Chi-Ali Griffith was 15 y/o when he released his first studio album, released by Relativity. I don't know why or how, but this kid is affiliated with the Native Tongues. In 1989 it's a very respectable thing, in 1992 I don't know.
Production is handled entirely by the Beatnuts, while Black Sheep's Mista Lawnge (another Native Tongues-affiliated group) produces Chi-Ali's hit single, "Age Ain't Nothing But a #". Everything else on the album is ridiculous, a full hour in which this kid, who presumably recorded the songs at 14 (debuting at 13 on Black Sheep's debut album), chooses hardcore and gangsta themes to make his tracks, wasting these Beatnuts rhythms, which look a bit like their scraps, are simple, jazzy boom bap, with slow drums, nothing too complicated.
The whole album is pretty boring, musically it's mediocre and lyrically it's bad, badly-done kid-rap closed by a pop song with light jazzy vibes, R&B vibes and a soulful-pop female hook on frantic cheap beat: the only noteworthy tune, if you exclude the single produced by Mista which reached #6 among the rap songs, it's "Let the Horns Blow", Native Tongue posse in which Dres (Black Sheep), Al Tariq (The Beatnuts), Phife Dawg (A Tribe Called Quest) and Trugoy (De La Soul) overshadow the young friend over one of the album's few decent beats.
Rating: 5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment