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.
I can't write about Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. without first discussing how much I love the Judgment Night soundtrack. A lot. That's how much I love the Judgment Night soundtrack. Once of the highlights being the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. collaboration with Faith No More, "Another Body Murdered." It's such a tough sounding song with dark, driving music and really hard rapping courtesy of Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. Such a great song and back they I was desperate to find more Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. but I never did.
Many, many years later I found out that they had a record that came out in 1994 called Doomsday and this record, New Funky Nation, that was released in 1990. Right in the middle of that was a 1992 album called Good Times, Bad Times that was never released. I think that's probably the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. record that would be most up my alley, even though I've never heard it. It's closest in proximity to the Judgment Night soundtrack, Doomsday is way too overrun with G Funk nonsense and New Funky Nation is just a bit too late 80s to be what I'm looking for.
That's not to say it's a bad record. It's not, it's actually pretty good, but it suffers from sounded a little bit dated the same way that a lot of late 80s hip hop can often sound. It's the sort of thing that I need to be in the right mood to listen to, though when I am in that meed New Funky Nation fits the bill nicely. What sets it apart from a lot of hip hop of the time is that Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. played instruments on the bulk of this album, laying down funk influenced bass lines, pounding the kick drum and hitting some nicely sung hooks.
The lyrics and delivery is not quite as tough as "Another Body Murdered," but it's pretty close. The Boo-Yaa boys are not messing around and it's the best part of the album. I feel like if it had slightly more advanced sound and had come out in say, 1992 like their second album was supposed to, I think they could have dropped a classic. New Funky Nation is very good, but I can't help but wonder what Good Times, Bad Times sounded like. Best I can tell it's never been leaked online anywhere, though if I'm wrong and it has, someone please point me in that direction.
Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. – New Funky Nation:
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