Scientifik — Criminal

Second studio album by Dinitry "Scientifik" Behrmann, rapper from Flastbush, Brooklyn, who grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. A fan of hip-hop, he makes his way locally with the moniker MC D-1, and in 1990 he meets the Boston rapper Edo G and a couple of years later he makes the demo-tape "The Most Blunted", which is not released officially until 1998. This record comes out in 1994 exclusively on vinyl and the label with which the rapper signed, Definite, fails: Scientifik receives practically no promotion for his project and is forced to sell copies from the trunk of his car.

In the following years he approaches the Five Percenters and the New York hip-hop scene, like most of the East Coast rappers of the period, however, in June 1998, while he's working on his third album, he's found lifeless along with his girl in his car in what is believed to be a homicide-suicide. In 2006, Traffic released the album as a CD and from the beginning of the two thousand and ten, the tape got good feedback on the internet, where fans elevated it to a lost classic of the mid-nineties.

The generic and simple lyricism, predominantly braggadocio, doesn't give them reason, even if it's quite typical of the Boston scene, performed with a competent and confident rap style, but which doesn't allow it to stand out from the rest of the performers of the circuit. The production is on a whole other level than the lyrics: behind the keyboards are Edo G, Rhythm Nigga Joe, Shame, Buckwild, Diamond D, RZA and Scientifik himself.

 

Half the album is produced by DITC and the other half is still excellent, sounding East Coast boom bap with hard midtempo drums and great melodic samples from jazz, funk, soul and hip-hop. Diamond D, Edo G and Prince Rakeem (at his first appearance as soloist guest) are the guests of the tape, but RZA is limited only to the hook in "As Long as You Know", cut in which he proves to be one of the best of the period behind the keyboards, bringing out one of the best beats. Recommended to East Coast / boom bap fans, the production is brilliant.

Rating: 8/10.