da lench mob planet of da apes

[Cavvy]

why did cats sleep on this joint? J Dee was jailed but Ill be damned if Maulkie didnt fill the vacancy with ease. Not quite on the level of Guerillas in tha mist but still not deserving off the complete indifference people have toward it

[sav-man]

I agree. It didn't go far enough to be a classic, like Guerillas In Da Mist, but it was tight for sure. I think part of the problem is that when it came out, there was little or no promotion, as I remember. BET might have played the video for "Chocolate City" once or twice, and I also vaguely remember Maulkie, T-Bone and Shorty appearing on a Rap City episode to promote the CD, but otherwise, it was released almost secretly.

Another thing, too, was that in 1994, political/consciousness-oriented rap was not the happening thing anymore (unless you count Outkast, who had some consciousness-type songs on their classic Southernplayisticcadillacmuzik CD). The 1994 rap scene was dominated by the West Coast G-Funk sound (Dre, Snoop, Dogg Pound, Warren G.) or the hardcore stuff coming out of New York (early Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, Nas, Biggie Smalls, etc). Anything that was purely political or consciousness-related had a hard time getting heard. On a related note, Public Enemy released an excellent (if uneven) CD that same year (Muse-Sick-N-Hour-Mess-Age), and that CD got trashed by Rolling Stone Magazine and The Source as well--there seems to be an unwritten law in the music media that says "out w/ the old, in w/ the new." Even if an older artist does an excellent second (or third or fourth, etc.) CD, said artist will be ignored or trashed if his/her style is not what's considered "cool" at the time. I hate that trend, but that's the way it is, unfortunately.

But yeah, Maulkie did a good job--he has a different style than J-Dee for sure, but I thought he fit in well. Production-wise, it was a little more inconsistent than GITM (G-funk to East Coast sounds to straight Funk to interpolations, etc.), but I thought it banged from start to finish. It's too bad that it's out of print.

[doggfather]

far from classic, but both are good albums