Quote:
Originally Posted by duga
and someone mentioned the Low End Theory from A Tribe Called Quest…I completely agree. That album has helped so many people enjoy rap, including myself. Maybe you will want to ignore The Chronic 2001 for now...but seriously...listen to the Low End Theory.
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Low End Theory is a classic which should be heard by more people. A lot of late '80s/early '90s rap groups who were attempting to expand the creative boundaries of hip-hop were crushed in the monsoon of gangsta rappers. Among my favorite albums of indie hip-hop from that era are:
3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... by Arrested Development
3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul
Of the Heart, Of the Soul and Of the Cross: The Utopian Experience by P.M. Dawn
Blow Out Comb by the Digable Planets (Blow Out Comb is perhaps the greatest alternative rap album of all time)
Grandmaster Flash's earliest collaborations with the Furious Five and the Sugarhill Gang were released on Sugarhill Records as 12" singles and those oldest of the old school recordings are still the best. All of those singles have been collected on two different long playing albums,
Message From Beat Street (1994) and
The Best of the Best of the Sugarhill Gang (1996). Those two collections of Flash's earliest single releases simply blow away all of the current day rap music artists.