First, best-known and most popular studio album by Group Home, a New York duo formed by James "Lil' Dap" Heath and Jamal "Melachi the Nutcracker" Felder. Both part of the Gang Starr Foundation, both guests on Gang Starr's 1994 album "Hard to Earn", Lil Dap debuts on their previous album, "Daily Operation". The production of the disc is almost entirely created by DJ Premier, while Guru and Big Jaz have a beat each. Guests are members of the Gang Starr Foundation Guru, Big Shug, Jeru the Damaja, Absaloot, and the relatives of the two main rappers, Smiley AKA the Ghetto Child, Melachi's cousin, and Jack the Ripper, Lil Dap's younger brother.
The album remains virtually all within the Gang Starr Foundation family. It's not a record that lends itself to a careful examination of its lyrical contents, Melachi and Dap could be regular appearances in "Maybe I Can Rap Someday". They extract elementary bars between braggadocio and ghetto life themes. From the very first moments in "Inna Citi Life", they prove to be your generic MCs, have a simple and slow style, always follow the current born of the track, and have no particular personality or some kind of impressive characteristics that elevate the song to a higher status. Whether it's involuntary or not, the inclination to have rapping that is continually obscured by the rhythms, if not functional to them, seems almost intentional, in such a way as to make the music prominent in the album. When the guests introduce themselves, in what not coincidentally are some of the best songs of the project, you can guess how this LP would be classic with any other MC.
Instead, there would be a lot of writing about production. It's Premier at his best. This document expresses its typical formula at its peak: loops of a few seconds, dirty drums, scratches on the chorus with devastating tributes, perfect rhythms. Maybe it's not the Houston producer's top selection, but it comes very close: it's an excellent set with several fresh dope rhythms and never drops below a certain level of quality, however, the instrumental album isn't flawless. It plays very well for fifty minutes since the introduction, where Premier opens the record with a sample of "Yesterday", Wes Montgomery's cover of the Beatles song. Among the other samples, those of Bob James, Hiroshima, Donald Byrd, Isaac Hayes and the soundtrack of "Mission: Impossible" stand out. The production is more cohesive than the albums with Guru, it's a dark, raw, dusty, sometimes lush, thanks to several piano loops, often protagonists.
"Livin' Proof" is one of the highlights of the season. DJ Premier repeats twice a very short loop, about one second / one and a half seconds, from three slightly-speeded piano keys in "College" by The Ramsey Lewis Trio, leaving also a second between the two loops. In that short amount of time, the drum can strike freely and the loop breathes. One of the finest beats of 1995 comes out. Thanks also to a simply perfect drum, dry, dirty and dusty, falling midtempo, this looks like a ten-second loop, it doesn't actually reach four (in any case, one of Premier's longest loops, at least in this period) and the piano keys appear once every two seconds. It's a masterpiece, the kids just have to get the attack right and the task is entrusted to Lil Dap, he delivers the first bar and when those mesmerizing piano keys come back, for the second time since he started to rap, I no longer care what they are going to say. The hook is formed by the scratches of a couple of lines of Inspectah Deck from "C.R.E.A.M.", from one of which the title of the track and the album are taken.
"Serious Rap Shit" isn't one of the best beats on the LP, credited to Guru, who rips the cut with his monotone flow, in the midst of Dap, Melachi and Big Shug. Jeru the Damaja is an uncredited guest in the outro of "Suspended in Time", while the rapping is performed by Group Home, which worthily deliver on a lush glossy musical carpet, immense piano from "Pipeline" by Incredible Bongo Band, dirty dusty drum, beautiful rhythm. "Up Against tha Wall" is featured twice and the second beat is delivered with a dry, hard and relentless drum and a great enveloping loop of piano keys. "Supa Star" is the first single of the album: the first twenty seconds are wonderful, thanks to a sample of "One Woman" by Isaac Hayes, then comes the skinny and hard, dirty and dusty midtempo drum, accompanied by an enveloping and underground loop of a few seconds from "Hanging Downtown" by Cameo.
Published by Payday and FFRR, distributed by PolyGram, three singles are extracted from the album in eighteen months, without being able to collect interest in the circuit. Thirty years after its release, the record is lauded as one of Premier's crème de la crème and a forgettable rap performance by Group Home. A must for boom bap and jazz rap fans. 7.5/10.
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