motel de moka

Image credit: Simon Grossi

In the previous part I explained how once more flipping through my pre-2002 hip-hop albums led me to more or less rediscover the genre again. I decided to make a two-post mix of some of the tracks that still sound remarkably fresh to me today. This second playlist preserves the overall vibe of the previous one, but differs by being less jazz and turntablism oriented and instead focuses more on the MCs and their delivery and rhymes.

I admit, I cheated with this playlist by including yet another Freestyle Fellowship track. Hopefully you’ll let me get away with it as they are among my favourite hip-hop collectives. This track comes from their excellent debut album To Whom It May Concern… from 1991. Together with their follow-up Inner City Griots – of which I used a track in the previous part – this album is a keystone of modern hip-hop. As a Los Angeles underground collective they combined freestyle hip-hop and open mic sessions with jazz in a time when gangsta rap started to take over the charts. Related to this collective – that included people like Aceyalone, Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E. and Self Jupiter – is the illustrious Project Blowed compilations album, recordings from an open-mic night in South Central Los Angeles, of which I’ve also added a track to this playlist.

Besides Freestyle Fellowship I still very much like the Quannum related projects of which a Blackalicious track is included here. Around that time, late ‘90s and early ‘00s, there were several groups like Blackalicious (consisting of DJ/producer Chief Xcel and MC Gift of Gab) and Jurassic 5 who stepped up to the plate and made popular again a positive and intelligent approach to a genre that was plagued by commercialism and negativity. Which at that time definitely felt like a breath of fresh air.

As I said before, I made this mix because I wanted to figure out how I felt about my collection of pre-2002 hip-hop albums that remained mostly untouched for several years. But I also hoped to maybe introduce someone to good hip-hop that for any reason might have remained undiscovered to them before.

1. Freestyle Fellowship - 5 O’clock Follies
   To Whom It May Concern… (Beats & Rhymes, 1991)
2. Deltron 3030 - Madness
   Deltron 3030 (75 Ark, 2000)
3. Company Flow - Population Control
   Funcrusher Plus (Rawkus, 1997)
4. Aceyalone - Human Language
   A Book of Human Language (Project Blowed, 1998)
5. Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard
   Jurassic 5 LP (PAN, 1998)
6. Abstract Rude, Aceyalone - Maskaraid Part 1 & 2
   Project Blowed (A-Team/Afterlife, 1995)
7. Blackalicious - Make You Feel That Way
   Blazing Arrow (MCA, 2002)
8. Buck 65 - Untitled
   Music for the Advancement of Hip Hop (Anticon, 1999)
9. Eric B. & Rakim - Move the Crowd
   Paid in Full (4th & Broadway/Island, 1987)

Stream playlist