Jeru The Damaja- Wrath of the Math 2xLP

FFRR/Payday (Reissue, Originally released in 1996)

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 can't figure out exactly when this repress of Wrath of the Math came out, but I'm very glad it exists and is easily obtainable at the moment.  There have been a lot of records, particularly old hip hop releases that have been reissued in the past few years, but then went out of print and are commanding high costs on the secondary market. Not that I should be buying a ton of records right now anyway since my hot water heater shit the bed and have put out about five grand in plumbing bills over the last couple of weeks.  But, I do wish it was easier to get a few records that would have been easy even a year or two ago.

I never heard this album until very recently.  I had Jeru's first CD in high school, but by the time 1996 came around, I was pretty convinced there was nothing useful happening in hip hop anymore.  I still sort of stand by that statement, but I have discovered a few outliers that buck that trend.  Wrath of the Math is every bit as good as The Sun Rises in the East.  DJ Premier holds down the production again and it's a total throwback to a few years earlier.  This probably sounded really bizarre in 1996 when the hip hop world had moved on to copycat G funk nonsense, but it sure has aged better than that stuff.

I wish I had heard this record when it came out.  I think it would have given me pause on my dismissal of hip hop as being a thing I only liked in the past tense.  I'm not sure that I would have found many more records as good as this one, but at least I would have been able to listen to it all this time rather than giving it a first chance a couple months ago.

Jeru The Damage - Wrath of the Math (YouTube Music full album playlist):
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nOh5RUXlMgV8Nv6NFtBhTAZ3vraHfO-oU

Jeru The Damaja - The Sun Rises In The East 2xLP

FFRR / Payday (2009, 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.

The Sun Rises In The East is one of those 1994 hip hop albums that came out as I was starting to lose interest in hip hop as a whole.  The lure of Beck and other new-to-me rock and rollers had the lion's share of my attention by the time that year had come to a close.  But albums like Fear Itself by Casual and Jeru The Damaja's debut definitely caught my ear.

I know that "Come Clean" was released as the first single, but I don't remember hearing that at the time.  "D. Original" was the first song that I heard and it totally captivated me with its beat based on a loop of what sounded like a piano falling over.  The entire album is full of beats like that.  Dark. Perhaps deceptively simple, but DJ Premier lays down an incredible foundation for Jeru to unleash his gritty, unapologetic flow.

I didn't really give this album as much attention as it probably warranted in 1994.  As mentioned before, that was a big transitional year for my taste in music.  As far as hip hop went, I was neck deep in Hieroglyphics albums.  Not to mention Gang Starr's Hard To Earn also came out that year so I had a pretty damn strong album from the DJ Premier side of things as well.  As the years have gone by, I've revisited my Jeru CD quite a bit and have much more of an appreciation for how strong it is.  Adding the vinyl to the collection was a no brainer.

Jeru The Damaja - The Sun Rises In The East (Full Album Playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxJKxP6GD8Y&list=OLAK5uy_nKOSvvcKcrW1r5axIiKu5Yj9EGINiQ-3o