The debut of producer Bolo's Kitchen aka King Cee aka Bolo Gah, is a pretty curious record, a pleasant discovery. It's the closest thing to a Beggas album you can get. Perhaps the only record from the Hidden Aspects group is equally close, but this one remains the most accessible now.
You may be wondering: who are The Beggas? I don't even know who Bolo's Kitchen is. The Beggaz is a group formed in Washington D.C. and is made up of guys who, similar to what Raekwon did years earlier, choose to have another moniker in addition to the original one: S. "Begga Ooh" Sylvia aka Ooh Aah, R. "Bolo Gah" Brown aka Bolo's Kitchen, R. "Buda Love" Griffin aka Tha Persian Killer, T. "Born Wise" Frost aka Dragonfly, Hamed "Father Lord" Johnson aka Wu-Chi, Jim Kelly, T. "Long Axe" Taylor, J. "Majik Sword" Barber, Mega Soul, Samo "Sammy Bravo" Heung, and N. "Shaah Allah" Johnson aka Short Axe aka Yukon Black.
The group debuts in "On the Strength", track of "Wu-Tang Killa Bees: The Swarm" (1998), and in the same year, Father Lord appears in "Tai Chi", a song of Killah Priest's first LP "Heavy Mental". After the dead of Father Lord in 1997, the group is disbanded and in the following years, two other groups are born, Black Lotus (Dragonfly & Long Axe) & Hidden Aspects (Bolo's Kitchen, Dragonfly, Jim Kelly, Long Axe & Yukon Black). In 2005, Bolo's Kitchen releases this full album under its label Hidden Aspects Music, then, in the same year Chambermusik re-issue the disk, giving it an even more legitimate look.
The production of Bolo's Kitchen is excellent in its extraordinary simplicity, choosing a whole series of gentle jazz samples, tidy minimal drums and brilliant boom bap rhythms that facilitate the flow of performers instead of hindering it. This set lives up to some of the best albums created by Wu-Elements and it's a shame it's still unnoticed. None of these guys will ever run for rapper of the year or anything, but they do their job on a nice, quiet production.
On eighteen tracks, there's an intro and three skits, the performers are Begga Ooh credited nine times, followed by Jim Kelly, Dragonfly and Long Ax, all with four songs (Dragonfly and Long Ax are credited twice under the name of their duo, Black Lotus). The group's affiliated artist Amy Renee is the only guest external to Tha Beggaz. A freestyle is also left to Mega Soul who, together with other guys, is sometimes not credited as part of the Tha Beggas collective.
Free of weaknesses, "18 to Party", "Nothing" and "Some Go Some Stay" are some of the highlights of this unjustly overlooked and forgotten record.
Rating: 7/10.
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