The Last Emperor
The Legend Of Bigfoot
Bootleg
Unreleased (surfaced sometime in 2000)   


The album kicks off with The Last Emperor's most famous cut "Secret Wars Pt. 1".  A nice piano loop provides the perfect backdrop for his and Stan Lee's battle between comic book characters versus some of his favorite emcees.  "Keep it clean, no bats, no gats, guns, no interference/ Comic book characters would go head up with raw lyrics/ Now I take, whoever might be on break from doin' tours/ And have them signed up for the Last Emperor's secret wars".  KRS-One vs. Professor X, Das EFX vs. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Nasir Jones vs. Peter Parker are some of the match-ups featured on this already classic track where The Emp displays his amazing wordplay and creativity.  Along the same lines as "Secret Wars Pt. 1" comes another concept record, Da Beatminerz produced (guess) "Animalistic".  A story of him morphing into god's creatures as he hunts down wack MCs.  "3 emcees runin' in different directions/ in sections/ I transform into a cheetah/ I bet I can catch ‘em in seconds" he continues as a bronco, shark, octopus and various other animals.  A crazy track, something you just gotta hear.  

His storytelling abilities are displayed on the "Party Crashers".  It's important to keep the listeners attention on storytelling tracks so he switches up his delivery & changes his voice for a different characters for this simple yet dope little story.  "Expedition" and "Caravan" follow and the latter of the two probably recorded during his brief stay with our favorite producer's record label, "cause this caravan is paid for by Aftermath".   "Height Weight Invincible" another track with a great piano loop and him attacking the mic reminsant of Big Daddy Kane's "Raw".  This is a very intelligent and knowledgable emcee but he ain't afraid to make refrences to pop culture.  "So, drop the mic and save those wack rhymes for later/ Cause my battles leave more Broken Arrows than Christian Slater" or "Feed off sunlight when the Earth grows void of vegetation/Attack the U.N. like the Klingons did the United Federation"  We find this on the insane "Monumental" where is use various rhymes patterns, historical refrences throughout the track.

Battling is important to him but instead of throwing battle rhymes to wack emcees and faceless opponents he decides to dedicate the Dr. Dre produced (guess) "The Dozen" to dissing himself.  "Although my life might seem to have zero interference/ small children still run from my hideous appearance/ my clothes are torn and trashy"..."People often wonder why Jamal so thin/ like a scarecrow on crack with my jaw sucked in/ so slim and malnourished/ not the lion without courage".  The odd yet creative "Jungle Cats"  is very unique and could be a track that's you'll probably love or hate.  The chorus is kinda corny but I like the beat and the story.  

The back-to-back "Meditation" and "Keep On" find him going off on the mic, dropping knowledge and polical inspired raps, many dope lines are here such as "now my style kills more kids than Rowe vs. Wade".  Both have nice production too, the drums on "Meditation" are sick and both songs have what I refer to as "vocals in the beat".

"Heaven" and "Bums" are two more concept records showing us his vision of the perfect afterlife and the life from the view of a hobo on the later.  "Bums" provide some of the more powerful production on the album but still can't outshine the emcee as The Em keeps our attention through the track.  "It's like one for the microphone, two for the camera/ Three for deadbeats, vagabonds, panhandlers/ Street scramblers, alleyway managers/ Substance abusers, born losers, mic damagers/ Everybody screamin', representin', keep it real/ But I'm still a worthless bum tryin' to get a record deal".  Both are very nice tracks, a solid way to end the album.

Not many emcees can rip an album solo let alone for 75 minutes but The Last Emperor does that and to near perfection as he demonstrates his versatility.  There are too many quotable to mention, as this is one of the greatest written hip-hop albums I've ever heard. Dr. Dre, Da Beatminerz & Madsol-Desar (the only producers that I know for sure did work on here) provided some great production and can be compared to what you would find on Nas' The Lost Tapes where you have a couple tracks with powerful beats that capture your attention immediately but the majority are just tight, crisp beats that provide a good background that allows the emcee to be the center of attention. There has never been an album that fits the title "underground classic" better than this.  The Source said in best when they said "we said it before and we'll say it again: this kid will be remembered as one of hip-hop's fiercest lyricists."


10/10    

last emporer aint west coast affiliated
so put that out of this section...

This is the album review section.  Last time I checked hip-hop from anywhere can go here.

he's dope btw
got 2 unreleased albums of him

What's the other one?  Are you talking about a Rawkus advance?

I assume the two you're talking about are The Legend Of Bigfoot and the advance for his album on Rawkus (tracklisting here):

The Underground
The Umph
Echo Leader
Away From The Sun
The World Of Suzy Wong
Dangerous
Still I Rise
Over And Over
No Escape
The Banger (skit)
The Banger
Monolith
Animalistics
Do You Remeber
One Life
He Lives