First album by Crucial Conflict, Chicago hip hop group composed of Wondosas "Kilo" Martin, Ralph "Wildstyle" Leverston, Corey "Coldhard" Johnson and Marrico "Never" King. Wildstyle produces the whole LP. Guests are QBall (he's not Qur'an Goodman), Sheena Lee, Toi, Tasha Keller and T-Babe. The group releases material three years after their first EP, during this time Jiovannal "Lil Jeno" Gordon and Anthony "Smooth Lil T" Gordon are replaced by Coldhard and Never, then Crucial Conflict signed with Universal in the mid-nineties.
The sound of this product differs significantly from that of 1993, the boys leave singing and rnb aside and speed up their delivery style, approaching the rapping proposed by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony the year before. Crucial Conflict attempts to pioneer an entirely new musical subgenre in hip-hop, country rap, creating a style that approaches the western one, with western themes in the songs, and southern rhythms influenced by the West Coast.
The production doesn't have a powerful or impressive impact when listening, the lyrics revolve around gangsta topics that you can find in every album released during this time in the subgenre and the rap is too similar to that heard by the aforementioned Cleveland group not to attract obvious comparisons and harsh criticism: the result is an album that, in retrospect, is a little too bland, flat and mediocre, not allowing Crucial Conflicts to establish themselves as the premier country rap act in history. This doesn't stop them from achieving good success in the charts, the album ends up in the top five of hip-hop releases, is one of the best-selling of the year and is certified gold by the RIAA, led by the single "Hay", a hymn to weed that soon became the group's signature song in the wake of Luniz's hit on the same theme.
Rating: 4/10.
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