As you can easily see from the cover above, there's no space to insert the title, the names of the authors and their images, it looks like a mess. Luckily, the album is something else. Regular, round and robust record, devoid of completely weak tracks: most of it focuses on party and bravado, combining some excellent socio-conscious extracts.
For being the beginnings of rap, it's a competent, if imperfect collection, deprived of some classic singles that often escape compilations. The performers are Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Duke Bootee, Cowboy, Scorpio, Kid Creole, Rahiem, Mr. Ness, and The Sugarhill Gang. The production is handled by Sugarhill executives Sylvia and Joey Robinson Jr., along with Bill Inglot, Melle Mel, Duke Bootee, Jigsaw Inc. Productions and Blaze. The singles are made by the artists between 1980 and 1985, and Rhino Records, licensed by Sugarhill and blessed by the WEA, put them together in 1994: the music is still raw and beautifully disco-inspired, melodic and appreciable, while the rap flows nicely in songs that are traditionally very long, more than half over seven minutes. The comp is a great starting point for Flash and Melle Mel, especially as their respective studio albums are forgettable: personally, I recommend paying particular attention to Duke Bootee, a forgotten Furious Five whose performances in the quantity-quality ratio take him very high among the best MCs of the period, despite a unique pretty disappointing studio album. "New York New York" surprises as the tighter cut of the edition, it's a hidden pearl. 8/10.
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