Kaotic Style - Infinity LP - Yellow Vinyl (/50)

Dope Folks (2021)

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.

As I continue to try to clear out records that have been sitting around for too long without being written about, we come to Infinity by Kaotic Style.  Back in 2022 I had written about the first of the Kaotic Style releases that Dope Folks had put out.  I had this record when I wrote about that one.  I've had it long enough to have gotten one of the limited to 50 copies versions on yellow vinyl.  I just never wrote about it.  Again, trying to clean that up as best as I can.

Kaotic Style is really strong early 90s, East Coast hip hop.  About half of these songs were pulled from singles released between 1991 and 1992.  The remaining half are unreleased songs that the group recorded between 1994 and 1996.  If you look at the time frame and the geography, it's a pretty safe bet that this is going to be the exact sort of hip hop that I want to listen to.  The songs from the early 90s singles are really strong for that era.  I would have absolutely been into these guys if I had access to their music in 1992.  The flows are really strong, with lyrical structures that go beyond simple rhyme schemes into more complex microphone magic.  Everything is upbeat and the words per minute keep up with and often exceed the beats per minute.

The production can more than hold up to the lyrics as it's that boom bap style that I love so much.  Even the songs that were recorded past my usual 1994 cut off don't fall into the slow, often boring production that I think tends to dominate 1995 and 1996.  Now, is the singing break of "Get Down" my favorite thing on the album?  No, but even that isn't very offensive and the lyrics more than make up for it.

I'm not really sure why these guys didn't get a chance to put out a full album back in the 90s.  They just never broke out of the underground.  While it's a bummer that because of that I never got to hear Kaotic Style when they were active, those underground styles are why these tracks still sound so fresh and exciting in 2026.

Kaotic Style - Infinity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58028yuMRgE