The poor sales result of their previous effort convinces EastWest, which is currently switching from Atlantic to Elektra, to leave the young group of rappers. The boys find themselves without a label, and take refuge under the one founded over a decade earlier by their parents, Pop Art Records. This is considered Philadelphia's first hip-hop label, founded by Lawrence and Ann Goodman in the early 1980s. Da Youngsta's released their fourth studio album in four years, changing their name to ILLY Funkstaz (sometimes referred to as "Da Youngsta's ILLY Funkstaz" or "Da Youngsta's / ILLY Funkstaz"). Production is mainly done by Qu'ran and Emanuel Parks, with six and five beats respectively, Dante Barton produces a song, while Al B. Sure! and Kyle West are the authors of the final remix. Guests are Kim Branch, Mobb Deep, Mentally Gifted, and Big Tabb.
The album opens with the title track. A few elegant piano keys, then the midtempo drum, dirty and dusty, thin and hard, falls together with the wonderful voice of Kim Branch, uncredited, for a few seconds, who launches the rap of Taj. The boys' style is regular, inspired, fresh, flowing, the cut is musically gorgeous and it's mainly focused on the thuggin' and the bravado rather than the player theme, which should be the main one in this track. There are quotes and tributes to the best ever in New York. Track number two is another classic, "Bloodshed and War": piano keys, haunting melodic male loop in the background, dirty dusty midtempo drum machine, it looks like it came out of the Havoc sampler, it's perfect. Prodigy attacks in the first verse, regular, smoothness, there's a simple hook, then Qu'ran, confident, energetic, velvety. Havoc performs the third verse, then Taj and Tarik close the song with shorter verses.
"Everyman 4 Theyself" completes a triptych of sensational songs. The soundscape is complex, and it's opened by dark and echoing piano keys, in the background the cymbals are barely touched and there are frightened tambourines, both are almost inaudible sounds. After a few seconds, they're replaced by rough and haunting DITC matrix xmas bells, dusty and dirty, dry and hard downtempo drum, heavy, which welcomes a hook that ties Nas from "Life's a Bitch" and Prodigy from "Shook Ones Pt. II." The three guys deliver materialistic, braggadocio, and thug bars with a confident, hardcore, and velvety style. The next two songs slightly decrease the overall quality of the project: if on one hand, lyricism continues to be a minor protagonist of these thirteen tracks, representing respectively easy money and girls, the music sounds less memorable than the previous songs, although, it's still very good, thanks to a professional choice of beautiful and melodic samples (from Lonnie Liston Smith and The Stylistics, which unfortunately aren't detailed, maintaining a marginal value in the construction of the two rhythms) and midtempo street drums.
Track number six is the remix of the song with Mobb Deep, whose rhythm is again produced by Qu'ran: drum midtempo, dirty and dusty, perfect, with melodic female choir in the background, gloomy jazz and dark samples. Only the rhythm changes, there are the same lyrics and the same interpreters. This production is flawless, classic. Three youngstas songs follow, where the boys show they enjoyed some of the best gangster rap albums of the period, continually paying homage to artists from all over the country, from Long Beach to Brooklyn, via Cleveland and Atlanta, on an underground and elegant production, in which the melancholy and gloomy piano is the pivot of the beats. George Benson's sample for "Incredible" is excellent, dirty and dusty drum midtempo, elegant rap, fluid and inspired by performers, including Mentally Gifted and Big Tabb in a laid-back, relaxed cut with positive vibes.
"Murda" features another solid dark midtempo boom bap, on which the guys keep pulling out bravado and thug bars with a pleasantly regular style. "If I Had a Million" is yet another masterpiece in the production of this gem-album. Skit, then the xmas bells arrive, they remain in the background, the drum is harsh, severe, midtempo, digging a gap between the silk, confident rap of the trio and those same xmas bells, which remain distant. There's a brilliantly dark and melancholy loop that peeps into the track transforming those initially positive vibes into a more nostalgic, very noir mood, à la Bogart. The album closes with the remix of the title track, which like the original is produced by Emanuel Parks. I don't know why the guys decided to remix their own songs and not let others remix them, the results are extraordinary: the drum midtempo is harsh and hard, Kim Branch's voice sounds ethereal, as if it came from a sample of a dream pop / shoegaze hit song, Youngsta's complete the track with a dope flow.
Unable to find a good distributor, the group manages to place only one single out of two in the rankings, while the album doesn't sell many copies, and is ignored by the public and by specialized critics. "The Source" has the honor of reviewing the album, but dismisses it with three mics without too much effort and without deepening it. I found this tape from youtube tips while listening to "Shook Ones" for the umpteenth time, around the mid-2010s. I soon forgot the author and title, so, I had a hard time finding it, but after many years, youtube had fortunately kept it. It's pretty blatant that it's not on your major digital music distributors, sample copyright issues, I suppose. It's an incredible document, thirteen songs, two remixes, zero skits, zero time wasting, zero tracks to skip in 56 minutes. There aren't many albums made like this in hip-hop, not even in 1995. It's one of those albums that, yes, in the end you probably want to keep to yourself and avoid getting the deserved and universal recognition it should receive from hip-hop fans.
It's a hidden gem that as I write this few seem to have been lucky enough to find and listen to, and which curiously haven't been able to spread. From a music point of view, it's certainly one of my favorites in the nineties: nostalgic, fresh, beautiful. The drum machine seems to be a very faithful replication of the patterns used by Havoc in "The Infamous". The samples are few, precise, punctual, perhaps not used to their full potential, but they still make the difference. The soundscape chosen is similar to that of the Mobb Deep, O.C., Black Moon albums, it's dark, melancholy, sad, gloomy, dirty and dusty, underground. From the point of view of lyricism, the kids recite simple texts on gangster themes, girls, represent their own area, topics similar to those faced by the other performers of the period, with the difference that here the minor experience by the youngsters is highlighted.
The record isn't revolutionizing the genre, it's not innovating it, it's not changing it. Quite the opposite, the trio of teenagers fill these stanzas with tributes to the best hip-hop artists of the early nineties, celebrating hip-hop. The whole product is such a celebration, it's a celebration of gangster rap with a youthful almost naive lens, and most importantly, it's very well executed. The performers have good voices, great flows, slow, smooth, velvety, energetic, they're inspired and sound very good on this type of production. Da Youngsta's / ILLY Funkstaz had another LP planned, "Icons", but around 1997/1998, they disbanded. Personally, with this CD, they prove they were among the best kid rap acts of the time, better than their more formidable rivals of the time, Kris Kross and Illegal. Ultra-recommended. On the internet, you may find someone who states that few people would claim this is a classic: in my heart it is, undeniably.
Highlights: "I'll Make U Famous", "Bloodshed and War", "Incredible", "Murda", "If I Had a Million", the remixes.
Music vibes: 9.5/10.
Lyric vibes: 6.5/10.
Rating: 8/10.
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