Hmmm - this was one of my worries about this list. You see - it's a bit early noughties if you know what I mean. The cover screams it out loud. My fears were set to maximum. Now, I realise that I am somewhat out of sequence, but the time lag in acquiring the 49th record meant that it arrived a week late, and I think it deserves at least a week of listening to do it justice. So at number 48 is this lot. Discogs says that they made one more album in 2006, but this one comes from 2002. So new are they that they don't even warrant an entry in the excellent Heroes of UK Hip Hop.
I first listened to this one on my inaugural run around the lovely Lake Merrit in Oakland taking in the homeless and the bird sanctuary. You can tell it's from the noughties as it has a "bonus track" basically on the iTunes version this manifests as a track with 4 minutes of silence making me think I'd downloaded it incorrectly mid run. My fears were raised with this one: no samples. I'm a frightful idiot when it comes to hip hop and no samples worries me greatly - and this melange of lightweight bleeps and beats made me panic a little.
But, in reality, and giving this a good week of listening I was totally wrong. This is a really great record with lots going for it and reinforces the idea that going through this list was a good idea. It wears it's age on it's sleeve but it does what it does beautifully.
More Fire is characteristic of the New Flesh sound - a stuttering minimal beat, with ragga rapping over the top - lot's of vocal layering. Normally I don't like this kind of thing, it not ticking the right boxes for me, but something about the interplay of the MCs and the boldness of the production makes it work. Some of the other tracks are more straightforward rapping, and the high number of guests keeps the rapping from becoming stale. Real Child Soldier is great, mellow and the rapper sounds like someone on the Fingerprints of the Gods (far away but upcoming I'm sure). One track features Gift of Gab, an MC so characteristic it's difficult to picture this as not a blackalicious track. Throughout, despite being minimal the production is pretty varied.
Two tracks feature Ramm:Ell:Zee - at first these are the most annoying things, him basically saying words over the beat. But over time they ground me down and I now think they're really good. Ty shows up on the last track and does his usual greatness.
So, overall, this is a really good record - of it's time but interesting and varied enough to keep things moving. In keeping with the tradition of including youtube videos I tried to find some of them live but to no avail. So here's a pretty cheap video for Stick and Move. Starting to think this is going to be the best project I've ever done.
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