Stress Eater - Everybody Eats LP - Red Vinyl

Silver Age (2024)

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.

If you know me, you know I love early 90s hip hop.  If you know me, you also know that I really struggle to find hip hop that came out after 1994 that I can connect with.  I'll occasionally find something from the later 90s or early 2000s that scratches a similar itch, but as far as new records being release right now, it's exceedingly rare that anything makes sense to me.  The one exception to that is Czarface.  You may be able to tell from the artwork that Stress Eater is a new group from that same 'Czarface Universe.'

Where Czarface is 7L, Esoteric and Inspectah Deck, Stress Eater is 7L, Esoteric and Kool Keith.  So, we get the really nice production that is what always draws me into Czarface and then we swap out one of the guys from Wu Tang for one of the guys from Ultramagnetic MCs.  Not sure how this is a record that could possibly miss for me.  And it does not.  I mean is has a song called "Mecha and the Sole Brother" and that is one of the best song names I've seen in a long, long time.

The thing about Czarface (and now Stress Eater) that really sets it apart from most hip hop these days is the production.  It's full, it's varied, it has loud drums, it's everything I like about the sound of 90s hip hop without actually sounding like it's from the 90s.  I mean, there are echos, for sure, but it sounds like a modern evolution of that sound - not a carbon copy of an older sound.  

Lyrically, Esoteric is coming out with his usual rapid fire, pop culture heavy lyrical flow.  Dropping references that I chuckle about and also making some deep cut comic references that go completely over my head, his raps always hit for me and make me pay attention to what he's saying.  Speaking of paying attention to lyrics, Kool Keith is one of those MCs that always benefitted from repeated listens.  

For me, this is the best Keith has sounded since the 90s, and a lot of that is because he finally has top tier production that really take advantage of his unique delivery.  I feel like you'll always get the best results from Kool Keith if you give him a beat that has a steady, consistent pace.  He's at his best when you let him go off beat if he needs to, rather than forcing him to adapt to some bizarre, nutty production.

It's nice that it seems like we can count on a Czarface project most years.  I'm hopeful that means we can also start to count on future Stress Eater records in the future.  I dig this every bit as much as any of the Czarface records I have.

Stress Eater - Everybody Eats:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l9VsBx05p_mg8SmPSSMJOeFOuoGyCh3DM