Wayback - I just woke up in 1991...

In my randomly presented reviews of the years in hip hop, my mind somehow drew me back to 1991... Ages 11 and 12, half the year in 6th grade, the second in 7th -- at a new school, mind you, since we left my pops this year as well...
True to how I carried this with 1998, 1996, 1997 and 1999, I decided I wanted to talk about it... No further setup, let's get into this thing.

January was a light month, with Gangstarr's "Step Into the Arena," which I am not mad at and MC Breed's "MC Breed & DFC," which I know NOTHING about... Also released was David Blake's (professionally known as "DJ Quik) "Quik is the Name," which I listened to to tune my reinstalled subwoofer before work Wednesday this week.

February gave us Another Bad Creation's "Coolin' at the Playground, ya Know," which I liked at the time, and can ONLY explain it off to the fact that I was ELEVEN FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!

March gave us only Vanilla Ice's "Extremely Live," which served to inform him of a listening public with whom his honeymoon was already over. Too bad it would be millions of jokes, damn near 17 years and several more attempts at continued relevance before Robert Van Winkle would get it, assuming he actually HAS to this point. Ed OG & Da Bulldogs presented "Life of a Kid in the Ghetto" this month as well.

April
...
... nope, nothing at all

May we were back in business with De La Soul's "De La Soul is Dead," as well as Ice-T and "O.G. Original Gangster" and NWA with "efil4zaggiN," a classic album that I listened to until the cassette broke, cut some yards and walked to Carolina Circle Mall and bought another of.

June Kool Moe Dee tried to still matter with "Funke Funke Wisdom" and failed, but 3rd Bass did not fail, as they dropped "Derelicts of Dialect," which was followed by Pete Rock & CL Smooth with "All Souled Out," not a wholly terrible month to say the very least...

July is a month I LIKE to have shit come out around my birthday, and I hope it is good shit, kinda sweetens the pot...
... y'all ready for this?
Digital Underground, "This is an EP Release" - which introduced us to Tupac in the southeast, Geto Boys' "We Can't Be Stopped," and Poor Righteous Teachers "Pure Poverty" all dropped on my birthday, and Leaders of the New School and Slick Rick followed wth "A Future Without a Past" and "The Ruler's Back" the next day. happy birthday to me! DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince gave us "Homebase" later in the month, the same day Main Source gave us "Breakin' Atoms" which introduced us to Kelis' son's father.

August gave us Young MC's confirmation as a one-hit wonder, "Brainstorm," and Cypress Hill's debut, "Cypress Hill."

September gave us Naughty By Nature's "Naughty By Nature" as well as Kid N Play's "Face The Nation" and A Tribe Called Quest's "The Low End Theory," another of my top 5 of all time. Nice & Smooth snuck some of their nonsensical metaphors into the party with "Ain't a damn Thing Changed"

October came with "Apocalypse 91 - The Enemy Strikes Back" from Public Enemy - a classic, then "Sports Weekend: Nasty as They Wanna Be Pt. 2" from 2 Live Crew, then Vanilla Ice released "Cool as Ice" and I think the industry had to file an order of protection against him, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien released "I Wish My Brother George Was Here," Big Daddy Kane released "Prince of Darkness" the same day as Ice Cube's "Death Certificate." Black Sheep also gave us "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing,"Brad Jordan dropped "Mr Scarface is Back" and Organized Konfusion gave us their self-titled... This was not a bad month on the whole.

November Saw "2Pacalypse Now" from 2Pac and Tone Loc's "Cool Hand Loc," joining Young MC on the other side of their one hit wonder confirmations.

December apparently didn't really happen.


As I make these lists, I realize (or remember) how much longer SINGLES lasted in 91, serving us in the fact that we didn't have to have a barrage of new shit, the old shit stayed hot for MONTHS, rather than weeks, and shared the spotlight with the next new shit...
36 releases, I own/have owned 24 of them... I can honestly understand if YOU own 2 of the ones I do not, so I will concede them and give this year a 72.2%... Look at the list, though, 12 certifiable classics, and 2 arguable ones on top of that. THAT kind of output doesn't happen these days. I could expound on how much I long for these days in this genre that I so love, but the horse I have been beating has BEEN dead. Now we're to honor the legacy of it, as opposed to continuing to clobber it.
Also, no one needs to remind me that I am probably missing some of the releases on the years I am chronicling, I am working on my ability to research and find what I choose to discuss. I am also a drinker who works with sometimes diminished memory, lol. If I miss an album you happen to love and I don't give a rat's ass about enough to recall, please don't email me telling me what a piece of shit I am, I'm only human...

Comments

Kousen Tora said…
Wow!!! A good majority of those I do remember. I never bought ABC's album, but my baby cousin was absolutely NUTSO over them. Plus it didn't help matters that they were from the same city. So that was a plus.

But all in all, I am completely loving these wayback machines for hip hop.
autri said…
damn man

i was 5

when you were in 7th grade.

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