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.
90s Tapes deals in two major types of reissues. When there's a more well known album being released, that's termed a "classic" and when they delve deeper into the more obscure or previously unreleased recording, they tend to call that release an "indie." What I have put together myself is that the "classic" tend to have a much better chance of being from that 90-94 sweet spot (my sweet spot is 87-94, but 90s Tapes doesn't do reissues for 80s records) that I like for hip hop, where the "indie" releases often are from the second half of the 90s.
This has led me to discover many post '94 "indie" albums that I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise and has, to an extent, made me soften my stance that hip hop is no good after 1994. But, the flip side of that is 90s Tapes have definitely put out some albums from that time period that aren't my cup of tea. Even the indie scene of that era seems to be obsessed with slow, atmospheric beats that don't have the driving rhythm of the earlier 90s. But every so often, the stars align (at least for me). Southpaw's Left Hand Rule is the more rare "indie" release that originally came out in 1993.
What that means for me is that the beats on this album are much more in line with the sort of production I gravitate towards. There's still some slower cuts on here, but the majority have those hard hitting drums that I like so much. It's not upper tier 1993 production, but it's good and has a varied sound from song to song that keeps the album interesting.
On the lyrics side we have two MCs, Pro K and Champion. Both are pretty gifted MCs and have flows that are on the more complex side of what was common in that era. Again, we're not talking elite flows for 1993, but they're not doing nursery rhyme raps. They know how to work within a beat and hit that pocket right where they need to. It's a fun record and one that I like having around when I need a change of pace from my "classics" that I've listened to 40,000 times each.
Southpaw - Left Hand Rule:
https://90stapes.bandcamp.com/album/left-hand-rule
https://90stapes.bandcamp.com/album/left-hand-rule
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