High Fidelity Listening Session featuring four genre-defining records that turn 30 this year. For "Jazz '93" we'll be spinning classics by Tribe, Wu-Tang, De La and Digable.
Hailing from Queens, Staten Island, Long Island and Brooklyn respectively, these albums are emblematic of the sound that was coming out of New York at the tail end of hip hop's golden era, classic boom-bap with heavy use of samples from classic jazz, r&b and rare soul records.
Midnight Marauders, Tribe's third LP, didn't necessarily break any new ground for the group, but coming on the heels of The Low End Theory, we're glad they didn't change the formula. Q-Tip and Phife are at the peak of their powers, with witty, socially conscious, razor-sharp bars and a nearly telepathic back-and-forth flow. The production has a less polished sound than Low End, with Q-Tip choosing to leave the samples raw and rugged.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) goes down as one of the best debut albums in hip hop history. RZA, who produced, mixed and arranged the album, brought an entirely new palette of sounds and techniques to this production, utilizing dusty soul samples and a whole range of esoteric samples from obscure martial arts movie to craft his beats. The results are mesmerizing and lay the perfect foundation for the free-associative lyrical flows of the entire clan.
Buhloone Mindstate is tighter than its predecessors. On it, De La stays true to their identity as the free-flowing lovable hippie weirdos of hip hop, just with more focused productions (and a few less skits). They brought in jazz/funk heavyweights like Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley to round out their maturing sound and the lyrics on "Buhloone" foreshadowed the direction they would take on their subsequent masterpiece "Stakes Is High."
"Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" was a ubiquitous peak-MTV earworm, with it's infectious slowed down Dennis Irwin bass sample, taken from a late-70s Jazz Messengers album. But this catchy (Grammy winning) crossover hit doesn't quite showcase the high-brow, lit-referencing lyrics and excellent productions by Ishmael Butler that makes Reachin' such a great album.
It's no surprise that all four of these records frequently show up on various lists of "The Best Hip Hop Albums of All Time". Can't wait to hear them bumping on the hi-fi.