Author Topic: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...  (Read 485 times)

Twentytwofifty

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The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« on: June 25, 2005, 02:37:09 PM »
Mobb Deep – The Infamous… (1995) 


    One of the cornerstones of the New York hardcore movement, The Infamous... is Mobb Deep's sophomore effort, a relentlessly bleak song cycle that's been hailed by hardcore rap fans as one of the greatest gangsta albums ever recorded. Given Mobb Deep's youthful age and art-school background, some might think it's highly unlikely that The Infamous... is drawn strictly from real-life experience, yet it's utterly convincing, because it has all the foreboding atmosphere and thematic sweep of an epic crime drama. That's partly because of the cinematic vision behind the duo's detailed narratives, but it's also a tribute to how well the raw, grimy production evokes the world that Mobb Deep is depicting.

    For a start, the lead single "Shook Ones Pt. II" took the hard in hardcore to a whole new level. Forget for the moment that there's no "Part I" on this or any other album (it does exist, but only as a single b-side) - it's not relevant. Concentrate instead on the music to this song. If you don't have a copy of the album or the single, borrow one from somebody right now. Cue up track 15, or if you have a tape rewind from the end of side two to the beginning of the song, and push play. Turn off all the lights and listen. First you hear the hi-hat and the snare, then you hear the eerie wailing, and as the words "to all the killers and the hundred dollar billers" comes in, you get your first taste of the bass. When you hear "check it out now" the final layer of melody echoes 1-2, 1-2 1-2-3-4 from the lowest registers of the piano. Of all the instances of sonic perfection in hip-hop music, this one ranks right up there for me with "Concerto Of The Desperado" by The Roots and "Come Clean" by Jeru The Damaja. Of course, these songs all had to have brilliant lyrics to make them classics, and the darkly brutal execution of rappers Havoc and Prodigy herein is no exception:

Your simple words just don't move me; you're minor, we're major
You're all up in the game and don't deserve to be a player
Don't make me have to call your name out
Your crew is featherweight - my gunshots'll make you levitate
I'm only nineteen but my mind is old
and when the things get for real my warm heart turns cold
Another nigga deceased, another story gets told
It ain't nuttin really; aiyyo Dunn spark the Phillie
so I can get my mind off these yellowback niggaz
Why they still alive I don't know, go figure
Meanwhile back in Queens the realness and foundation
If I die, I couldn't choose a better location
When the slugs penetrate, you feel a burning sensation
Gettin closer to God, in a tight situation now
take these words home and think it through
Or the next rhyme I write might be about you


    Even today, hearing this verse still makes the small hairs on the back of my neck stand straight on end.  But as brilliant as this one song is, there is so much more than that on this album.  Complete albums from beginning to end were as much a rarity then as they are now, but Mobb Deep did not waste a cut. The very first track "The Start Of Your Ending (41st Side)" is both an introduction to where they are from and a musical preperation for the dopeness to come - no lame-ass "Intro" skit or song necessary. Following a short interlude Mobb Deep comes back with a cut whose dark piano riffs echo those of "Shook Ones" and even reference it by name - "Survival Of The Fittest." Anybody already hyped by the sonic quality of the album thus far was little prepared for one of the illest posse songs of all time: "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mine)" featuring fantastic verses from Raekwon and Nas:

Condominium, thug dressed like a gentleman
Tailor made ostrich, Chanel for my women friend
Murderin, numbers on your head while I'm burglarin
Shank is servin em, whassup to all my niggaz swervin in
New York metropolis, the Bridge brings apocalypse
Shoot at the clouds feels like, the holy beast is watchin us
Mad man my sanity is goin like an hourglass
Gun inside my bad hand I sliced tryin to bag grams


    Q-Tip comes thru behind the boards with "Give Up The Goods (Just Step)" - a beat whose popularity has caused a slew of rappers to freestyle over. Yet and still, their fellow Queensbridge rapper Big Noyd outshines them all simply by being there first to bust lyrical caps with Mobb Deep, and one simple statement from the song echoes eternally: "Yo ain't no time for fakin jacks, cause brothers that fake jacks get laid on they back." Who would fuck with Mobb Deep? These relatively young rappers had a sound and machismo that made them sound like war weary rap veterans twice their age - unafraid to get ahead to leave behind their Queensbridge projects but simultaneously proud of where they grew up and who they are.
 
    Song after song shines - the smoothly flowing "Temperature's Rising" whose sung hook seems entirely appropriate, the prison narrative "Up North Trip", the cautious survivalist tale "Trife Life" about a setup by an ex-girlfriend, the ominously brutal "Q.U. - Hectic" and the warfare anthem of gunfire "Right Back At You" featuring Wu members Ghostface and Raekwon as well as Big Noyd. Trying to find flaws in the production or the lyrics is like completing a 10 billion piece jigsaw puzzle - you might succeed but only after years and years of effort. The album closes out with the pounding bassline of the morbidly surreal "Cradle To The Grave" and the curiously upbeat sounding horns of "Drink Away The Pain" with a guest verse by Q-Tip.

    Mobb Deep takes you on a journey through the gritty reality of the 41st Side, and it's a trip you could never possibly forget.  This is hard, underground hip-hop that demands to be met on its own terms, with few melodic hooks to draw the listener in. Similarly, there's little pleasure or relief offered in the picture of the streets Mobb Deep paints here: They inhabit a war zone where crime and paranoia hang constantly in the air. Gangs are bound together by a code of fierce loyalty, relying wholly on one another for survival in a hopeless environment. Hostile forces — cops, rivals, neighborhood snitches — are potentially everywhere, and one slip around the wrong person can mean prison or death. There's hardly any mention of women, and the violence is grim, serious business, never hedonistic.  The product of an uncommon artistic vision, The Infamous... stands as an all-time gangsta/hardcore classic.


50. Dr. Dre – 2001 (1999)
49. Outkast – Southernplayalisticaddicmuzik (1994)
48. Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt (1996)
47. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Wanted: Dead Or Alive (1990)
46. Redman – Whut? Thee Album (1992)
45. De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead (1991)
44. Fugees – The Score (1996)
43. The D.O.C. – No One Can Do It Better (1989)
42. Common Sense - Resurrection (1994)
41. Makaveli - The Don Kiluminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996)
40. Public Enemy – Fear Of A Black Planet (1990)
39. Ice Cube – Death Certificate (1992)
38. Gza/Genius - Liquid Swords (1995)
37. N.W.A – Efil4zaggin (1991)
36. Main Source – Breaking Atoms (1991)
35. Geto Boys – Grip It! On That Other Level (1989)
34. Brand Nubian – One For All (1990)
33. Scarface – The Diary (1994)
32. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Road To The Riches (1989)
31. Beastie Boys – Licensed To Ill (1986)
30. Ultramagnetic MC's – Critical Beatdown (1988)
29. LL Cool J – Radio (1985)
28. 2Pac – All Eyez On Me (1996)
27. Mobb Deep – The Infamous… (1995)
« Last Edit: June 25, 2005, 04:09:50 PM by C2Knuckles »
 

Elevz

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2005, 02:39:37 PM »
Since this is the list of "greatest" hiphop albums, I wasn't actually expecting to see this up here. I never knew it had so much influence on the mixtape game back then, but then again... It's not like I was checking out mixtapes back in 1995. It sure is a great album, but I never realised how big it was. I simply thought it was a great record that was majorly slept on by the mainstream back then.

But on the real... Dope review. Great album. Props ;D
« Last Edit: June 25, 2005, 03:18:19 PM by Elevz the #1 blunt roller »
 

Like A N!gga Say Do

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2005, 03:02:52 PM »
awesome album so many classic songs

 

eS El Duque

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2005, 04:27:50 PM »
One of my favorite albums of all time. Shit is coooold!
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Kill

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2005, 05:49:58 PM »
this is, to me, the definition of cold, desillusionised ghetto music...the best piece of griminess and nihilism in hiphop...to me that´s top 5, but in a list that´s supposed to be as objective as possible, it´s an adequate spot. I just hoped it´d pop up, cause it really deserves to. dope review btw
 

gzs

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2005, 05:24:53 AM »
I think Survival of the Fittest is the biggest track on that album. Prodigy is furious on that track. There's a war going on outside no man is safe from, you can run but you can't hide forever, in these streets, that we done took, you walkin with your head down scared to look, you shook, cause there ain't no such things as halfway crooks. He's absolutely right on that line.

Right back at you is my favourite hardcore war track of all time. So much adrenaline. Especially when Ghostface starts rappin.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2005, 03:56:02 PM by Genero »
 

white Boy

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2005, 07:42:19 AM »
i love shook ones and survival of the fittest, im ehh about the other songs.. i guess it needs to grow on me and never gave it a chance
 

RZARECTA

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2005, 01:46:53 PM »
One of my favorite albums of all time. Shit is coooold!
 

ABN

Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2005, 01:46:40 PM »
funny that P could paint better pictures of the 41st Side then every rapper who has lived there and P is originally from the Hamptons and never actually lived in QB lol. this album is one of my favorite albums of all time and i am probably the only who thinks that Drink Away The Pain is right up there with Shook Ones and Survival Of The Fittest when it comees to quality.
 

makaveli11

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2005, 01:54:34 PM »
funny that P could paint better pictures of the 41st Side then every rapper who has lived there and P is originally from the Hamptons and never actually lived in QB lol. this album is one of my favorite albums of all time and i am probably the only who thinks that Drink Away The Pain is right up there with Shook Ones and Survival Of The Fittest when it comees to quality.
Nope, I agree with you as well.
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Elevz

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Re: The Greatest 50 Hip-hop Albums Ever - #27...
« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2005, 05:02:01 AM »
funny that P could paint better pictures of the 41st Side then every rapper who has lived there and P is originally from the Hamptons and never actually lived in QB lol. this album is one of my favorite albums of all time and i am probably the only who thinks that Drink Away The Pain is right up there with Shook Ones and Survival Of The Fittest when it comees to quality.

About the whole album is equal in quality imo  :o

Simply amazing, that is  ;D