is its (middle class?) tone of prosperity and entitlement. Most hip-hop sounds pulled from adversity; De La Soul languidly gorges on the fruit of the vine.

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CULT RECORD: ULTRAMAGNETIC MCS: "CRITICAL BEATDOWN" (1988)

In the infinitely bizzare and colorful pantheon of hip hop, the Ultramagnetic MCs stick out like a caucasian at a Farrakhan rally. Combining an old-school Bronx flavor with futuristic funk and dusted, off-beat rhyme flows-- patented by the master of metaphor Kool Keith (a.k.a. Rhythm X)--these space cowboys have always marched to their own drummer, trooping through the outer limits at warp speed. Always original, unpredictable, and entertaining, Ultra inhabits the zone where rap meets Rod Serling. Early singles like "Space Groove" and "Something Else" carved out an underground following for the group, which, unfortunately, did not translate into healthy sales for its debut, Critical Beatdown. Nonetheless, producer Ced Gee, fresh off his work on Boogie Down Productions' monumental Criminal Minded, constructed a musical timebomb of chunky breakbeats (courtesy of James Brown), booming 808, and finely carved slices of aged funk, fortified by DJ Moe Luv's turntable trickery. This certified classic also  featured lyrics like, "I go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9/As i take your mind off and on to a new track/ to train ducks how to act/ Respect me, when i whip your brain," which had brothers scratching their heads-- but still riding the bozack of former Bellevue patient Kool Keith.

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CULT RECORD: CYPRESS HILL: "CYPRESS HILL" (1991)

Like Public Enemy, Cypress Hill arrived with an impressive enough mix of noise and menace to change the soundtrack of hip hop. The difference is, what Cypress brought really sounded like noise. While Chuck D and Flaw drove a finetuned, James Brown-powered 98 Olds, these cartoon-voiced gangstas did their drive-bys in a low-rider Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Their spare, off-kilter beats were less stirring than unsettling-- shuddering and squeling like a wheel on a broken rim and framing the nasal, joyfully nihilistic lyrics of Latino lead rapper B-Real ( a sort of Cheech Marin-meets-Eazy-E) in some of the creepiest, most distinctive urban sonics ever. "How I Could Just Kill a Man," with its flashback guitar screams and tense, arid groove, is a genre-changing classic, marrying the gritty sound of New York rap with the frontier dystopia of L.A. gangsta.
For all the scariness and eccentricity, Cypress Hill is full of undeniably catchy tunes. There's the somnambulant " Stoned Is the Way of the Walk," the singsongy "Hole in the Head," the jumpy "The Phunky Feel One," and, best, of all, "Hand on the Pump," proof that, in DJ Muggs, Cypress Hill has an absolute genius of breakbeat concrete. Looping only a fraction of Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl," Muggs continually frustrates one of the most familiar chord progressions in all pop, dooming Chandler to sing the first measure, word, and note of his 1962 doo-wop hit for all eternity-- duke, duke, duking along like a wind-up toy butting into a wall. Like most of the album, "Pump" derives its lyrical power from the dialectic of goofy and deadly, and, in the line " puffin' on a blunt," namechecks a hip-hop prop that would become as pervasive in rap as Muggs-style production (House of Pain and Funkdoobiest produced by him, Redman, Beatnuts, and countless others simply owing him their sound). By the release of Dr. Dre's The Chronic,pot became the national fiber of hardcore hip hop.

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CULT RECORD:N.W.A: "STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON" (1988)

N.W.A didn't invent gangsta rap; Ice-T did. But it was N.W.A that, with a cold hard shock, slammed it in America's face. We know now that the group was hollow at its core-- Eazy-E, who bankrolled it and promoted himself as its major star, couldn't even write his own raps. Still, he was colorful, and the others in the group, which included Ice Cube and Dr. Dre (along with rapper MC Ren and Dre's co-producer, Yella) ranged from solid to brilliant. During its brief glory reign in 1989, N.W.A (whose name, as surely everybody knows, means "Niggaz With Attitude") put Los Angeles hip hop firmly on the national map. To re-create those days, you can start with Straight Outta Compton, by now a classic, on which you'll hear one straight-out masterpiece: "F--- Tha Police" the song the F.B.I. tried to ban, co-written by Ice Cube, and produced by Dre and Yella in a kind of musical technicolor never heard in hip hop before. That vivid new sound--almost a Hollywood answer to Public Enemy's denser New York art-rap-- became an N.W.A (and later a Dre) trademark. "Gangsta Gangsta" (which Ice Cube dominates) is an unforgettably exuberant boast about what it means to be tough on the street; "Dopeman" (also pretty much an Ice Cube track) is an attack on drugs, especially grim because it draws its lessons from reality without wasting one word on morals.

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CULT RECORD OF THE DAY(24-12-2009).BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS:"CRIMINAL MINDED"

"I am the God of Hip-Hop music"
By the time Blastmaster KRS-One(Knowledge Rules Supreme Over Nearly Everyone)announced his latest self-affirmation,it was not only ironic but gratuitous.Ironic because he began his career dissing Run-D.M.C. for pronouncing themselves the "Kings of Rap."Gratuitous because by his seventh album there was hardly a Hip-Hop fan on the planet who'd quible about his role in creating modern rap.With "Return of the Boom Bap" he'd come full circle.A homeless B-boy from hip hop's birthplace,the South Bronx(the Boogie Down),Kris Parker released his debut classic "Criminal Minded" to reclaim hardcore.Thanks to the commercial success of Run-D.M.C.,the music and culture had spread beyond New York's five boroughs.With "Criminal Minded",Boogie Down Productions(primarily KRS and his mentor,DJ Scott La Rock)stripped hip hop to its essence.KRS kept the beats,expertly crafted on no more than a RE 808 Drum machine,simple,his diction clear,and his delivery direct.Shortly after the release of "Criminal Minded",Scott La Rock was murdered trying to settle a dispute for BDP member D-Nice.KRS had an epiphany after the loss.The result was "Self-Destruction,"which went on to become an all-star posse cut and one of the most important singles in hip-hop history ,prompting the Stop the Violence movement.The album's cover art(an allusion to a photo of an armed Malcolm X)and songs like "Illegal Business"were explicitly political.Suddenly MCs bore more responsibility than simply moving the crowd:KRS insisted that rap artists were teachers with the attention of a generation and the mesmerizing power of the microphone.This is KRS-One:An improvisational innovator onstage and a radical philosopher in the studio.

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