Chubb Rock – I Gotta Get Mine Yo! LP

Select (1992) 

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.

Chubb Rock was a name I was very familiar with in the early 90s, but I never had any of his records.  I'm not exactly sure why, but I don't remember seeing him too much on Yo! MTV Raps.  I'm pretty sure most of my memories of him came from reading the source.  This album, 1992's I Gotta Get Mine Yo, is the one I remember seeing, but this was Chubb Rock's fourth album by that point.  Over the last few years, Chubb Rock was one of those rappers that I took another look at, having missed their heyday.  And I was recently able to pick up a sealed copy of this album for a very nice price on Discogs.

As a whole, it's a really strong record.  When the Chubbster has a strong boom bap beat, he's as good as anyone from the '92 era.  And the majority of the album provides him that opportunity.  Where the album falters for me is when Chubb goes against that formula.  Be it the slow jams with R&B background crooning like "The Hatred" or "My Brother," or when there's a little bit of reggae flavor added on tracks like "The Funky" or "I'm Too Much."  That's only four of sixteen tracks on the LP though, so you're still getting twelve great cuts.  

After a pretty prolific career in the late 80s and early 90s, Chubb Rock pretty much vanished after this album for the remainder of the golden era.  I'd be curious to hear what he could have come up with as hip hop was really starting to peak in '93 and '94, but it wasn't to me.  He has another album that he put out in 1998, but I haven't listened to that.  Right now, my focus is on finding an affordable copy of his 1991 album, The One.

Chubb Rock – I Gotta Get Mine Yo!:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_moF-f74llSctFL7lqdE1zuHUeRdwIgJaU