Hip-Hop Albums of the Year

14 September, 2023

DJ Kool — The Music Ain't Loud Enuff


John "DJ Kool" Bowman was born in Washington, D.C. In 1988, he signs with Creative Funk rap label and publishes a couple of singles. Two years later, he drops his first LP, produced by himself with Funky Ned and released by S.O.H. Distributors Network. Eighteen cuts, half are skits. Short meaningless skits that don't add anything to the tracks. As for the real songs, they're really bad, all of them, without exception.

The title track is the first, skinny minimal beat, with randomly scattered sounds. Nothing too indecent, but the delivery is bad. It doesn't improve the next cut, which presents a simplistic rhythm, bad, with a weak delivery and sung hook. "How Low Can You Go" is slightly better than the two previous tracks: the delivery remains bad, DJ Kool chooses to perform between shouted and spoken on a minimal and cheap, funky, skeletal, rough beat.

As in all mediocre hip hop albums from the late eighties to the early nineties, this also includes some unnecessarily commercial crossover choices. The hip house cut is made with a festive and confused production, a cheerful raw and skinny rhythm accompanied by a light delivery and a functional hook. There's also the reggae tune, quite simple, it's the song that most of all clashes with everything else, maybe that's why it's also the best here. In the midst of these two attempts, there are "Pressed Against the Glass", a minimal and simple song, I marked it as a hip house, with a spoken-sung delivery, and the remix of the title track.

This remix has an unlistenable, confusing and heavy beat and the usual bad delivery of DJ Kool. It's not over, there's still "What The Hell You Came in Here For", track with a simple and minimal beat, bad delivery on a badly looped female sample, and heavy, fat and confused production, so bad that it seems proto-DJ Khaled. Closes a skit in which the DJ thanks for listening (...), but is preceded by the last true song, "Get on Down and Party", not too dissimilar from the previous ones, boasts a pressing rhythm and a quick and insipid delivery.

Fifty minutes that I don't recommend to anyone, give it up. 2/10.

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