The Coup — Kill My Landlord

Debut album by The Coup, a political hip-hop group from Oakland consisting of Boots Riley, E-Roc and Pam the Funkstress. The group debut in 1991 with an extended play released by Polemic Records, then in 1993 The Coup signs with Wild Pitch, gaining a distribution deal with EMI. The authors of the lyrics are good lyricists and manage to make their messages interesting during the listening hour: the themes dealt with by the trio are political and militant, they immediately claim to be politically aligned and bring out afrocentric, pro-black, socio-conscious, anti-police, pro-riot, and pro-revolution stanzas.

Raymond "Boots" Riley, Eric "E-Roc" Davis and Pam "the Funkstress" Warren, actually say something in this tape, the music, on the other hand, doesn't support them adequately, it's simply decent, not excellent. Boots Riley, the exclusive producer of the entire project, does a good job, creating a soundscape that doesn't fully stick to either the typical West Coast one, with the modern g-funk trend, or the one typical of the opposite Coast, with the hard and pounding drum and the jazzy rhythms.

His funky boom bap is light, almost subdued sometimes, with a slow, lean drum machine, and samples that draw equally from funk, rnb and hip-hop (among the best, for a few seconds in "Liberation of Lonzo Williams" there's a sample from "Walk on By" by Isaac Hayes, if I'm not mistaken), creating a final sound that's very close to being both original and personal, although quite functional to the rapping and lyricism of the group and, sometimes, not incisive.

Additionally, the trio is aided by live instrumentation performed by Jeff Chambers and Dan Newman on bass, Carl Wheeler and Jeff Katzman on organ, Degi the Problem Child and Will Hammond on piano, Neckbone Waters on sax, Kim Jackson on flute, Carlos Zialcita on harmonica and Bruce Leighton on keyboards, while half a dozen background singers alternate in the studio. San Francisco underground hip-hop group Elements of Change is the only guest on the CD.

The record is good, it's really good, and lives up to some of the best political acts made by contemporaries such as Paris, Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Ice Cube, Da Lench Mob and Tragedy Khadafi, and it also remains one of the lesser known acts in the circuit when it comes to the political rap. Personally, this is one of those many records that I wish it were a classic, but it's not: due to a couple of fillers and to cuts that often stretch beyond five and six minutes, the LP swells to an hour of listening with thirteen songs, ending up far from being one of the best records of the genre. It's undeniable that it has so many interesting moments, and that it's an essential listen for fans of the subgenre.

Highlights: "Dig It!", "Not Yet Free", "The Coup", "I Ain't the Nigga", "Funk", "Kill My Landlord".

Rating: 8/10.