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 thirty 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.
In my never ending quest to try to listen to every forgotten band of the golden era, I came across this 1994 album by Mad Flava. I had never even heard of these guys before stumbling across their name within the last few years. They were absolutely not on my radar back in 94, which is the year my interest in hip hop was starting to wane. I'm pretty confident that I would have dug this had I heard it back then.
The main reason I would have, and do like this album is the production. From start to finish, this album has the sort of rugged jazzy beats that I tend to like the most. Though they are a west coast band, they have more in common with their east coast peers than any G funk style nonsense. The production was handled by the group along with Erich 'Hype Dawg' Krause. The only other thing I know him from is the JCD And The Dawg LB LP that I gave a few listens to and decided I didn't need. The beats on Mad Flava are much better.
Lyrically, you'd be hard pressed to hear these raps and not think that there are certainly some similarities to House of Pain. Lucky, it's not as over the top or goofy as HOP can get, but you're not going to listen to this and be bowled over by lyrical prowess. Everyone who touches a microphone gets the job done, and nothing is ever bad - for me, it's just a means to an end showcasing an album full of beats that I really like. I'm never not amazed at how much stuff came out in the early 90s that got lost in the shuffle. There was so much insanely great music being released that something like Mad Flava, which is very good, just sort of fades into the past with little fanfare. Worth checking out.
Mad Flava - From the Ground Unda:
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