Wild Pitch (1994)
Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.
As I had mentioned when I wrote about the first UMC's album a ways back, I didn't listen to this group during their heyday. Years later, when I was looking for something new to listen to from that era I decided to give them a chance. And I really dug what I heard. What I also learned was that apparently there was some backlash against Fruits of Nature, with claims that it wasn't 'hard' enough. I don't agree with those criticisms and I actually really enjoyed the upbeat nature of those songs. But that backlash definitely played a part in the sound of their follow up, Unleashed.
Unleashed is much more aggressive than Fruits of Nature ever was. There's harsher language, subject matter that is a bit more risqué and beats that are a bit grungier. I do still like it quite a bit and it reminds me of Das EFX somewhat. Less cartoony as far as the lyrics go and there's no 'diggety' style flow, but the way Haas G and Kool Kim trade verses back and forth and the feel of the production is reminiscent of Das EFX.
It seems that this new sound didn't do much to placate the critics of the first UMC's album, as this time the band was accused of being disingenuous and changing their sound too much to try to fit in. I'm not sure if I prefer Unleashed or Fruits of Nature, but every criticism I read of either album seems totally off base to me. I enjoy both quite a bit, but they are very different from each other. I would recommend either to anyone that digs hip hop from that golden era of 1990-1994 and missed out on these guys the first time around like I did.
UMC's - Unleashed (YouTube full album playlist):
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