Hiero Imperium (2021, Reissue)
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.
My three favorite hip hop albums of all time came from the Hieroglyphics crew. Souls of Mischief, Casual and Del The Funky Homosapien are amongst my favorite artists of all time. Back in 1996, the original version of this compilation came out as a cassette only release. I didn't pick one of those up for whatever reason. I'm not even positive I knew it existed, to be honest. Then in 2001, this came out on CD. It didn't have as many tracks as the tape did, but it was much more widely available and it's when I got my copy.
Now, it's finally out on vinyl and even though it's missing the Souls of Mischief live on the radio appearance that is on the CD, this record is still pretty packed full of hits. From what I gather most of these are tracks that predate the 1993 - 1994 onslaught of classic releases by the Hiero folks. From a fidelity standpoint, these do have something of a rough and ready feel to them. They're not super polished and there's some fuzz here and there, but the songs themselves are on point.
This is classic Hieroglyphics production and none of these songs would feel out of place on any of their golden era releases. Everyone in the crew is represented and it's really cool to hear some of the Pep Love and Jay Biz songs as that's an album that was pumped as being the next one to hit after Extra Prolific, but it never happened (until an odds and ends CD that finally was released in the early 2000s.
I'm super psyched to have this on vinyl and I sure hope there are plans for Volume Two to eventually be released. And it would be cool for them to put out that Pep Love & Jay Biz CD on vinyl as well.
Hieroglyphics - Hiero Oldies Volume One:
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