Third album in three years for Da Youngsta's, a trio of kids from Philadelphia formed by Tajj, Tarik and Qu'ran and managed by Lawrence Goodman.
Production is mainly provided by Marley Marl and K-Def, with a few beats left to Qu'ran and Danté Barton, and plenty of soul, jazz and hip-hop samples to support the boys' street thug bars. The young MCs improve flows and lyrics over the previous record, carrying on their game. The first cut is a tribute to major hip-hop artists on a boom bap rhythm with accessible, melodic g-funk synths and a midtempo drum. The rest of the record is East Coast boom bap with hard slow tight drum, sometimes midtempo, sublime samples, sometimes dark and gloomy with nostalgic and melancholy veins, and dirty scratches, while Da Youngsta's flow with an energetic, confident, tight and velvet style.
Assuming that the rhythms are all brilliant, except the last one, by Danté Barton, who chooses the only "wrong" and annoying sample of the whole album, two productions stand out among the best. The first is "In the City", by Barton himself, who achieves a beautiful jazzy boom bap using a perfect accessible hard midtempo drum and light samples from Guru's "Sights in the City", re-proposing the melodic voice of Carleen Anderson for the hook, and "Summer Madness" by Kool & the Gang, perfect music carpet for the energetic delivery of the boys. The second is "Illy Filly Funk", possibly the best production on the record, realized by K-Def: jazzy boom bap, perfect midtempo drum, beautiful string samples, good chorus, inspired tight smoothness delivery by the group, dope cut. Consisting of 13 tracks for a total of approximately 54 minutes, the album is released by Atlantic via EastWest, and achieves position number 45 on rap records. Da Youngsta's are one of the most hidden acts of the golden age, but their album (and the next one, which has even better production) is a great listen for East Coast / boom bap heads.
Rating: 7.5/10.
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