For years Richard "Professor Griff" Griffin is the "Minister of Information" of New York hip-hop group Public Enemy. Before the release of "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back", Griffin gave interviews to UK magazines on behalf of the group, making homophobic and anti-Semitic comments, reiterating them also in interviews with US newspapers in the early months of 1989. The echo of his statements triggered an avalanche of controversy against Public Enemy, who had become very popular following the success of "Fight the Power", the key track from Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing".
Chuck D finds himself forced to reconsider Professor Griff's position within the group, although it is not initially clear what other role he will take on. Public Enemy's leader subsequently fired Griffin from the group, but shortly thereafter reinstated him, sparking a new wave of controversy that forced Chuck D to reconsider his position and even briefly disband Public Enemy.
The group reformed shortly after, but was pressured by the media and by their own record label, Def Jam — led by Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen, the son of Israeli immigrants who had managed Rush Artist Management since 1985 — they decided to drop Griffin as part of the group. Griffin later makes amends for his nonsensical statements, but his apology was insincere, and he continued to reiterate his controversial positions in the decades that followed.
When Professor Griff is cut off from Public Enemy due to his comments, he finds himself wandering the scene alone and is greeted by Skyywalker's Luke Records. Here, he found his own group, The Last Asiatic Disciples, composed also by Sean "Life" Peacock, Sean "Patrick X" Smith, Robert "B-Wyze" Harding Jr., Jim "Obie" O'Brien aka John Michael O'Brian, and Jason "JXL" Wicks. The production is handled by Kavon Shah, Kerwin Young, Professor Griff, Clay Dixon and Jim "Obie" O'Brien.
From the first moment, this record is clearly a copy of Public Enemy: hard, minimal rhythm, close to rock, similar to one that could bring out the Bomb Squad but simpler and only decent, hard delivery of the rapper who is a trivial copy of Chuck D, quite syncopated, weak, slow, indecent, with lyrics based on thoughts of the Nation of Islam, which the author approached. And the record goes like this for about fifty minutes.
Despite having his own defined main theme — political — which he also manages to translate with dignity on his own songs, Griff never explores the topic adequately in order to create if not a musical classic, at least a very strong lyrical track. From song one, the rhythms seem pretty modest, they're hard, rockin', skinny, simplistic, tight, they have annoying sample loops too tight in the background that help to sink the songs down (both "Real African People Rap" are the less accessible cuts here) and the drum machine cannot do miracles.
His rapping is below average, bad: his hardcore delivery attempts sound weak and not inspired, his flow is irregular, choppy and slow, almost spoken. Promoted by a couple of singles (the title track, #4 in the rap chart, and "The Verdict"), the album was panned by critics, even though it achieved a comforting commercial return thanks to adequate promotion by the label, which led it to enter the Billboard 200 and among the top 25 among rap efforts.
Unusually, Skywalker Records finds itself having to distribute the album independently, because due to the author's aforementioned comments, no record company intends to distribute the LP, nevertheless, the album is distributed — often with the support of a dance music label — also in France (Accord, sub-label of Musicdisk, distributed by Universal Music Group), UK (Greyhound), Netherlands (BITE, distributed by Greyhound), Germany (Global Satellite, distributed by BMG), Japan (Alfa International) and Canada (Metaldisque).
Highlights: "The V Amendment" is instrumental. Ahahahah, get it? Fifth amendment? I don't spit anything??! Top.
Rating: 5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment