Hieroglyphics - Hiero Oldies Volume One LP

Hiero Imperium (2021, 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 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.

My three favorite hip hop albums of all time came from the Hieroglyphics crew.  Souls of Mischief, Casual and Del The Funky Homosapien are amongst my favorite artists of all time.  Back in 1996, the original version of this compilation came out as a cassette only release.  I didn't pick one of those up for whatever reason.  I'm not even positive I knew it existed, to be honest.  Then in 2001, this came out on CD.  It didn't have as many tracks as the tape did, but it was much more widely available and it's when I got my copy.

Now, it's finally out on vinyl and even though it's missing the Souls of Mischief live on the radio appearance that is on the CD, this record is still pretty packed full of hits.  From what I gather most of these are tracks that predate the 1993 - 1994 onslaught of classic releases by the Hiero folks.  From a fidelity standpoint, these do have something of a rough and ready feel to them.  They're not super polished and there's some fuzz here and there, but the songs themselves are on point.

This is classic Hieroglyphics production and none of these songs would feel out of place on any of their golden era releases.  Everyone in the crew is represented and it's really cool to hear some of the Pep Love and Jay Biz songs as that's an album that was pumped as being the next one to hit after Extra Prolific, but it never happened (until an odds and ends CD that finally was released in the early 2000s.

I'm super psyched to have this on vinyl and I sure hope there are plans for Volume Two to eventually be released.  And it would be cool for them to put out that Pep Love & Jay Biz CD on vinyl as well.

Hieroglyphics - Hiero Oldies Volume One:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ml2Z5W1H-BKOSJ5SIc0CZP9gPLbttn08c

Del The Funky Homosapien - Both Sides of the Brain 2xLP

Hiero Imperium (1999)

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.

I've spoken at length about how much Del The Funky Homosapien means to me, particularly his 2nd album, No Need for Alarm.  Even though by late 1994 I wasn't listening to much hip hop and had mostly transitioned to indie rock and punk, I still tried to keep tabs on Del and the rest of the Hiero crew. I picked up Del's tape, Future Development in 1997 but that wasn't a real high profile release.  The next time I saw Del in a record store was when this album came out.

I picked up the CD of Both Sides of the Brain the very moment it came out.  In 1999 I was still in college and had just started my internship at the company that ended up being my first job once I graduated.  I was in New Yersey and the company was in NYC.  So, I took the bus in from Willowbrook mall to the Port Authority.  I have extremely vivid memories of sitting in Port Authority with this album in my Discman trying to absorb everything that was happening.  I look back very fondly to a lot of my times in the 90s.  Sitting on the floor of the Port Authority waiting for the bus isn't particularly high on that list of memories.

I finally picked up the vinyl version of this recently on Discogs.  It hasn't been repressed since its initial 1999 pressing, so it tends to go for a decent amount these days. Luckily I found a deal.  The cover is a little rough around the edges, but for the most part it isn't anything I'm not able to deal with.

Both Sides of the Brain never totally connected with me the way other Del records did.  I'm not sure if it was just too long or the fact that I didn't really like the album opener "Time Ids Too Expensive" all that much.  Don't get me wrong, I do like it and there are some really killer tracks on here like 'Phony Phranchise,"Jaw Gymnastics" and "Fake as Fuck."  But when it really comes down to it, I'd rather listen to some of his other records that followed like Golden Era. I also think in part, this album got overshadowed by Deltron 3030, which came out just a little bit later.  That one blew my mind.

Del The Funky Homosapien - Both Sides of the Brain:
https://delthefunkyhomosapien.bandcamp.com/album/both-sides-of-the-brain

Hieroglyphics - 3rd Eye Vision 3xLP

 
Hiero Imperium/Fat Beats (2019, 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 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.

If you do not already know about my undying love for the Hieroglyphics crew, then you obviously have not been reading anything I have been writing of Wednesdays for the past year plus.  They are my favorite collection of hip hop artists and in 1998, they came together to release their first collective LP, 3rd Eye Vision.

While I cannot say that I like it quite as much as I liked the group's individual releases that came out in the earlier part of the 90s, there are still a slew of triumphant moments over the course of this record.  If anything, it's probably a little too long and could have benefitted from being trimmed down a bit.  I picked this album up on CD right when it came out and was one of the few hip hop releases I purchased at the time.  Honestly I was disappointed in it at first, but over the years it's grown on me greatly.

I think one of the main reasons this record didn't connect with me right away is because I do not like the opening song "You Never Know."  For a Hiero song, I think it has a really weak beat and I'll never understand why it was made the album's opening salvo.  It really not until the album's fourth song "The Who" where things really start to pick up.  This one is a genuine classic with a bouncing beat and excellent lyrical interplay between the various member.

When we get to Del solo cut, "At The Helm," I'm pretty much losing my mind over things at this point.  This song is one of my absolute favorite Del songs from throughout his entire career.  The Domino produced beat is thick with a bass driven funk and Del take full advantage of this canvas displaying his unique lyrical acumen.

The album does cool down a bit from here and while it is a strong sowing overall, particularly on the lyric/vocal side of the coin, the beats are a little more mellow than I am used to from Hieroglyphics.  It's absolutely an album that needs to be in my collection.  I'm just not sure that Hiero really needed to record a triple LPs worth of material back in the day.

Hieroglyphics - "At The Helm":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYyeGX2rgpI&ab_channel=Hieroglyphics-Topic

Hieroglyphics - "The Who":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeHjVeyMaR0&ab_channel=softieboy

Del The Funky Homosapien - Future Development 2xLP

Hiero Imperium (2002, 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 25+ 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 have mentioned in the past, Del The Funky Homosapien is my all time favorite hip hop artist.  His second album, No Need For Alarm, was a seminal record for me and is definitely the sort of album I'd post a picture of on Facebook if someone asked me to play one of those games where I have to list the albums most influential to me.  After that album, Del was dropped from Elektra and retreated to the underground.  He reappeared in 1998 and put out Future Development on cassette as one of the first releases of the newly launched Hiero Imperium record label.

I mail ordered that album when I was in college along with the second Casual album, Meanwhile.  I never thought that Future Development quite lived up to No Need For Alarm as a whole, but there are some truly incredible tracks on this record and honestly, I like it more now than I did when that tape was initially playing in my car stereo.  I heard an interview with longtime Hieroglyphics producer Domino who said that the final Future Development record was not exactly how it was originally envisioned.  Specifically he had mentioned that the Del track "At The Helm," one of the highest highs of the first Hieroglyphics group album, was one of the songs originally planned for this third full length.

But again, there are hits on here.  Opening track "Lyric Licking" is incredible, with its pumping, low bass line and Del's unique lyrical delivery.  If the rest of the record had production like this, Del would have had another stone cold classic on his hands.  Where I think the album loses me a little is that the beats on the bulk of the album are a little softer than what I had been anticipating.  The hard hitting drums and unique samples were shelved in favor of a sound that can really only be described as mellower.  Lyrically, Del is swinging for the fences every time, and connecting way more than he misses, but it's the beats that leave me wanting more.

However, as I mentioned earlier, the more I've listened to this record over the years, the more I've grown to appreciate the things that make it different.  That, plus the fact that it could be considered the album that launched the modern independent rap scene, makes it a pretty important release in the history of hip hop.

Del The Funky Homosapien - Future Development:
https://delthefunkyhomosapien.bandcamp.com/album/future-development