90s Tapes (2022, 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 thirty 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.
This is another one of those albums that I've had in my to-write-about pile for a few years now. Why have I not written about it yet? I couldn't really tell you. I've listened to it and I like it, but it's one of those albums that I have a hard time articulating my thoughts about. It's not exactly in the pocket of my favorite sounds of hip hop, yet I still find it very engaging.
The first, first version of this album was an eight song version that came out on Fondle 'Em records back in 1996. Over the years, it's be reissued several times, with more tracks being added over the years until we get to this 23 track behemoth on 90s Tapes. The Juggaknots are heralded as being one of those early indie rap acts that separated themselves from the direction that hip hop was moving in the mid 90s. While I find that admirable, I wish that had happened a few years prior so that the production sound that I like had an offshoot I could have followed.
While I do like the beats on this record, they are a lot slower than what I typically enjoy. There's interesting sounds here and the deliberate, borderline sludgy vibe of songs like "Jivetalk" really work with the lyrical delivery, but I tend to still find myself wishing things were just a little faster. That aforementioned lyrical delivery is the highlight of this entire album.
The MCs involved spin convoluted tales with no shortage of adjectives and rhyme structures. There's an early Kool Keith vibe as far as how the lyrics are constructed, before he went off into outer space. Though the delivery isn't that nasal, choppy flow that Keith was known for. This is a slower, smoother and more deliberate flow, but sacrificing none of the complexity and wittiness. Again, it's an album that sits a little outside of my usual wheelhouse, but the quality is so staggeringly high that it overcomes the style choices that would typically make me look elsewhere for my hip hop.
Juggaknots - Re:Release:
https://juggaknots.bandcamp.com/album/re-release
https://juggaknots.bandcamp.com/album/re-release
