Various Artists DJ Premier & Mr. Thing Present: The Kings Of Hip Hop
The third installment in BBE’s ongoing Kings series might leave a few heads scratching. DJ […]
The third installment in BBE’s ongoing Kings series might leave a few heads scratching. DJ Premier’s half of this two-disc set isn’t full of fat beats, but rather classic soul he feels helped shape the genre. What’s odd are the selections-a mostly mellow, breakbeat-free set of standards that hardly qualify as obscure, from Nina Simone’s “Don‘t Explain” to Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour.” On the flip, former Scratch Pervert Mr. Thing takes us through a list of mostly early ’90s East Coast hip-hop classics. Selections like EPMD’s “Rampage” and ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” seem a little too obvious: for the money it feels like there should be at least a few we haven’t heard in a while.