Figure Uv Speech - U Already Know CD

Onyx / Biscayne Europa (1993)

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 have to be honest, I have don't totally remember how Figure Uv Speech got on my radar.  I can't really find anything on ye olde internet about them as there isn't much coverage of this album floating around out there.  I can best narrow it down to two main possibilities.  The first is that I may have seen an ad for them in an old issue of The Source as I have been re-reading them.  The second, and I think more likely option, is that this album was listed in the recommendations section of a Discogs entry I was in.  I kind of think that's what happened, but regardless how, I'm certainly glad it happened.

U Already Know is packed full of the perfect golden era beats that you demand from an album that came out in 1993.  Lots of excellent upright bass combined with cracking drum beats giving it that booming bap-ish vibe that I love.  Figure Uv Speech was from Chicago, but I feel like the east coast sound is very prevalent in their production, which again is top notch.  Throw in some excellently cut in samples into the hooks and turntable work by DJ Xtreme (hey, it was 1993, cut him some slack on the name) and you've got an album that sounds just how I like my hip hop to sound.

I can't say that rappers L.T.D. or King James stand out as top tier lyricists, but they both are good enough.  They keep up with the production, hitting a witty punchline every now and then and weaving in some fun pop culture references throughout.  I can't say that the skits do much for me, but there's not too many of them and and soon as the next track hits, I forget all about them and lose myself into the excellent production work.  I am absolutely the sort of hip hop fan that puts an outsized importance on the beats and as far as beats go, this is an album that delivers.

As of right now, U Already Know was only released on CD and cassette back in 1993.  Both are pretty tough to get a hold of unless you're willing to overpay on Discogs.  It took a bit for me to finally find a copy I could afford, but I'm glad I have it.  I would love it if 90s Tapes or another reputable reissue label would step up and get me a vinyl version, but for now a CD will have to do.

Figure Uv Speech - U Already Know:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOYhxYQZdNQ