Hip-hop debut for Lisa Williamson, straight from the Bronx, New York. The entire project, made up of thirteen tracks, borders on the hip-hop genre and is approached with a more spoken delivery than rapping, every single word is weighted and heavy, echoing on a fairly simple, minimal, funky tight soundscape, skinny, sometimes light, sometimes hardcore, made almost entirely by the Street Element production team (formed by Chris Champions, The Epitome of Scratch and Eric Sadler, of The Bomb Squad).
The other beatmaker on the record is The LG Experience, which is a name you should have heard for the remixes of "Put It On" by Big L and "One Love" by Nas. Sister Souljah's lyrics are for the most part political, with some socio-conscious traits, and interpreted with a slow, but aggressive, crisp, clear delivery, with which she expresses her militant anger towards the establishment, approaching the themes already expressed by Public Enemy, for which she's Minister of Information when Professor Griff leaves the group.
Overall, the album is pretty decent, there's some bars for Chuck D in "State of Accomodation: Why Aren't You Angry", on a simple, minimal hardcore beat, with a tight, heavy, and syncopated drum machine, distant in the background, it arrives slow and inexorable, and Ice Cube that simply immediately destroys the eccentric rhythm of "Killing Me Softly: Deadly Code of Silence", with a smoothness, powerful and clean flow, dope.
It would be a normal 1992 hip-hop album, if US President Bill Clinton didn't respond to a controversial statement from Sister Souljah, giving the record free publicity: the album released by Epic Records isn't impressive, but it's tough and fair, critics knock it down and for some strange reason, it's hidden to the public. MTV refuses to airplay its two singles, as the videos, in addition to the lyrics, are also controversial and provocative. This debut carves out some success in the charts, managing to enter the chart dedicated to hip-hop records and selling over twenty-five thousand physical copies.
Rating: 7/10.
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