Organized Konfusion - Stress (The Extinction Agenda) 2xLP

Hollywood Basic (1994, 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.

Like my copy of Organized Konfusion's self titled debut, the version of their second album that I have is a bootleg.  For whatever reason, no one has been able to give either album a proper reissue, but I'm happy to say that this double LP bootleg version sounds great, so it's good enough for me.

I had mentioned last time that I never listened to Organized Konfusion back in the 90s.  I should have as they were shouted out by several of my favorites at the time, but I never heard anything by them and never ended up buying either of their records.  My first exposure to them came much later as I tried to hunt down some hip hop albums that I hadn't heard back in the 90s.  

Stress is probably a stronger album overall that the first Organized Konfusion release.  The beats are pretty solid, mostly relying on jazzy samples and drum loops.  The production tends to be somewhat low key in nature with the tempos being on the slow side most of the time.  But the songs as a whole don't sound slow as Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po lay down dizzying raps with complicated cadences and internal rhyming structures.  It's almost as if the slower production gave them more space to cram in more lyrics on top of lyrics on top of more lyrics.  It's a nonstop display of technical mastery and Stress is an album that really deserves to have a proper reissue so it doesn't have to exist on the fringes as a bootleg purchase.

Organized Konfusion - Stress (The Extinction Agenda):
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WOhm6q1v2zk