Death row is the label that pays me

So N.W.A officially dead, the only memeber still friends with everyone was Ren. Dre had come out of nowhere with a track called "Deep cover" from a movie soundtrack of the same name. On that now bonafied classic track there was a skinny dude with a hat way way too big for him in the video and little did the world know what was coming next....

Now i wasn't ever gonna drop albums like this on a blog as i thought it was pointless as just about every head in the world had bobbed to this shit at some point right??? wrong?

Now picture the scene... i work with this dude (not a big hip hop fan but he knows some stuff?) I get to work quite often with him already taking over the c.d. player with chronic 2001. So last week i bring in a big stack of c.d's (the chronic and doggystyle included) and proceed to bump head to "fuck wit dre day" when i get asked "whats this????" now i see red and just laff at first but then the more i talk to his dumbass i realise how people still think death row was pure 2Pac. Now I know its not his fault for being young and fucking stupid, but seriously the longer the day went on the more stressed i got with everyone i work with! I had people trying to tell me shit about Dre, Snoop and dont even get me started on Pac.
So rant over, now comes the goodies for all the youngstas out there that really didnt get to be around when the whole Death Row thing blew up. Now I have said this before and i'll say it again... i think Dj Quik was the first to start the whole G Funk shit off but to be fair Dre has that magic touch and with a crew as talented as Snoop and the whole dogg pound its not hard to understand why they ruled the world for 2 or 3 years. Gangsta rap had died a death and New York was bubbling away with classic after classic dropping on a weekly basis. So when the chronic just appeared in the shops (and that really was the case! no one knew that shit was coming) it took a little while for people to trust in another N.W.A related release which was bound to be about tits, pussy and shooting people! but history is now history. Illmatic asside...I dont think there has been a buzz like it since (possibly 50's get rich effort came close) but i'm gonna give you some joints which i think show the whole crew at there best.

Dr Dre - The Chronic

I Picked the album up by surprise i think the week before christmas 92 while visiting my dad. Now my dad had no C.D player in his house so i had to wait nearly a week and a half to hear the shit! imagine that. So i finaly get my ass home and in the presence of some mates, throw the shit on and realise then and there what you listening to is just classic classic shit. But seriosly now i can remember it taking a long long time for people in the U.K to really start bumping this stuff and it wasnt untill "Nuthin but a G thang" took over MTV that people really took a shine to the album. Hip Hop connection (english version of the source at the time) absolutely panned this album!!! fools.

The single came out and as usual from dre there wasnt that much of an extra to the single.
But there was a nice "Freestyle Mix" which cuts way to short as daz is in full flow the shit fades down??? anyone got a longer version of this hook me up. Also there was a "Club Mix" Which is basically nuthin but a G thang over the bitches aint shit beat? exciting hey? but it works quite well and gives the track a little harder edge to it .

Then came Let me Ride... Another pretty dull single release with no mixes then came another version? that seemed to happen a lot with this album (3 different singles of the same song ) but then there was a "Let Me Ride (extended) " version . A full 11 mins long with some alternate lyrics and beat was a tiny bit different. but well worth having if you dont have it.

Then...Dre finally releases a single thats worth its weight in bud seeds and quite possibly the essential dre 12" to own.

Now i remember hearing "Deep cover/One Eight Seven" a long time before the chronic came out but could never find the track and i dont think many did so the fact it was finaly released on this 12" was defiantely the biggest reason to own it...untill you flip it over and get blessed with the now classic studio smoking session banger that is "puffin on blunts & drankin tanqueray" Classic 12" here for any vinyl junkie alive.

That was that...The chronic and its singles were absolutely played to death for over a year and the hip hop world waited on the arrival of Snoops solo album. Now when "whats my name" dropped i was a little dissapointed to tell the truth but then the day arrived and the album dropped.

Snoop Doggy Dog - Doggystyle

So on very first listen you have the bathtub intro????? then the actual G-funk intro where Lady of rage explodes the album up straght away and all is forgotten with the dissapointing first single. classic after classic on this album and it just picks up from where Chronic left off. I own not a single 12" from this album ? i dont know why but nevermind.

Then came a little spin off featuring the whole death row crew. The track "murder was the case" from snoops album was turned into a mini film and that paved the way for a soundtrack to be created from pretty much the entire Death Row roster. Not by any means a classic but there were some very good tracks on it and its one of those albums i not seen posted up anywhere else so i thought i would do the honours.

Murder Was The Case - OST

So to wrap it all up I think i've thrown up a little surprise. This wasnt a Death row release but it may as well have been. The man responsible for introducing Snoop to Dre, Warren G. Warren G is Dre's little step brother and had a little crew going on with Snoop and Nate Dog while Dre was in the studio producing N.W.A's last album. Of course things happened and Dre and Snoop did the deep cover thing and "G-Funk was officially born" soon after.
So as not to be caught in the shadow of his older step brother Warren G released his debut album and it was very nicely named "Regulate...G Funk era"

Warren G - Regulate...G -Funk era

So that concludes my little death row connections ting. I do have many many views about the similarites with Dre's effort and Above The Laws "Black Mafia Life" album but as my pc wont rip the cd its kind of hard to throw down my argument about it. hope you enjoy the tracks if you havn't heard them before.......

the fabulous......

Chi ali has a hip hop story that is beyond belief ...."I was very upset that night. Thirty seconds, man, can change your whole life. And, you know, I'm paying for it."

Dude sure is. Chi currently serving a 14 year stretch for shooting his then girlfriends brother over some petty shit? But thats the pollitics out the way.

Whatever happened that night will never take away the pure gem of an album that a 14 year old produced!!! damn straight 14!!!

Every time i hear "maniac psycho" or "let the horns blow" i cant help but wonder just what went wrong with chi's career? I know i have a slight affection of both the beatnuts production skills and the whole native tongue clique but this really was to me a bonafied classic. I loved this album (can you tell?) but his decline happened way before the shooting incident so someone tell me what the fuck happened after this album came out. i know he popped up on dres's solo LP but thats about it?

The album came out with the first single "age aint nothin but a #" I wonder which dumb ass record label exec thought of using that track as the albums first single? i think they tried to get him as much commercial rep as they could which is a damn shame as the album was so much better than that track. So the single was only rescued by the fact "maniac psycho" was on the B side as that is the only reason to buy it!

But then came the next single...Let the horns blow/Funky Lemonade

Now this was much more like it. The "funky lemonade remix" is 5* classic shit! so well worth the download.
Next up came ...Roadrunner 12"

Roadrunner Puberty Mix

Another totaly on point remix this time coming from A tribe called quest

Then i come to a track not featured on the album and i cant remember for the life of me where i picked this up from. i am sure this was on a B side of a black sheep 12???

No Surrender, No Retreat

This track is just solid sickness and shows the signs of what the now older Chi ali had to offer but sadly thats all she wrote. The only details i could find on this track was here
But i am pretty sure it was available somewhere else but i aint flicking thorugh crates looking for something i probably wont find?

All in all though Chi Came through with his 1 and only Album and this is an absolute must to any collection if you can find it nowadays.

The Fabulous Chi Ali