Anquette — Respect

Debut LP for the rnb group Anquette from Miami, Florida. The production is entirely handled by David Hobbs of 2 Live Crew and the effort is distributed by Luke Skyywalker Records.

After the intro, a simplistic beat starts with a skeletal and minimal drum machine, simple, tight rhythm, scratched hook with simple line and decent and regular, fast rap delivery. The title track looks quite decent, it follows "Janet Reno", another song that can be listened to, with a simple and frenetic production, skeletal and rhythmic drum machine, simple and minimal, decent and fast delivery of the trio, despite a functional hook. This track in particular is a dedication to the Miami prosecutor Janet Reno, a female pioneer in demanding the payment of subsidies for the maintenance of the deadlines by the deadbeat dads. For this track, the Spin magazine dedicated a line to Anquette among the "fresh" Miami artists in a 1990 "map hip-hop" article.

In "Funky Stuff", the emcees remain confined in the background leaving room for the cheerful and simplistic beat with drum machine minimal and various scratches. Then "Freestyle Rappin'", where your patience should already be over. I don't think you'll get here. But if this were the case, you would find yourself listening to a beat not too dissimilar from the previous ones with a delivery similar to the previous ones, despite a hardcore attempt. "Let's Rock & Roll Y'All" presents a hard and heavy rhythm, minimal and simple drum machine + functional hook scratched to feed a hard and light-hearted, festive, decent delivery. There's an infinite skit to skip before the end of the previous track, then a copy of the previous pieces, the same beat, the same rapping.

Not even the following choice offers too many variations, while "Material Girl" has the merit of providing a quiet and light-hearted decent delivery and a hook left to various samples. "Chillin'" is shorter than usual, so we arrive at the huge banger, the hit of the album, which has followed the umpteenth simplistic production in "Anquette's Groove", a pretty poor and banal instrumental seasoned with the usual drum machine, real MVP of this whole LP. We need to go back to the super hit of the album. It's "I Will Always Be There For You".

A ballad, there's always the ballad, slower than usual here and the trio does nothing extraordinary, the beautiful part is right here: none of the three improvised-singers suddenly goes to catch extraordinarily high notes, no exaggeration, there aren't lyrics that you've never heard in your life. But the piece is an eighties banger that half America has appreciated (and forgotten...) on TV and that it still rediscovers as a childhood/youth banger despite yes, it doesn't have any real quality except that of making you relive a vintage memory lost over the years. From here on, nothing is known about Anquette, I have no idea what they did or where they ended up.

The female answer to 2 Live Crew? Not exactly. Fifth historical album released by Luke Skyywalker Records, the Anquette (cousins of Luke), Miami women's trio, propose themselves as a new female face for the Miami Bass scene entering the game in 1988, whose records will be sold on the street from the trunk of a car. Coming straight to the point this album is exhausting: forty minutes of listening, it seems two and a half hours. I don't know what exactly is the problem that lengthens these hells of tracks so much, the typical simplistic rhythm of the genre probably don't do too much to help, the deliveries of these female MCs seem fluid and decent, fast, instead they're incredibly slow, too slow in some way, they're really difficult to digest. Not essential, 4/10.