Boogie Down Productions - Live Hardcore Worldwide LP

Jive (1991)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

Boogie Down Productions has always been one of my very favorite hip hop groups, ever since I was a teenager.  I'm pretty sure the first time I heard them was on the Yo! MTV Raps: The CD compilation album.  It had a version of "My Philosophy" on it that is still my favorite version of the song (and one that I'm not sure was released on vinyl, at least not by cross checking run times on Discogs).  From their I started buying BDP albums and Live Hardcore Worldwide was the first 'new' release of theirs once I had started listening to them.

I've gone on record many times saying live albums are not usually my thing, but when I was fourteen years old, this was the only place I could find any way to listen to songs from the first Boogie Down Productions album, Criminal Minded.  It took another year or so before I was able to find a sketchy looking copy of that CD in a Coconuts one day that I had to convince my dad to buy me as I had no cash on hand.  Despite my feelings for live albums in general, I do like listening to this one still.  I'm sure it's fueled by nostalgia, but I also have more context on the shows themselves now.  

Several songs were recorded at S.O.B's in New York,  When I was a kid, I was really just imagining them playing arenas or gigantic venues because I really just had no idea.  I eventually went to S.O.B.s in the early 2000s to see Del The Funky v play and was pretty surprised how small that place was.  Imagining peak KRS-One just destroying a place that only holds six or seven hundred people is wild to imagine.  I was lucky enough to see him play last year in a small venue and he was amazing.  I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be there live in 90 or 92.

This is also the last of the Boogie Down Production CDs that I needed to get on vinyl.  And even though there are a few songs on the CD that didn't make it to the version on wax, I'm still really happy to have finally been able to find this at a good price.  Now the question is do I want to start hunting down their 12" singles.  I'm not sure I want to commit to that just yet, but I do need to do more research on that extended remix of "My Philosophy."

Boogie Down Productions - Live Hardcore Worldwide:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kwQhGQIdTAdPhjxad_3RyDAFzNm-xe0KQ