A Sweet Unrest

Valley of the jeep beats

Back in 1991 Terminator X of Public Enemy released his own album.  I don't remember this single getting a lot of play on the radio - I bought it (unfortunately on the dreaded cassette single, a financial necessity) after seeing the video.  This track was produced by Hank Shocklee of Bomb Squad and has that layered funky mayhem they were so good at creating and it features Chuck D so we really aren't too far from it being a Public Enemy track and like the best of those it stirs up a familiar tension in me: where do I head first, a protest march or the dance floor?  This also features the debut of a very shouty Sistah Souljah - you may develop a sudden urge to sit up straight, wash behind your ears and get right.

Termnator X - Buck Whylin'

Here's the clip:

Or I might kick a verse

Recently it hit me with a thundering crash that The Low End Theory is going to be 20 years old this year.  How did that happen??  It didn't come out until October of 1991 so I've still got some time to come to terms with it, and part of my therapy has been to sift through some of the other perhaps less remembered tunes from what is now called the golden age of hip hop.  I was utterly destitute at the time so much of what I have is on mixtapes from friends or the radio that I haven't been able to play for ages so it's been lovely to track some of these things down and I feel a series coming on.

First up is Pete Rock & CL Smooth's 1991 EP All Souled Out.  I was originally going to play The Creator because I have such strong memories of Rosie Perez using it for a Fly Girls bit.  I was studying modern dance at the time and in the short intervals between the hours of Cunningham technique a friend and I would try to break down the week's Fly Girls routines.  The class pianist had a great sense of humor (you'd have to, wouldn't you?  Giggly-neurotic dancers all the live long day) and would try to accompany our attempts which added nicely to the silliness and drove our teacher insane.  A kind soul has loaded this particular bumper onto YouTube:

(This is from season 3 so yes, that is in fact J.Lo back there.)

With that covered I thought I'd share the title track instead because it is packed full of musical and other pop culture references and I hope very much that maybe even people who don't normally care for hip hop might be able to appreciate the wonderful wit and inventiveness of the lyrics.  This has a great beat too.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - All Souled Out

 This EP is available on eMusic for less than $3.00 which is a steal because it all still sounds fantastic.