Hmm. After that run of incredible comes something of a comedown. Hated this on first listen, all tedio-rap sounding far too much like pop-rap for my liking.
It grew on me a bit, and I started to see some light in the cracks. He is a good rapper, just not my thing - good voice but I have no interest in what he's saying. There's a great Skully DJ Skit which cuts into the Groundbreaker track - which is better stuff, production is okay, fairly urgent. The rapping's all 'Look at those girls, look at my wheels' type stuff but it all fits together okay.
And then a lot more of the same (18 tracks on the itunes version). And then! The most fateful of mid-nighties bonus tracks! A ShyFX and T-Power Jungle remix of Groundbreaker. As bad as it sounds
Here's Skully:
And here's that tune (albeit with a crazy guy dancing):
In 1993, the only group that interested me was Carter: The Unstoppable Sex Machine. I was a typical nut, poring over their fan club newsletters. One that I remember was asking for help from this guy Blade: Send him 15 quid (or maybe 20) and you get a copy of this record, which was then unpressed or unrecorded. A pre-internet Kickstarter. And there on the booklet that comes with the record is a list of everyone that contributed (including Carter USM).
And it's Blade. What more can you say - in another world he would be common knowledge but despite a few goes it never seemed to happen for him. Listening to this record now, twenty years on, it leaps out at you. The production is incredibly tight, the drums knock you round the head - all crunchy Public Enemy lite in amount but a similar amount of force behind it. And Blade, born with a rappers voice. Every word is placed for effect. No compromise.
It's a double record, and feels it. It could have been tighter as a single but he didn't make that many records so we should be grateful for this amount of material. The track with Mell'O stands out, both of them on form:
"Mell'O why you cursing?" "Because I'm fucking angry!"
Clever rap stuff too: "How To Raise A Blade", a cappella, and then some stupid piano playing - the true test of a great rap record: you don't notice how annoying the skits are. And then crash into "No Compromise" - pounding drums and a head nodding piano line. And Blade, knocking it out the park for the umpteenth time.
After two goes, this CD finally arrived in Oakland. And good god that cover: like the Kersal Massive have let Little Ginger Kev loose with Clip Art and Text Effects. Everything about it screams awful. So Vicious Circle, a group I know very little about and what I can glean from the HHC piece it's a crew (Wolftown) and mainly 10Shott and Size8 on this.
It's a wonderful record. One that completely captures what I've truly loved about this list of records: British Rap has high production values (in terms of laying out and blending samples), but it's forced through this funnel of lo-fi-ness. Not in a full on Shrimper type way but it's clear that these records were made for a small amount of money and a lot of production hustling. Us Man is typical: grimy drums, and a bouncing dumbeat, and some Brummie rapping. The rapping is earnest and accomplished - I've been caning the Parlour Talk record and there's something about regional accents doing rap which I find incredibly appealing now. Burglars is a bizarre, almost nonsense tale, over a well placed piano and drum beat: "If the burglar tries to burgle me and the burgler acts nervously, of course I've got stop the burglar who tried to murder me, you hearing me?"
The posse elements come through: there are a lot of tracks here (22), lots of appearances which are generally high quality. It's a solid record through and through. Just that cover though, what were they thinking?
