Marlon "Marley Marl" Williams grew up in Queensbridge, Queens. Passionate about electronic music, he had the opportunity to experiment with different sampler as a young intern at Unique Recording Studios in the early eighties. One day, while he was in the studio with an artist, trying to extract a riff from a record, he made a mistake with the sampler and accidentally discovered what would later become known as sampling. Shortly after, radio DJ Mr. Magic heard Marley Marl's remix of Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Gals" and Marl became Mr. Magic's DJ. The two formed the hip-hop crew Juice Crew in 1983.
That same year, the producer released his first track, "Sucker DJ's (I Will Survive)" on Party Time Records, a response to Run-DMC's "Sucker M.C.'s" performed by rapper Dimples D. The single went under the radar for about a decade until it was remixed by Ben Liebrand and achieved widespread international success, reaching number one in Australia. The following year, Marley Marl produced the hit "Roxanne's Revenge" with Roxanne Shanté and the following season he was behind the keyboards on all of Shanté's new singles, on "Marley Marl Scratch" with MC Shan, on "Feed the World" by MC Shan and "Transformer" by MC Craig "G", among others. In 1986, Cold Chillin' Records was born, Marl became an in-house producer and the label soon hosted the entire Juice Crew roster.
In 1987, he produced his first full-length studio album, MC Shan's debut "Down by Law", followed by a year in which Marley Marl produced four more full-length albums, Big Daddy Kane's debut ("Long Live the Kane"), Biz Markie's debut ("Goin' Off"), his own and MC Shan's second project ("Born to Be Wild"). By the time his debut studio album was released, Marley Marl was one of the most talented and well-known producers in hip-hop. He composed the album with ten tracks by members of the Juice Crew and its affiliated artists, creating a sort of group album that featured his typical production and sampling style and became the first attempt by a hip-hop producer to make a name for himself as a solo artist.
Marl's production is amazing, funky and fresh rhythms, full of great samples. The rappers are at their best in career, they all offer excellent performances. Craig G, Masta Ace, Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane go to compose the strongest cut of the disc, first and one of the best posse ever ("The Symphony"), Craig G proves to be one of the most fit ones and brings out the brilliant "Droppin' Science", which opens the LP beautifully. Among the performers there are also Biz Markie, Heavy D, Tragedy Khadafi and Action. The album is closed badly, with a weak song by Shanté, however it's among the most flawless and consistent of the period, it's close to the status of classic, full of gems. One of the best efforts of Marl and of the Juice Crew.
Rating: 8.5/10.
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