The West Coast Wu-Tang

Back in the mid-nineties I spent most of my teenage years in apathy of the school events and socializing, devoting most all of my time to my skateboarding passion. I must have spent every dime I made from bagging groceries and cooking hoagies on skateboard videos (old school VHS). The great thing about all those videos was that the pros got to choose their favorite songs to play during their featured montage of tricks, which ranged from punk to hip hop and sometimes even country.

I discovered Hieroglyphics when a commercial (yes, some of these videos even had advertisements) for a snowboard company had one of the gnarliest underground hip hop tracks I had ever heard. That track turned out to be a song featuring Del the Funky Homosapien called "At The Helm". This song ended up being the anthem of my summer.

Third Eye Vision was one of the most innovative albums to come out in 1998. Hieroglyphics is a super crew consisting of Del, Casual, Pep Love & Jaybiz (The Prose), and Souls of Mischief along with producer Domino. It's a bulkly album with numerous stand out tracks and almost no fillers with back and forth, top notch rhyming from all members. Although they're from Cali, their style resonates more from east coast artists and sample heavy beats (a rarity when most were opting for a more stripped down, clean production). Definitely a hip hop classic. Pick this album up if you ever come across it. You won't be disappointed.

You Never Knew
At the Helm
Oakland Blackouts

Mind Altering Demented Lessons In Beats

It's no secret that producer Madlib is one of the few jazz enthusiasts left in present times, evident in his numerous hip hop beats and experimental Yesterday's New Quintet albums, not to mention his father is a famous jazz singer. At the request of Stones Throw head-honcho Peanut Butter Wolf, Blue Note graciously allowed Madlib to create an album of remixed songs from their back catalog. I can imagine that Madlib must have felt like a kid in a candy store.

Shades of Blue isn't a jazz/hip hop-fusion album like Guru's Jazzmatazz. All but one track is instrumental. Most of what Madlib does with the tracks is rearrange the sections and add a drum loop, but despite the simplicity of it, it's a nice gateway album to the sources of the cuts, which include Andrew Hill, Donald Byrd, and Horace Silver. This is one of my favorite albums to play in the background of conversations and reading, which perfectly blends two of my favorite musical genres.

Distant Land
Stormy
Song For My Father