When he was young, Percy "Tragedy Khadafi" Jackson starts writing rhymes and tries to reach the neighborhood myth, Marley Marl, but is still too young to make a song with him.
While the neighborhood kids watch him write rhymes on the benches of the basketball court, where Nasir Jones stands out among these peers, Jackson decides to invest time on his career in rap and founds a young duo called Super Kids with Dante (DJ Hot Day), publishing the song "Live at Hip Hop USA / Go Queensbridge": the cut attracts the attention of Marl, who decides to produce the anti-drug track "The Tragedy" (also known as "Coke Is It", reported in this record as the last tune under the name "Your Tragedy").
His career seems well underway, he starts as a younger member of Marley Marl's Juice Crew, however, a few years later, he ends up in prison, staying at Rikers for twenty months: when he comes out, the rap game has changed and the young man adapts to it. With his new DJ, Joe "Fatal" Burgos, he managed to sign with Alonzo Brown's (Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde) A&M Records and in 1990 he managed to debut with this album: due to a misunderstanding probably, A&M decided to call the artist Intelligent Hoodlum, a name that was intended for the album and that Jackson must also keep for the next disk with the label.
Representing Queensbridge, Jackson faces some excerpts from his personal life by putting on the table intriguing and confused lyrics at first impression, but which are actually thoughtful and methodical, impressive: his socio-conscious and political themes, with some storytelling and some cuts for the radio, are spit in an hardcore style with a rough, smooth and dope flow. Marley Marl entirely produces this solid, hard and gloomy debut effort, with dark traits, leaving two cuts to Large Professor: it's a good and orderly production, equipped with simple, skinny, tight and fresh jazzy-funky rhythms, however it's not the best Marl's musical effort due to the superior lyrics of this wise artist.
Released by A&M, distributed by PolyGram, this conscious hip-hop album is praised by critics and charted among rap efforts. 8/10.
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