90s Tapes (2024, Reissue)
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.
If you are looking for a hip hop group that has a name that is difficult to remember how to spell, Mystidious Misfitss might just be the group for you. Their lone album, A Who Dat?, originally came out in 1995. I didn't make much of an impact at the time, and from what I gather, that seems to be because their original label, Epic, didn't even bother to release the album on CD in America. But had I heard this album, it's definitely one that I would have been into.
I know there is only a one year difference between 1994 and 1995, but I can't even begin to explain just how different hip hop production in those two years sounds to me. It's like almost an entirely different genre of music for the most part. Over the years I've learned that there were good beats still being produced after 1994, but I still find them to be on the rare side. But for whatever reason, A Who Dat? is absolutely full of them.
If you told me this came out in 1993, I wouldn't even bat an eyelash. To the point where I'm mostly convinced this was recorded much earlier and the release just got delayed to 1995. I haven't read that anywhere and have no proof other than the aforementioned nugget that this didn't come out on CD in the US, but this just sounds like that perfect, early 90s golden era sound that I love. On top of the strong beats are 3 MCs that do a great job. It's similar to other multi-person groups of that like Yaggfu Front, Pharcyde and maybe Leaders of the New School as long as you understand there's no one like Busta in Mystidious Misfitss. There's a few too many skits, but that's not a problem unique to Mystidious Misfitss.
As usual, 90s Tapes sets the bar as high as high could be with this reissue. It's a thoughtfully put together package with excellent artwork, great sounds and everything you would expect from them. There's a reason I set an alarm multiple times a month to wake up in the middle of the night to buy their releases. I don't deprive myself of sleep for just anything. If you see one of these on Discogs or eBay or whataever and it's a nice price, go grab it. Mystidious Misfitss created a great record that more people should hear.
