Organized Konfusion - Organized Konfusion 2xLP

Hollywood Basic (1991, Bootleg 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.

I'm not exactly sure why I never listened to Organized Konfusion in the early 90s.  It's probably because I never saw any of their videos on Yo! MTV Raps, but it's not like that stopped me from stumbling upon other acts that weren't getting any airplay.  Even more puzzling is the fact that they were shouted out by name on Hieroglyphics tracks, which was pretty much a guaranteed way to make me go buy your records (See: Kurious).  But for whatever reason, it wasn't until many years later that I started to delve into the Organized Konfusion catalog.

I picked up this LP from Discogs about a year and a half ago.  I was able to snag it at a really good price considering what I had seen it go for.  The caveat is that this is the 2xLP version, which means it's an unofficial or bootleg release.  The positive is that said bootleggers didn't try to cram an overly long album onto one record, which is what happened with the original, official release.  In a lot of ways I prefer this double LP bootleg, though I would have preferred someone just reissue it properly.  Considering all of the old rap reissues out there, there must be something wacky going on with the rights for this to still be ignored.

As far as the music goes, this is fun golden era hip hop.  The production is solid and very good most of the time, but it's not in that top tier, upper echelon of the era.  I like it a lot, but it's not the sort of thing that gets my head nodding like a lot of the other records that came out around this time.  Lyrically, it's pretty amazing.  Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po are pretty amazing, stringing together complex rhyme structures while playing off beats of varying tempos and styles.  At the end of the day it's a really cool album that very obviously helped pave the way for the sounds of underground hip hop that would spring up towards the end of the decade.

Organized Konfusion - Organized Konfusion:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_knJZD3Psd8I7IZOO7R0a-Gk766a53ZjpU