Mixed somewhere at the end of the last century, that's a scary thought, anyway rather than ramble on about the merits of the
'golden age of hip hop' we think it's best you listen to the mix and decide whether it was so much better 20 years ago. (Please note that we appreciate that many of the below tracks are not 'golden era' hip hop and some are from the 1990s - shock horror!)
There's no doubt that there's still a decent amount of hip hop coming out these days, but whether much of it is original in merit or whether it's just a collection rebuilds from peeps brought up on PE, BDP and De La Soul trying to emulate sounds from a previous era is the question - I'd hazzard a guess that it's both. This of course is no bad thing as long as the scene moves forward and as long as people understand that the stars of today are less likely to do this than the top dogs from the late 80s we'll be OK. Like the early days of hip hop on wax it was all about scratching the surface, digging deeper and not accepting second rate product.
1 - Marden Hill - Come On (Mo Wax)
2 - Naughty By Nature - Hip Hop Hooray (Big Life)
3 - Eric B and Rakim - Paid in Full (Coldcut rmx) (Cooltempo)
4 - BDP - Sound of the Police (Jive)
5 - Q Tip - Breathe and Stop (Arista)
6 - Eric B and Rakim - I know You Got Soul (Cooltempo)
7 - LL Cool J - Mama's Gonna Knock You Out (Def Jam)
8 - Public Enemy - Rebel Without a Pause (Def Jam)
9 - Sugar Bear - Don't Scandalise Mine (Coslit)
10 - Think Tank - Hack One (Tommy Boy)
11- Mantronix - King of the Beats (White)
12 - Paradox - Jailbreak (Ronin)
13 - X-Clan - Funkin Lesson (4th and Broadway)
14 - Run DMC - Sucker MCs (Profile)
15 - Big Daddy Kane - Set It Off! (Cold Chillin')
16 - Ace and Action - Letter to the Better (Cold Chillin')
17 - De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Called Saturdays(Tommy Boy)
18 - Steinski - Lesson 2 (RPM)
The 3rd and final part in the Environments series, Another journey through beatless textures for you to nod off to.
