Tweedy Bird Loc — 187 Ride By

In 1992 Richard Johnson made his debut in the rap game with his debut album. The first cut is a dissing to Tim Dog and Boogie Down Productions, a response to Tim Dog's "Fuck Compton": festive and cheerful boom bap, crackling rhythm, easy-going and cheerful fast smoothness syncopated delivery by this dude on a lively and strong beat, with heavy syncopated drum machine and Christmas bells in the background, functional hook; is aided by guests such as Att Will, Hitman D, Notorious Joe, Big D Mark and Underground Connection, who will accompany the rapper throughout the album.

The disc is interspersed with several useless skits (1/3 of the entire LP), which lengthening the length to about 70 minutes, for a total of twenty songs. The second track has a festive and cheerful production like the previous one, lively boom bap with lean and tight syncopated drum, Tweedy Bird Loc interprets this beat with a slow and easygoing syncopated delivery, there's a hook with scratches and a female sample looped in background, the tune soon turns out to be another dissing, this time to the NWA, who will be continually targeted throughout the tape, especially Eazy-E and Ice Cube, along with the aforementioned and ultra-hated South Bronx rappers. They're the two strongest cuts of the album, of great impact, when it seems that the boys have calmed down, a third dissing arrives, this time against the almost unknown H.W.A. ("A Hoe Is a Bitch"); other noteworthy songs are the freshest rhythms of the record, "Murder One" and "Jackin for Transpo", in the second part.

Johnson is helped by so many guests that you doubt he's a rapper: in fact, the guy is a member of Compton's Kelly Park Crips, and he manages to make a studio album just for the fun of it, as well as some year later will Shawn Carter. With other results. Here, Johnson gets help from several friends including Hitman D, Notorious Joe, Geek & Noise, Smooth, A-Love and the Underground Connection (aka Underworld Connection), a collective composed of Tweedy Bird Loc himself, Ant Will, Big D Mark, Sin Loc, Blue Rag, Do or Die and Nini X, female rapper and member of the Bloods who's the main guest of the album.

While the rapper's lyricism spills mainly into somewhat generic gangsta rap, braggadocio and hardcore rap, the production is sublime: the rhythms mirror the hard West Coast funky sound of the era, with a lean, syncopated and slow drum machine, great funky samples and several g-funk synths. These beats are made by Robert Lewis III, Ronnie Marlon Phillips and Kevin "DJ Battlecat" Gilliam, with the help of Geek & Noise, J-Stank and Stephen "Sparkle" Ewers, and the production proves to be particularly fit for the style of raw, hardcore and rough rapping of the performers.

The record is interesting, Johnson is among the very first to join Crips & Bloods on the same album and to have a moderate success, an experiment that he will repeat the following year with a dedicated album and a dedicated group, named Bloods & Crips.

Rating: 7/10.