Listened to: MP3It’s hard to fully appreciate Criminal Minded in this day and age, where gangsta rap runs rampant, but this album came out before the seminal Straight Outta Compton, making it the true prototype for gangsta rap. The first track, “Poetry”, samples James Brown, and is a nice time-capsule of late 80’s hip-hop. On track two, the not-terribly-good “South Bronx”, it strikes me as weird to hear them talk to DJ Scott La Rock, who shortly after this record was shot in the neck during an altercation.
Yet, I know we’re only two tracks in, but where’s the uniqueness? What makes this album so special? Why is it one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time? So what if this maybe was the prototype for Straight Outta Compton, which later became the prototype for all gangsta rap. “9mm Goes Bang” gets a little more interesting, and shows off a reggae dancehall feel that wikipedia promised me, but it’s still not terribly good. I’ve gotta be honest, the beats, the samples, they’re all very…basic. And if an albums beats are gonna be simple, then god help you, you better have the lyrical flair of N.W.A.
I can’t even go track by track and review this album, there’s nothing to review. Basic, boring beats with average lyrics. The only exception being “The Bridge Is Over”, but can one track really carry a whole album, especially since they basically jack the melody to “It‘s Still rock And Roll To Me“? Can you really be “gangsta” while singing Bill Joel? I think not.
I understand it led up to Straight Outta Compton, but we’re compiling a list of the 500 Greatest Albums, here. Not a hip-hop timeline. The albums that make this list have to be a perfect blend of historical significance (either influence on other musicians or the world as a whole), originality, and quality. This album is one for three. Now, if this list had gotten everything else right, hadn’t neglected other great albums, then maybe I’d let this one slide, but in the world of hip-hop, how can you fill a slot on this list with such paltry beats, and ignore the master?
Would Replace With: Endtroducing… by DJ Shadow
The first album ever compiled solely form samples, DJ Shadow created a whole new genre of music, compiling an album of some of the sickest tracks ever put together. But what makes this so special is that you never realize these are cut-and-paste songs. Melody Maker’s review says it all: "...it flips hip hop inside out all over again like a reversible glove, and again, and again, and each time it's sudden and new. I am, I confess, totally confounded by it. I hear a lot of good records, but very few impossible ones....You need this record. You are incomplete without it." Every track is new and mind-blowing. Boogie Down Productions may have made an influential album, but DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing is sure to be remembered more highly, or at least it should be. Hell, I’m a man who’s big on lyrics, I’m in fact a lyricist myself, so for me to favor an instrumental album over one with words ought to show you how fantastic an experience Endtroduing… is. I heard it for the first time last year, in fact, because Nick Young had it on vinyl, and I was intrigued. Since then, I’ve listened to it at least once a month. For those of you whom I can’t convince of this albums superiority, I encourage you to head over to its wikipedia page, and look over the critical reception section. The style of rapping on Criminal Minded is clearly outdated. Put these guys next to Jay-Z or Eminem and watch them fall like a led balloon. But DJ Shadow’s is as fresh today as it was 14 years ago. Criminal Minded may be an important album to devout hip-hop fans, but Endtroducing… is a classic across the board, and I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who’ll tell you it doesn’t deserve a place on this list more than Criminal Minded.
-Mike
Well, that’s it for my review. If you agree, good for you. If not, well, fuck off. I’m just kidding. Just head on down the page to a review from our resident hip-hop expert, Josh Paige. And be sure to come back tomorrow for #177: One Nation Under A Groove by Funkadelic.
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Everybody please welcome back Josh Paige.
“Well now you're forced to listen to the teacher and the lesson
Class is in session so you can stop guessin”
With a name like “Boogie Down Productions” how are you not gonna give these guys a shot? In 1987, if you didn’t, they’d probably give you a shot; a 9mm that goes “bang” to be exact.
Now, what’s left of BDP, formerly known as the lead rapper’s title, “KRS-One,” is the future imprinted with the famous history of the hip-hop group’s debut album, “Criminal Minded.” There’s not much to say about these guys, aside from the fact that they’re pretty much the essential group which helped define hip-hop. Though they rap about elementary and have a similar sound to “DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince” they’re not exactly saying parents just don’t understand. Every track on this album has some sort of meaning behind it, whether it’s expressing their affection for the South Bronx, sharing stories about their buddy Scott LaRock, AKA “the Super Hoe” who has countless stories about using his d*ck to overpower women, or as simple as killing a crack dealer who screws you over.
In 1987 they officially warmly welcome their audience with open arms presenting this, at the time, new form of music in the form of “Poetry.” “In fact call it a lecture; a visual picture.” Even early on, rappers like BDP knew what it meant to have a song with meaning. From the very first track, they give off a very funky disco beat-like sound. It sounds like something from the disco era but if it was remixed to street. This opening track basically gives a preview of what to expect on the following tracks and albums to come. No one could have put their style better than the way they did. It’s “Sort of a poetic and rhythm like mixture.” What they’re really saying is, this isn’t just some crap about you being unable to touch them. Though they do send out a general message that they are different and in some sense, bigger and better than other artists, they’re not trying to hate. “Listen I'm not dissin but there's somethin that you're missin.” They’re trying to say that there’s more to life than what you know. They even, unintentionally of course, foreshadow what rap would become two decades later with the line, “Maybe you should touch reality stop wishin for beats with plenty bass and lyrics said in haste.” Thanks for crushing the Boogie dreams, Gorilla Zoe…
They keep two very common themes throughout the album: being original and being from the South Bronx . With tracks such as “Bridge Is Over,” they strictly call out emerging rappers from Queens who think that they started hip-hop… false. Criminal Minded proves that real meaningful hip-hop can really originate anywhere but the biggest rappers dead or alive; the ones who mattered and still matter today, always and will always represent where they were from; what hood they grew up in. For N.W.A it was the East Coast and for the B.D.P. the South Bronx was their home. Their hometown was a big deal for them because the day and age was coming where artists like Biggie and 2Pac would soon come out and say it was time to make some changes. In the song “ South Bronx ,” they express the truth of the hip-hop world with just a few lines. “It was seventy-six, to 1980, the dreads in Brooklyn was crazy, you couldn't bring out your set with no hip-hop, because the pistols would go.” It was they who decided it was time for a change. Artists like them were the ones who had the balls to step forward and say “this is who we are. This is what we’re about.”
The fifth track on the album, “Elementary” is a more broken down version of their introduction, first seen in “Poetry” and the predecessor track “Word From Our Sponsor.” They’re introducing this album as their first. This is their origin. This is where it all begins. And basically, to KRS-One and all the boys of BDP, this style; this introduction to a new light shed on hip-hop really was old school. “All it really is to me and Scott La Rock...is elementary.”
Like any rapper, these guys don’t always show such a serious side, though they do give off the “don’t f*ck with us” vibe. With tracks such as “9mm Goes Bang,” which more or less, is saying that they will put a 9mm to your face and end your life if sh*t goes down, they’re basically saying… that they will put a 9mm to your face and end your life if sh*t goes down. Like anyone who gets involved with crack dealers, they always come strapped and prepared. But like they say, in the final track “Criminal Minded,” “We're not promoting violence, we're just havin some fun.” In “Remix For P Is Free,” better known as just “The P Is Free” their chorus gets right to the point: “The girlies are free cause the crack costs money.” Plain and simple; Right to the point. They can’t be spenfin money on hoes when they need their daily crack fix. Good old fashioned South Bronx boys. But while they’re not rapping about guns and crack, they also share good times with fellow Scott LaRock, whom was appointed the position “Super Hoe,” just for this album. “The Super Hoe is loose in your section, and he's armed with a powerful erection, so grab your girl and run for protection, your momma too, cause I like to mention… (Chorus repeated 2x) Scott LaRock had ‘em all, he is the Super Hoe.” The moral of the story is, basically, hide your women because the Super Hoe will find them and he will make sweet, sweet love to them.
But In all seriousness, Criminal Minded goes to prove that you can have it all. Like stated in the song “Dope Beat,” you can have the women, the money and the crack. But it’s all about starting somewhere first and nothing says it better than this album. They’re really just trying to say that if you want it all you gotta be the best and if you’re not, you gotta work hard at it until you’re nothing less. Yes, Dope Beat does sample AC/DC’s “Back In Black” as the background music, but what they’re saying makes up for the fact that the beat wasn’t original. “If you think that you can burn me with your amateur ways, keep in mind that I been out there from back in the days.” KRS-One and BDP prove that not only can they boogie down but that they can do it with a style that puts the people laughing at them to shame. They’re proud to be who they are and they don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about them. There’s a chunk in Dope Beat which truly sums up KRS-One and what BDP really leaves you with.
“My name is KRS-One, I'm still kinda youngI don't wear Adidas cause my name ain't RunGot Nike's on my feet, and to be completeI can rock an American or reggae beatGot rhymes for 70's, 80's, and 90'sNot bein conceited but it won't pay to try meout to any feud, any battle, any reasonMake the rhymes up every season”
The album is truly wrapped up with its final track which inspires the title, “Criminal Minded,” in which almost every line of the song hits you with the meaning of what these guys are really saying here. The song opens with KRS-One doing a mock “Let It Be” line (Yes, Let It Be, by The Beatles) in very not-yet-appeared “Afroman” style. “We'll take the wackest song and make it better, remember to let us into your skin, cause then you'll begin to master rhymin.”
Surprisingly enough, the line does work because in a sense, that’s exactly what these guys have been trying to say from the beginning. There are so many great lines in this song and like he has been doing throughout the whole album, KRS-One gives it his all:
“Ain't here for no frontin just to say a little somethinYa suckaz don't like me cause you're all about nothinHowever, I'm really fascinating to the letterMy all-around performance gets better and betterMy English grammar comes down like a hammerYou need a style, I need to pull your file”
He’s in your face, calling people out, telling it like it is. This truly is KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions going out in style and it couldn’t have been done any better. Very inappropriately in the most appropriate way they use school, mostly elementary, as a metaphor for them; for their beginning. They wrap up the album, as if we’re the students being taught from professor KRS-One (a little frightening to imagine though) going over all their themes presented: representing their style, their hood, the new flow and lyrics, never before heard. The song ends perfectly with the last line from KRS-One: “You see my voice is now faded, I'll see you folks around the way.” This was the beginning. It all started in 1987 and though most would say they’re no N.W.A, they’re no Wu-Tang Clan and they’re no Public Enemy, they truly did inspire the first generation of a new wave of hip-hop that would change the world forever.
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