SOULS OF MISCHIEF: ’93 Til Infinity (reissue)(2014)

[RATING: 5] Man, I remember where I was when I first heard this – that’s how much of an impact it made on me. At the time my hip-hop diet consisted mainly of De La, Tribe, 3rd Bass and the Beasties and while ’93 Til Infinity might have had jazz samples in common with all of those, it was Souls Of Mischief‘s caustic diss raps that stood out immediately. Well – them and the bass. At the time this was the heaviest I’d ever heard on a hip-hop record. In fact come to think of it, it still is pretty much. The only other place that I’d heard low end anything close to like it at the time was on dub records and this gave plenty of even those a run for their money – testament to the combined production skills of band member A-Plus along with Hieroglyphics crew members, Domino, Casual, Jay Biz and…Del The Funky Homosapien (or Del Tha Funkee Homosapien as he was back then). Let’s put it this was – I was hooked before the beat started on the first track.

Despite critical acclaim however, the LP has had nowhere near all the recognition it deserves. Props to the Get On Down label then, who release this twentieth anniversary special edition and unleash the heavyweight sound of early nineties Oakland on the world once more. A sound, I might add, which has dated little. If you never caught this back in the day, I’m rather jealous of what you are about to experience and lines like “I say that nigga A, that nigga A…K/ Can make a nigga day in a very special nigga way”, and “Hoes think I’m adorable, MC’s think I’m oracle/ Foolish mortal, I got the flows so call your crew” are soon to be indelibly logged in your memory. If you did cop it before, you might be tempted this time by all the shiny add-ons (LED outer cases, t-shirts, 36 page liner notes book) (see video below) or perhaps by the cd version which comes with 11 remix and instro tracks (8 of which have never been on cd before) plus the title track acapella. Not that it needs any of that. This isn’t just one of the monkey’s favourite ever hip-hop records – this is one of the monkey’s favourite ever records period. Miss it and – oohhh – that’s when ya lost.
(Pre-order now on Get On Down)