Radical Stuff — Hardaswallow

Around 1986 (you can also read about 1987), the hip-hop group from Milan, Italy, Fresh Press Crew was born, founded by the Italians DJ Gruff and Kaos together with the American rapper Top Cat, which later also includes the Italian DJ Skizo, the South African rapper Sean and the British rapper Soul Boy. The exit from the group of DJ Gruff, Top Cat and Soul Boy, compensated by the arrival of the American rapper Dre Love in 1990, leads to the change of name in Radical Stuff.

The group signs with Flying Records, begins to release the first singles, in English — faithful to the tradition of the mid and late eighties, despite the fact that the delivery in Italian had been adopted for several years in the circuit — and performs the first concerts, from which the live album "Jazz Rap Night Live" (1992) is taken. Two years later, Radical Stuff's only studio album was released, consisting of DJ Skizo and rappers Sean, Kaos and Dre Love.

The LP and tape formats feature 20 tracks divided into 2 sides, while the CD format has 21 tracks for a total length of 75 minutes, which is more or less the maximum content of music that can be recorded on a CD in this period. The album is all in English, album title, tracks, rapping, rhythms, samples, even the cover. The cover is shouting "1993", even though the album is from the year after. DJ Skizo and Lagash are the producers of most of the tracks, some beats are left to Matt "Dada" Schwartz, 5Fingers, Radical Stuff and The NextOne.

It's released under Flying Records subsidiary UjaMM'n — they're not random letters, as well as referring to the cousin label UMM, it would be "u jammone", translated "the master", appropriate for a label, I guess. This word has its own meaning exclusively in the parlesia, a sort of local slang, variant of the Neapolitan, handed down by oral tradition among Neapolitan musicians; to make it understood, it would be similar to jive-talk, made the due proportions.

Such a massive full album, labeled "jazz rap" and performed in English, could be ideal for Kaos fans, nevertheless, the project is really too difficult to deal with and to digest, basically inaccessible. The big problem is the drum, which always seems the same for over 70 minutes, it never changes, and it's excessively heavy, gives a headache from the first minutes. I'd like to say that the choice of samples is good, at least that, but not, and even when there's a decent extract, the drum is there to kill everything. The lyrics are average, very average, the guys spend their time bragging and put on some random filler every now and then. The production sounds monotone and each rhythm sounds the same. For nearly 75 minutes. There's some attempt with funky beats, extracts close to reggae and even a g-funk rhythm in "On tha Square", where DJ Skizo and Lagash take one of Dr. Dre's favorite samples for the synth.

Overall, there's nothing memorable and the album never does anything to stand out from any others released around the same time. I feel it's an unnecessary tape for the casual listener and I don't recommend it for fans of Kaos.

Rating: 5/10.