Forgotten Gem: "Nine Livez" by Nine
"Nine Livez" by Nine (1995)
Recently I've been listening to this old CD I have, "Nine Livez" by Nine. I did a little googling and was shocked to discover that that this album is fairly hard to find these days and pretty sought after—one site was selling it for $90! Apparently quite a few people consider it kind of a forgotten classic and I have to say I agree with them.
In a lot of ways it's a typical mid-90s hip-hop album, but I don't know, something about it really sets it apart and really makes it a solid, super-gritty album from beginning to end. Part of it is Nine's voice, which will probably remind some people of DMX but I think he's a hell of a lot better than DMX and he predates him by several years. And then there's the music which I think is a little more melancholic and often more skewed than what was going on in mainstream hip-hop at the time.
Anyway, here's a sample of his biggest song, which is fairly straight-ahead musically but is still one of his better songs:
And another great track off the album:
And, hell, why not one more. A bit more on the experimental side:
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