The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Jason A. England on How A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees & Mobb Deep Defined 1996 | 03.10

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

In this episode of The Right Time, Bomani Jones and Jason England continue their discussion of Hip=Hop in the year 1996.From classic albums by A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul to the massive breakthrough of The Fugees, the conversation explores how 1996 produced some of the most important rap records ever made. But it was also the moment when hip-hop started shifting—from a culture-driven scene to a more commercial industry.Bomani and Jason break down why albums like Beats, Rhymes and Life, Stakes Is High, Hell on Earth from Mobb Deep, and Ironman from Ghostface Killah captured a turning point in the genre. They also discuss how artists like Lauryn Hill helped expand hip-hop’s audience while changing the sound of rap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesdays. We are here with part five of our series on the year 1996 in hip hop.

Thanks to my man Wally Sparks, who was on from the last episode. We talked about the emergence of the South in 1990. Now back with us with some sunglasses on his side. The homie Jason England, he has returned. I see you have also given us a new backdrop. Oh yeah, you know, back again like tag team. And since Eminem's Infinite came out this year, try to keep a slim shady.

New pair, though. New pair. Keep you guessing. Back again like tag team. Boy, that is an immediate change, the radio station bar right there. Hey, man. them tag team boys, they stumbled on gold, didn't they?

We'll get to 1996 in a minute. But for those who don't remember this about 1992, and this was the best part, there was wump, there it is, and then there was, there it is. And so what was interesting to me is, whoop, there it is, got no play in Houston. But whoop, there it is, by 95 South, I believe it was, that one was the Houston joint.

I didn't know that the one that was in the top five was a completely different record. So yeah, I don't know how that worked out, who coordinated what, but it was a whoop and a whoop there it is. Yeah, whooped there. Oh, my balance, buddy, buddy. I was in Wilmington, North Carolina doing a summer program. I remember there was a women's hoops program and a women's chairleading program there. And I was 16 going on 17.

I fell in love with a woman named Tomicchio. And that song was one of the anthems of the summer. I didn't hear that one out of D.C. either. But they made all the money, right? they were even in commercials recently, like last couple of years, right? Yeah, the tag team made all the money. And they jumped that off because one of them was the DJ at Magic City. And that was like the Magic City call.

Like, was Wooned there it is. It's impossible for me to imagine a time when Woot There It Is was not Codian played out. But apparently, you know, I know. Wait, do you remember Daisy Dukes? Yes. Look at the Daisy Dukes. Around that same time, someone had remixed it and they had a song called, Look at Fat Girls Doing Daisy Dukes.

It's wrong. And I have to say, certainly coming from a flawed perspective, one might argue problematic, but funny, funny is a completely different discussion. Yeah. All right. So 1996 is an interesting year in that I think this is the best way. I've been trying to figure out like the right terms to talk about like the wing of

albums that I wanted to talk about for 1996. And like boom bap feels inappropriate because I think a boom bambap rap is a very, very, very very specific. And what we're talking about is a little bit broader than that. But what I mean by what I'm talking about is, and this is the best way I can make the point. For those who don't remember,

it was his cat name Mike Geronimo, right? Mike Geronimo had a joint came out in 95 called Master I see. I'm so high. You so high. I'd be getting money to the day that I died. Right. Right. Like it was a rap it was very much a rap city

song, right? It would be in the top 10 or whatever, but it was, I want to say that's like a, like, like, like, um, like beat bodice type joiner. Like bootchop, one of the, a butt shot, I think is the one who produced that one. But anyway, that's the aesthetic that we're talking about. 1997 comes around. This motherfucker got on a shiny suit and a puffy beat and a Kelly Price hook and he

dancing and singing in the video, right? In 1996, there was not an expectation that your album had to have a club song, right? that was part of you talk about this a lot. The first single off of, it was written by Nas in 96 being if I ruled the world, he had made a compromise at that point. Like it was him feeling like this is what, you know, this is what I need to do to aspire to the heights of success that I wish to have. After 96, it didn't even feel like people were doing that because it's like,

oh, this is where I wish to go. It was like a requirement for everybody. Like that is maybe the biggest puffy biggie influence in all of this. is that nobody was too hardcore to make a dance record, right? 96, it feels to me, and if I'm overstating this, let me know. But we got a lot of super dope classic albums out here that were not made with the gaze of pop success. And I think there were very few records after this year

that were done with that sort of outlook. One thing I say, just to give them his proper credit, it was Buck Wild, not Buckshot, it did Master, Mass. I.C. But, yeah, it's crazy. I think about this, not just in 96. but let's go way back. This is what made hip hop for me so incredible as a genre.

It was like punk rocking that. You didn't know where it was going ever. So when Tribe first comes out and they have an album about a small person in a weird hat and they're in Elsa Gundo looking for a lost wallet, it was capacious.

Like, where could a record start and stop? And it was dope because it sounded great, right? It had no marketing aim like that. And you talked about the radio. Like legitimately, we joke a lot about my cousin, Koo Keefe, and his multiple aliases and his alt career. But him and Ultramagnetic, they had 1-2-1-2. 1-2.

That was on the top 10 radio prime time in New York City. They used to play records like that, which made the scene totally different. So, yeah, so we have the very last whiffs of this. We have, like, groups like the cellar dwellers are still trying to come out in 96, you know, but there's no real lane for them except the underground. And then, like you said earlier, as we were talking up here, pride comes out and they kind of put out one of the last records where and even though they did have like a somewhat radio single, still like a regular tribe album, because they were the ones who kind of set that in motion. If you have a movement and a sound, then you can break an album. And I think that was the end of it right there. We're seeing the very like a comet, the very tail ends of a comet of an error right here. And it's a really depressive error to look back on in some ways. It's almost like you're holding a funeral for a certain era of hip-hop.

Yeah, like the tribe build is interesting because beats rhymes and life is the fourth tribe album. So we start with people's distinctive travels past rhythm. Biditapabom, can I kick it, let me while in Elsigundo. And there really had been no record like that up until this point. The next timeout is low end theory, which Bob Power just died in the week that we are recording this. rest in peace to him. And I think I was talking about this with a man Ben Hamine on his podcast for all nerds the other day. One of the things that's interesting about Bob Power was Bob Power, who was a famous engineer. Like the DeAngelo Brown Sugar is basically DeAngelo and Bob Power. Like a lot of

that guitar work on there is Bob Power, all of this. But he said the only rap he listened to was the rap he worked on, which is like a testament to what it was to do rap back in the day in the sense that it was so freeform that this white man could be the one helping you get all the sounds that you want without really having a strong familiarity with the genre because the genre was still so free form that it could be there. But low end theory is one of the best sounding records that anybody has ever made. And it is Q-Tip, who to me is the epitome of rapping like a producer, which is to say he raps like an instrument, right? Like all the flows on a tribe record are laid down and vocally produced to be instruments as part of the aesthetic of Q-Tip the genius

that he has put together. And so they take these jazz, records and they make this incredible record with low-in theory. Then come after that with Midnight Marauders, which they're also rising in chart success as they do this. And Midnight Marauders is a bit more, it's a bit grittier than, like, low-in theory, I think had more whimsy to it. And I don't feel like Midnight Marauders really has any whimsy at all. But they went as far as they were going with that sound.

Jay Dilla, who at the time was going by JD, he emerges in 95 with those. far side tracks with running with drop a couple other joints. Now 96 comes. He does this album with Tribe together. Tribe has gotten so big now that they are like this number one record. This day, this record debuted at number one. But we wasn't that thrilled with it. Which I can't tell.

Even going back and listening to it, it's hard to get, it doesn't feel like the problem was the record. It just felt like the times were changing on. them. But they were like, we always did this for us anyway. Yeah. I think the times were changing on them. And then with Dilla's edition, they were changing on what people expected from the

tribe record. And it is, I was one of those people where I was like, yo, this doesn't sound right to me initially grew on me slightly. And then when I went back to it a decade later, I was like, oh, I was out of my mind. The sound is dope. It's just like anything else. You can't have too much. And we've talked about this in terms of people.

in places and also music and celebrity. You want to be a pleasant surprise rather than an expectation. Once you become an expectation, people get bored of you. When you're a pleasant surprise, people are always happy to see you. Tribe just loomed so large

that I felt like they'd become an expectation, and that meant we set a standard for them that was impossible to live up to. And I think they were outgrown things, too. You talked about how gritty Midnight Marauders sounded, and I think there was this tension, both in the group between Tip and Fife, and also with Tip and his ambitions,

and the fact that, and I talked with my homie Shaka about this, the definition of what street or nerd was and real was, people had kind of pigeonholed Q-Tip, almost like he was a bohemian nerd rapper. And Tip was like, but I'm out here, I got chicks, I got hands, I'm really from these streets, I'm hanging with real street dudes. I just did give up the goods last year. Y'all acting like you don't know who I am.

And I think that, his ambition, and maybe even his insecurity. And I don't mean that negatively. I mean, just the insecurity between who he really was and who people started to view him has bothered him. And that changed things too. I mean, that's why he goes off and he does his solo, I think. Yeah, and it really, like I said,

it really jumps off when the Vivert thing comes out. Because what makes Viverr thing so amazing to look back on is that beat is, that's a Dillip beat. It is a slapper. It comes on. Everybody, like, It is the opposite of Scareter Girls music made by an ultimate Scareter Girls producer. All of that is there.

But we ain't want that from you. No. Right? You out here with no shirt on and a fur coat. Yeah. We don't want that from you. Arguably my favorite hip-hop figure ever, I think a singular genius. When I really sit with it, those formative years for me, he was somebody who, for me, was a role model.

was like, all right, you don't have to put on ears. You can be from this sort of urban environment. And you can still do artistic stuff. And so when I saw him like that, and then when I saw him like kind of in that era hanging out with, what did they call him, like the pussy pack or the pussy patrol, it was him and Toby McGuire and Leonardo DiCaprio. And he was breaking cameramen's camp, paparazzi's cameras.

I said, this is not the guy. I had put him on a pedestal. And this was unfair to him. I had an idea of who Q-Tip needed to be. he had gone in a totally different direction. Yeah, yeah, he was like, no, no, no, no. And it's an interesting thing. I once saw, 50 Cent once edited an issue of double X-L.

And he did an interview with Talib Kuali. And Talib was explaining, he was like, yo, I wish I could come up with hooks in the stuff that you want to do, which is to say, in many cases, your favorite underground rapper is not there because he wants to be. He has simply not figured out his path to be in the guy that's in the video with all the girls by the car, right? And Q-Tip, it took him a long time to get there, but he figured it out and he got there. But you're right, Beast Rhymes in Life, I look back on it and I listen to it in retrospective.

It's like, no, no, no. It was, it was fine. I just think what happened was it was such a cluttered chaotic year. And so much had come out that for you to rise up and really stand as like, oh, this is a super dope record. talked about this. By the time Beats Rhymes and Life comes out, Tupac has already dropped and given us a banger. A bunch of other records that we're going to talk about it. Like, the Buster Rhymes emergence has already taken place by the time Beets Rhymes in Life comes out. Too short getting it out with number 10. Like all kinds of things that finally come out. And now

it's like, yo, the JZ has come out. We have so many new things that are stimulating us. And then you get to the tribe record and you're like, you know, it just like it came out the same day as riding dirty. You wasn't even the best. record to come out that day. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned too short, man. I think about him a lot in terms of people who supposedly couldn't rap. I always think about him saying,

they say the dog can't rap, but my pink account approved that. That was my God. I mean, I think maybe more than the other guys who get credit for, the more popular ones, he was the one who opened my ears to West Coast music. It was just so fun. Yeah, he knew. like he made very good music. It depends on what you mean by a great rapper, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got some, he's got some incredible verses, right? Like, like, I don't know how much rapping he was doing, but he's got some incredible verses. Now, I'm going to go through somebody's records really chronologically, right? And the first one I want to talk about, and this is a record that you and I have talked about a lot off air. And I think it's really interesting with the way that it looms large and the magnitude of it. And by the way, came out the same day as all lies on me. To me, the most unexpected blockbuster record in the history of rap, the score comes out in February

of this year. Okay. The record is a universally considered to be a classic. Fuji Lai had come out into 95. That was like the first single. What jumped this record off is their cover of killing me softly, right? Like that comes out.

Lauren Hill is a giant star. the stardom comes from here, but it is wild how this record is viewed as such a classic. And I'm inclined to agree that it's a classic, but I don't hear people play it. I don't hear people talk about it. If you ask people to start running through all the jams on it,

it's not really that easy to do. And a record with three rappers, and one of them is good. She's great. She's all-time good. Then one of them is there, and the other one always went last. Because if you went first, you wouldn't listen to the rest of the shit.

Really fascinating record for me personally, I couldn't stand it. I thought it was a sellout record. It was an obvious pop record that was sampling in you. I'm talking about my views back then. You know, I understand why it's, it's like all things. They exist in a larger context, and I can understand that context. Now, I was the audience for rap for a long time. that audience expanded, and they pushed and expanded that audience with that album.

So yeah, it came out of nowhere because most of us were not expecting something like that to have broad appeal. It didn't have knockers the way we thought of knockers, but it did have knockers the way that a larger audience, whites, black people from different country who were becoming a larger base of consumers too, understood and saw themselves in music. And Lauren Hill is just a phenomenal talent. That's a 101.

You want to talk about a comet. There you go. She's a comet, right? And you could ride that comet. to great success. And to give Wyclef his credit, Wyclef has made a lot of questionable music for me, a lot of questionable personal decisions,

and sometimes just seems a bit like a cornball, but you can't say he had no air for music and he wasn't producing his ass off. He understood a sort of pop sensibility, and he took it, and he let that group ride it to commercial success that we never saw coming. The stuff that happened after with some of his solo stuff,

I know you're a fan of his first solo album, but it just got confusing to me where he was getting funded for it. I was like, is the money coming from? Where's it coming from? Like dark government? It felt like a money laundering scheme, but he was on his shit on that first album.

So part of what's funny to me is when I think of the sound of this record, outside of like ready or not, which is, to me, the only track on that record that really sounds like they spent a lot of money on, right? I don't hear it as a pop record as much. I do hear it very often because one thing White Clef was is a little bit of a tryhard, right? Like, ooh, I want to put one thing, one thing White Clef loves to do is make sure you know that he listens to white people music. Right.

Like he really wants to make sure that you understand that. That's sampling in you, right? Like, I just want to make sure that you understand that I'd be over there too. Like, I thought that it was still pretty squarely within a, like, very particular East Coast. sort of aesthetic that they were going for. It also has, for my money, the greatest interlude in the history of rap music, which is the Chinese restaurant that never stops being hilarious.

There was no way to see it coming. And I can't believe, like, who thought, who, Wyclef is, why Clef is skit guy? I will give him that. Like, if he just, all he did was tell jokes, it probably would have worked out a little better for him in the end. But to me, it's all about the comment. That Lauren Hill was such a supernova,

in this moment. Because look, she sang I on there. Like, she was a right. Like, this isn't, like, like she's not a legend in two gays like Pee-Wee Kirkland,

okay? Like, she is a rapper who could do a little bit of singing. But rapping, I felt like she could have been the greatest rapper of all time and she decided she wanted to keep doing that. She was perfect.

In every single way, and she had this interesting thing of rap is a very masculine genre, and she all, always sounded just like a rapper, but not like she was rapping like a man. You know what I mean? Like it was a feminine energy that still went through all of that. On top of the fact that she was bad and she was better at rapping than every single one of

them. Like she, nobody's ever carried the rest of them. I felt like quite like she carried everything on that. And just about always with verse two, like, because you know she was going to have to get it really high up there. So y'all would be cool with what was coming after that. She had an absolute irreducible confidence that bolstered her voice. so like you said, it's not masculine, but it's so confident.

I think Rod Diggott has that. MC Light had that. You stood at attention any time you heard their verse come on, right? And she had, on top of that, you know, she's young, she's gorgeous, she's confident, he can sing. I mean, this was very lamentable for a fan that she decided she didn't want to keep going with this for many reasons that are personal, right? it seemed like the sky was the limit for her. And this is someone who came out of a scene where, you know,

when Wycliffe, when they were making those early songs, no one cared about Buff, Boff, and Mona Lisa. They're competing with natural elements who no one even remembers, but I love natural elements who's a college rap group or a rap group that was on those college stations. And then beefing with Jay Rood's Damage very openly, right? And then all of a sudden they can't even get a conversation with the Fugees, right?

Fujis don't have to talk to anybody. Now Tupac's dissing them. Right. J-Roo's another dude that had an album come out this year, right? Mm-hmm. And again, the idea that someone like J-Rood of Damager could be famous. Yeah.

That kind of stops at this point, right? Like, after this point, it feels like you either had to go in, and I'll use it was written as the example, and call that a commercial lane for purposes of this discussion, or you had to go, the Rockers Records right, wait, right?

Like, you had to make a decision. You're trying to get yourself some money or not, which direction you're going to go in? And a dude like Jay Rood of Damager could just exist as J. Rood of Damager, and we would all know who he was off of a couple of tracks. Well, part of it, too, was that the media that covered hip-hop cared. So that first album, people discussed it as a potential classic. And so people paid attention.

Second album came out, nobody cares as much. It's like Jay with reasonable doubt. One of the interesting things about reasonable doubt and how it was unrecognized by so many people is that it didn't get reviewed until Dreamhampton snuck it in and attached it to the it was written review, right? So no one knew about it, no one knew to talk about it until they were told to know that. Those channels don't, they stop existing in that way and they serve commercial purposes. That hurt J-Rue, but also flat out. Some of these records started sounding a little bit stale. They weren't quite as good as the debuts.

There were several in this year specifically, right? But that one, you came out with playing yourself over the, Jay Roo comes out with playing yourself over the repurpose, sort of reimagined Junior Mafia beat. It was provocative because of what it was covering, but it wasn't a great record to me, right? He comes out with whatever is another record on there, which uses the same sample as Give Up the Goods.

To give up the Good sample, the way they flipped it was just a little bit better, and it was a better record, right? So, like, there was, me not the papers, is an incredible beat. And there's a remix to it. That's also incredible. But there were just a few highlights. And that was it.

It was a very forgettable album. It made me very sad because it kind of faded the way out there. Yeah. The ultimate in between on those two lanes that I was talking about, these guys, they got a career where every song that was good you heard on the radio. And if it didn't make it to the radio, it was not good. But this was the year.

The Lost Boys put out four monster singles on that record. record, right? The rap group with two dudes who I don't really, well, at least one, I don't really know what he'd do. Another one who just pop up and be loud every now and then. The DJ and the most unlikely like pop

rap maestro in Mr. Cheeks. Yeah. But them tracks is hard. Like for the most part, that stuff was banging. Yeah. I liked one of the ones that wasn't a single to get up and clap your hands. That was an incredible song. But they were wild because

people have to remember, people make fun of Staten Island and they talk about how the Wu came out of nowhere. When you're coming from South Side Queens, that might as well have been Staten Island to a lot of people in New York, right? It was way out there. So for them to come out of there and Lost Boys being a street crew as well as just their group name, they came and they bum rushed with a whole crew and they had serious ties to the street. And they had this authenticity, this incredible energy. And I think that the sum was graded in the talent. Like maybe Cheeks wasn't rapping his ass off on every song, but he was generating a feeling. That album was everywhere in New York. It almost reminds me of Onyx's first album where it's like, this came out of nowhere.

And I don't think people would believe you if you're like, yo, these were the biggest rappers in the world for half a second, right? Like, seriously, you couldn't go anywhere in New York without hearing this. music. And of course, the most comical bar of all time for me, you know, when he said, Shorty, want to be a lawyer. She said you want to be a lawyer. In other words. In other words, shorty studied law. Yes.

That song is, the narrative of Renee is preposterous. It is utterly ridiculous. There is no explanation how or why she got shot. Any of this. Like, they was just like, yo, we got to do something for these girls. I got an idea. Okay,

let's go. It also, I think, is an interesting record in explaining what a single could or could be that changed over years. Like, Easy MoB's got two of those big singles on that record, right? Like, the idea that a dude with his style has singles for you. This is, this, this, this,

it couldn't happen like that for much longer though. Yeah. Yeah, but he's laid a comeback, right? He did. He did get the lights camera action. That was a smash. He found, like, he is the most unlikely of all of this. Like he found himself a little bit, a bit of a lane because after Freaky Ty died,

they decided they couldn't beat the lost boys no more. I think that whatever they were, they could have continued. But that's how they felt. Okay. There we go. But hey, coming up next, we got more from the year 1996. Ever wanted to go to the NBA finals? Well, now's your chance, courtesy of fan duel.

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Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. All right, we are back with my man, Jason Engel. We're talking about rap in the year, 1996. To me, and I need to revisit this. I haven't done like a thorough revisit, but I've always said this over the years. I have always felt like the best record

that came out of this year was De La Sol Stakes is high. and the reason for it, on top of the fact that it is an incredibly produced record, it is also proven to be just a little bit prophetic, right? Like, hey, guys, here's where the game is going. If we don't do anything about it, it's going to get out of hand, and we're going to hate what happened,

and then that is exactly what happened. Phenomenal sound and record, man. You know, everybody talks about daylight, so I'm not going to say that they're forgotten group, and their albums not being on stream and played a little bit of a part, and the album's falling off people's radar because they just weren't played every day

the way everything else was. But I think somehow still a little bit unheralded, still a little bit underrated. I would say by black people, the white people who like to say they like rap, or who they love De La So. This is true. This is true.

But I mean, De Laa made three of the best albums I've ever heard in rap history, and people don't talk about them. And something about them reminds me of Outcast, which is to say, and I was talking with a friend about this, certain groups are unbidable. You cannot replicate them. MCs don't even try.

What they had was so their own, so out there, so unique, right? And so whenever I listen to this album, that's what I'm thinking to myself. Like, man, this is, like, nobody else could have made this album. Just like the first two. No one can have made these albums. Yeah, pause the news is there's one guy that sounds like that, right? And what's so dope about a pause,

is when he drops it in there, he'd be like, damn, why wouldn't I have thought of that? Right? Like, he's like, he's not smashing Adams here, but it's always the right line and the meter that he would typically use or when he drops in on the flow, the timing is so different

than just about anybody else that would be out there. Like, he was one of one. Then you had Dave in there with him, and Dave was kind of like, perfect compliment sort of situation. It did not feel, it didn't feel the same as it did with Tribe where there was a clear A and B.

Yeah. Right? I thought it was clear that Paz was the better rapper, but Dave served a, it felt like a different purpose. Yeah, it depended on the song and how I felt about them. And conceptually, I think they remain unrivaled, you know. I think about a song like, not on this time, but bitty's in a BK lounge.

But they would rap it about anything and everything, and it was compelling, it pulled you in, it made you laugh. Their skits were incredible. Dayline's a 101. I'm happy that they're kind of catching this swan song right now. I just saw the Tiny Desk performance and their new album out, had some songs on it. I really enjoyed.

Speaking of another great interlude on an album, because this is also, by the way, the last, this is the year before the interlude thing got out of hand, and everybody thought they were a comedian and they had to have like four or five of them, but that's the one I still need to find when they got that clip of that white man, rap, I don't like it.

I don't like it. like it. It's just in words talking. I reference that all the time, man. Same. Say, me and my partner, we've been, for years, we have been like, yo, we have got to get NT.com off the ground. Like, we got to make it happy. Because that's just all it was.

And then the problem is, NT.com is just podcast, the whole world. That's all it is. And like, that's what somebody needs to redo that. They really turn it. Yep. Don't like it. Bunch of them talking.

Just it is. They just talking. That's all it is. Twitter. The epitome. That's what we need. When they changed it to X, no,

Pottna, it was a name to sit here right in the tuck. Wait, no, you. Inbirds talking. Dotting.com.

Oh, my God. Oh, I have forgotten. Also, this was when the Helt of Skelter Nocturnal album came out. Love that album. Because this is the year before the boot camp click album that disappointed us all came out.

That went in the OGC to storm. Ooh, that was tough. That was tough. But the Helter Skels are Nocturnal, bang. Alta Skelternauterno is an incredible album. Operation Lockdown still gets played it to this day, probably weekly from me. John Price had one of the greatest reinventions ever

when he reemerged on the solo tip. And Rock Ness Monster is just an incredible voice. And I mean, I think bars from them all the time. And that was a group that once again, we said this before, and people act like it's crazy to say, when the movement was strong with boot camp, they were compared to the Wu-Tang,

and it was questionable in New York, who the better crew was. And then we saw who the better crew was, right? But the star power and the talent in that group, if you go back and listen to Nocturnal, you hear it very clearly. You got one of the dobes voices in rap, and you got a dude who's incredibly underrated

with a sense of humor who was just barring you to death. Who inspired us? whole generation rap. Sean Price's influence remains, even with the young kids coming up today, in a way that, like, an MF Doom does. And it shocked me.

But I think that speaks to the legitimacy and authenticity of his personality and his talent. And that music sounded like a New York that no longer exists. Like, I think you and I talked about this when I watched he got game not that long ago. And I would look at it. And it was like, I had been to New York a little bit in that time period, and I remember how that felt.

But I remember watching those shots of Coney Island in the basketball court and being like, Oh, okay, this is what the rap sounded like. Like when I first moved here, somebody told me, they were like, yeah, you're going to have them cold, rainy days, you throw on that mob deep infamous, and it's going to make sense.

But I also think records, sounded like a New York record, this is also the end of you being able to do that, and that just be what you had to do. Yeah, you're not the home team anymore for hip-hop after this year, really. And it sounds like Brooklyn for sure, and this is a conversation I had

when I was just back for a brief trip in New York. I had it with a close room. with you too. It's so wild because it's not just that this album sounds like Brooklyn, it sounds like New York. Like, truly, there are just no black people in Manhattan anymore. And Manhattan used to be teeming with black people. There's an era where a lot of people remember that even in Midtown House Kitchen, like there were lower east side, so many black people in Manhattan.

And I was back there, and it's like, yo, as you said, I think after 110, no. Right? Who stole the soul? right so it's a reflection not only of how the music change but how the city just totally changed yeah well like if you told people that the cage basketball courts at west four street that are famous for that right that's in the west village man if you know new york in in current terms and i'm telling you that they was hooping at the west village it took me forever to understand how that worked yeah yeah west village was was super duper hip-hop hang out too there was so many underground

sees all around the West Village every day. Yeah, and see, that's another thing about what New York was, that it is not also, was a place that people came to be rappers. And so you just had all these people around and like a scene built up. Like, it's hard to, scenes are hard to come by these days. And this is also kind of the end of like things coming out, not just out of your city, but specifically about a scene, something within that city, very often.

MC Light, I forgot, she put the Cold Rock a Party album out also this year too. Like, this is a crazy high level of volume. that was coming out. The Roots, so Illaduff Half-Life is my favorite Roots record. Like, it's one of those that the second it goes, like, as soon as you get in to respond, react, you're like, oh, this is different

because the first one was like the jazz joint, which was a very, really, really good record. But the same way I say on riding dirty, Bum B was like, I'm going to show you guys that I am colder than all of you. He and Black thought, like this was there in 1996. Black gets on and smokes, everything in front of him for like 75 minutes worth of music.

it's a sad album for me to look back on because Malik B and Mars are now passed, right? It had, where it hit, and Mars was one of the rappers on clones. Where it hit, man, it was Raised Sharp. I prefer the first album. It was a little, or I should say it's really the second album, right? But the first big album that they put out. Do you want more of I get chills when I listen to it? but I get chills when I listen to certain records off this too.

You're talking about a rapper who's functioning at such a high level. I love Black Thought. He still can cook up a verse that sounds better than almost anyone, right? I don't love this era of Black Thought where he comes and he's an expectation again. I loved it when he was almost, it's like a cutting edge author who no one has any expectations of and he can go in any direction he wants. Now he feels like an invited guest that you paid a real serious fee to and you know exactly, and he knows exactly what is expected of him.

And so he just spits these like 7,000 bars. But he was at his most unpredictable and whimsical back then. So those two albums for me are the best black father. Yeah. Like I felt like he was rapping in a way that when I'd heard that I had never heard anybody that rap like that. And like the way Biggie did a decent bit of this, but I don't think anybody was better at like changing the stresses on syllables

and pronunciations, like to make the bars fit the way that he wanted to and throw the other words in there, just wrecking shop. Like I thought about being Malik, I'd be like, y'all supposed to go after this? Again?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, look, thoughts in his own class. I thought, though, that Malik balanced him so well. And I really, there are times on the album before, this is where you can tell what Thoughts Evolution was. There are times you can't tell him apart. There are a couple songs. you can't tell when the one starts rapping after the other stops rapping,

that they were that connected on that album. And then suddenly it's darkly clear every record. Who's rapping when? Like thought just went to another galaxy. Yeah. Also this year, by the way, them grimy M.O. P.Cats drop. And, you know, DJ Premier, all producers have guys. They just love their voices.

And me and Primo probably have more disagreements about who is worthy of Primo beats that I would ever have ever with any producer, except for MOP. Yeah. Except like this. What do these guys do? They come from the most treacherous part of the city and basically they're going to rob you.

Yeah. Downtown Swinger was my joint, man. Wow. That's an incredible song. This is some of the hardest tracks have ever been produced. I don't understand how this caught on and how MOP, to me,

you want to talk about the group that just sounds totally Brooklyn and should have a list. limited audience. How did Annie Up become a joint that's persisted for decades in commercials, white people love it, punk is up, Annie Up is like, everyone's like, yo, play the song, where they're going to rob you? That's the answer. Yes. Yo, that's, my brother talked about this once. He said he was on a cruise and they played Andy Up, and he was like, it set the party off, but this doesn't make, because my brother's whole thing is that there's no greater example of

player hating than robbing people. Yeah, yeah. Right? Like, just the idea that's what you're going to do was like the ultimate example of straight up play of Hayton. But them having what is effectively a pop classic that has persisted for 25 years in change. That's not even this album, but it's 25 years in change. Idiot up kept that fool. Yeah. Kidnap that fool.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not even a primo beat. That's the other part. Like none of it makes sense, but they had a vibe. It was just a real energy. It was just a very ominous energy that did not,

somehow it did not feel gratuitous, but it should have been. To this day, rugged never smooth. It's a song that stays in my gym mix. For a long blaze with Jay-Z is one of my favorite Jay-Z versus two. That stays in my mixes when I do a cardio session. They just had high energy grimy.

It's like rewatching the Godfather or something. this seems real to me. I see myself here. I don't want to be like this in real life, but for this moment, I see myself as Michael Collillon, making some difficult decisions, killing some people.

Yo, where are you all Ghostface Iron Man? I think it's a slight step down, but I still love it. Ghost is, Ghost and MOP have something. It's so funny. I heard this rapper who I'm really enjoying these days named Earl Holden, and he was talking about Ghost in MOP,

and he said, Ghost and MOP were rappers who rapped at you, right? They're not rapping for you. They're rapping at you aggressively, and it works for them because of their cadence and their material and authenticity. And so Ghost always wins for me, always. But it was a slight step down for me,

like most of the albums released this year by Lumenes. So I felt like Iron Man was just a little too long, right? And it's also done, I don't know if you watched that Wu-Tang Doc, the Sasser Jenkins one, where they were talking about the beef over Rizzo putting out that one album that he just sold to fucking Shrelly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Rizza's point was, I never told them when an album was coming out. Like, they would just constantly make music and then one day Rizzo would put it all together and then boom, there was an album. And so for whatever reason, Riza saw really both Ghost and Ray as cats that needed each other

in order to get it done. And so the Ghostface album, the ghost face Iron Man feels like a bit of a continuation of only built from Cuban links if Ghostface is all over that one and then they throw Capadonna in this and so it's like okay there's like a couple tracks too long on there they put Winter Wars on there took it off the soundtrack for don't be a minute put it on there so you get the Capadonna victory tour but all that I got is you I remember when that album came out and my brother brought it home and was like I'm about to play for you the best one verse I think I have ever heard in my life

and he plays it, and it is the most heart-wrenching, evocative. Like, I did not fully understand the ghost face situation until that one, because that's when you realize, oh, this is actually tough talking, though it may be, all vulnerability all the time, just in a really weird sort of way. I've never understood how the woo got popular. I got to be honest with you. And I love them, but I do not understand how this material connects with such a large group, and it has to be about the energy.

Right, because I love it and it feels very specific. It is Hood Poetics. Daytona 500. Doing forever shit like pissing out the window on turnpipes, right? It was years ago. I have a literature background. You know, I was a professor of writing fiction and nonfiction for many years. And I've read a lot of literature, a lot of poetry.

I was reading a famous poet named Charles Simet, and he talked about pissing into a sink with a feeling of eternity. I said, brother, Charles Simic and Ghostface are lining up with the same idea, because that's how much of a poet ghost is on the hood tip instinctually, man. Like, man, he just caught me off guard. It shouldn't have made sense, and it always made sense to me. Yeah, and that is, again, the energy on every Ghostface track. It's just like he is all the way in here. It was also Rizza.

Jimmy Page is kind of like this in Rock. geniuses who don't exactly know what they're doing. Right? Like it all comes together in the end, but like if you really wanted them to try to explain it, that's probably not going to go down. Riz's ability to work all those movie clips in, the way the tracks would always be sequenced.

So what if he's got his machine set to the wrong settings and everything else? They would all just come together. And again, even this record, which is just a little bit too long, right it goes now to answer your question of what it was that made them so successful i will point to this when cambridge analytica was like people were first getting word on this and what cambridge analytical was doing was they were using like your facebook likes and everything else to know

what ads and what things to suggest to you that's when this idea was very new and one thing that was interesting about it was they felt they were capable of they could tell if you were gay even if you hadn't come out just based upon your online activity, right, which is create some dangerous stuff. But anyway, they said that the number one indicator that you were dealing with a straight man was fandom of the Wu-Tang Clan. It is the straightest, maleist music that has ever been made. And whether people like it or not, ain't much in this world more popular than straight men.

Think about this. After hearing a song where the hook was, watch these rap inwards get all up in your guts. Girls won at the t-shirts. Yeah. That's the only explanation for this is. It's just undiskeled masculinity. Yeah.

Yeah, Bremen with my cheesmo every step. Yeah. And hood poetry and machismo. I can't disagree with that. And about Riza, I'm thinking now about Bob Power, who we talked about, and when he was talking about Tribe and he's talking about Della, he was talking about the imperfections and hip-hop beats being where the funk comes from, that that's kind of what makes a great record great.

And there was this grime in all of the Rizza stuff that I don't know what to attribute to. First of all, you got attributed to his vision and singular genius as well. When he was in his bag, never had there been a producer who's been more profound of a producer. Never, not one of them, right? He's right there with everyone when he's in his bag. but also I gotta know what kind of dust he was smoked

you know I'm not gonna just say I think he was just smoking dust all the time but there might have been something about the dust that made him see like my homie had a he had a home my cousin had a home boy who used to listen to these records and he was smoked laced weed by he listened to him and he told my cousin

if you smoked a lace weed you hear the hidden beats and I said maybe this dude was on the same wavelength as risen when he was making it he could hear the And if Rizza stopped smoking dust, I normally wouldn't say this, but he should start again. I try not to pay much attention to the Rism music post when it mattered to me. He was coming out with rock songs with a group called Faulkner about New York City.

I don't know what that was about. There was just some really troubling thing that came out from his cousin the other day, where she was saying she went on tour with him at 17 and she was actually sleeping with Rizzo. No, that was a big story. Now, allegedly, she says that. But the more I learned about my heroes, the less I want to know. And then I just go back to the music. Let's light a Jay and listen to the music and stop thinking about them as people.

Yep, Akra Subpochanged Change. Where were you on the Def Squad Cats? Because we had a Red Man and a Keith Murray record dropped this year. I love that. Keith Murray Ignigma, I like that record a lot. It's directly tied to the fact that I had the tape in my car. But I like that one. And then Muddy Waters is a...

another, it's a banger guys. Yeah, yeah, you can't go wrong with death squad. I probably wasn't as high on death squad as some of my friends were. And Keith Murray was the ultimate of that for me. He sounded really good sometimes. The other times, he was a little too astrological, phenomenological, and numeralogical, and numerous. But, but, yo, there has never been a gullier dude who had access to a thesaurus. Keith Murray wasn't playing around. You know, like, you might hearing one of his rap records. He sounded like the halfway, but, yeah, he's like the halfway

between David Way his character on their living color and T.I. Yeah. And you're not really catching Keith Murray at fat beats. You might think that because of what he's right. But nah, you're catching him out in the street smoking a blunt, drinking too much fighting somebody, right?

Yeah, beating somebody with a bar stool because that's what he went down for, right? Yeah, yeah. But most beautifulest thing in this world is a wild single for somebody to have, right? You talk about that's an impossible single to imagine charting these days. And that was a hit. Yeah, just on the strength of how he sounds on the hook.

And I mean, that's an Eric Sermon. Eric Sermon somehow wildly underrated as a historical figure in rap, which is why every interview with Eric Sermon is him explaining to you all the things that Eric Sermon ever did in rap, which I normally find problematic, except I can't blame him because nobody else does it. Yeah, I have to say, the last few interviews I've heard from him, he was saying he passed on signing and producing for Nas, Big, and the Wu-Tang. Although I think it was specifically Ray Kwan.

Those are some big whips. He was busy. He was too big at the point I think he thought and didn't see the business. But the other thing that really blew my mind is taking nothing from his producing because he's a brilliant producer. And like you said, totally underrated. It's criminally underrated. I was surprised to hear him say on an interview.

that Harris Smith made a lot of the beats that we thought Eric Sermon did the first couple of albums. And that, in fact, their first album was just them telling someone in the studio what beats to make. Because they knew how it sounded in their heads, but they didn't know the equipment yet. And those are some knockers, right? Those are some incredible knockers. And they kind of ghost produced those. We could have a discussion a whole other day about how somehow EPMD has slipped through the cracks of the historical discourse in rap because they are, they are incredible, they were incredible. And then had this

breakup that I guess it felt contentious, but it never feels contentious when they talk. Now, I guess they've broken up and gotten back together enough times. But Eric Sermon kept going. That Parr Smith thing, never, he put out a record in 96. Don't, don't ask me if I've heard it, but it came out. With a, went solo on that ass, but it's still the same. I saw it coming. That's why I went solo. Suddenly his, his flow. aged overnight. It was like he was rapping the way Kumo D looked.

It just was old, bro. What was going on? Well, he's a person who needed a co-star. Yeah. Right? He needed, he was not enough.

I mean, Eric Sermon wasn't either, to be perfectly honest, he just, in that split that they had of the crew, Eric Sermon got a better package. Even though Paris got some good cats, like Paris got DOS FX. Right?

Like, it wasn't like Paris got nothing, but it just didn't go to say. Last one I'll get to, before we get out of here, I don't think we've ever talked about this one. I always wonder if hell on earth came out before the infamous, would people say they liked hell on earth more than the infamous? Because hell on earth, which I think comes out in one way in a very interesting time, which is Tupac is dead, but we still going to fire his ass up. We ain't forgot, you dead motherfucker, right? Like, drop a gentleman on there, but you go back and listen to hell on earth. And it also is very clear they had more money to record. Like it sounds cleaner, but it's still not.

Like, it's still a hard-ass record. Yeah. Havik was real comfortable, I think. He had found his own. First album is Havoc with other outside influences. This feels very much like he's in his element. And he just could rap, man. Pee, I think, was someone that was underappreciated in his heyday

because there were so many heavyweights who were solo, who were making noise. But the album sounds great. I think the infamous for my money is still a better record. It just feels like a giant record in a way that Helena doesn't feel giant. But it feels focused and it feels in its own way like a very dark, thematic album. It's a beautiful album in a way that a violent street album can be beautiful. Yeah, the infamous is definitely more cinematic. right like i can i think i can more readily see the scenes that are painted in the infamous

in a way that i can't quite capture off of hell on earth but it's it's that thing we're just like it's wild we're all better at what we do like i probably rap better on this record the beat i probably made better beats on this record but it ain't it's still not that record yeah drop a gym on them is one i run all the time still it sounds so sinister and look and got it off in time for Pock to hear it. It was just a little bit wild that they still put it on the album. There was plenty of time to jump off of that decision. Well, and everyone was playing a little bit pokey, pokey, left foot in, left foot out,

on whether or not they were going to just publicly dis Pop. They said, no, we are in it. They made L.A. L.A. too. They were like, hey, give us all the beef. We wanted all these little niggas wanted everything, right? I got to say, I got to say, man, you know, I have to do it. Dr. Octagon and big time two cool Keefe albums in 96. Yeah.

Had a song called The Industry is Wack. That's still one of the funniest songs that you've ever heard in your life. And every song on Dr. Octagon is hilarious. Got to promote my time. It has been so long since I've listened to Dr. Octagon that I had forgotten that it came out in the course of this year. And being 16 and listening to Dr. Ottergan was like, what the fuck is this? How is this real life?

Bo, I promise you. So I think that was the first album on DreamWork. and he got booked on Lala Ploos but then skipped it. Like that album was actually huge. You want to talk about an album, huge white people. When I went back to college after I dropped out the first time, people used to run up on me and start rapping cool key verses at me because they heard he was my cousin.

Charlie Brown and Stoopy, check out the group, like rapping in my face. There was a woman with dreads, a white woman with dreads who showed up to my college apartment, knocked on the porch door, and came and bought a weed to smoke me out so we could listen to Cool Keith together. I had to turn her away.

I said, this is gone too far. But his fans are real fans. And you know that got passion, the Weiss, Jeff Weiss, the rap critic. They just tweeted yesterday. A friend of my, Shamira sent it to me. He said, at 63 years old, Cool Keith is still making dope music. And brother, I've seen him touring. I've been on stage with him whenever he comes through my town.

And he is still rocking shows. And those fans still come out. They don't look quite as young or as good as well. I remember Mets 21, but they are as loyal. My favorite thing with you about this is, as you say, how totally unimpressed your family is with the idea of Cool Keith, your cousin showing up to stuff. Yeah, yeah, and that's no insult to him.

My mother is 14 brothers and sisters, and it's a group of Fallam and Brooklyn Street Players, Hustlers, that sort of thing. So there's a hierarchy in our family, and you got to understand back in the day, of course, in New York, We had LL Cool J posters on the wall, right? And then we had this ultra-magnetic funkier head up poster, and no one who came over to the crib knew who it was.

So it wasn't until I got into my, like, mid-20s. I started really listening to my cousin's music more and being like, you know what? This dude is brilliant and half crazy. And I fuck with him. His humility around my family is also incredibly impressive. Keith comes from the projects in the Bronx, man. He's a real street dude.

And that's what makes the space music and the scat music so much wilder. You know? So love to Keith, man. Love to keep. Well, you tapped on something interesting. And I think it's a great way to wrap this. And I think that 96 is a year where we start seeing the end of this truly being present, which is the broad definition of what it meant to be street, right?

Like, explaining to people, for example, that public enemy, it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. That's a street record. Like, street and gangster are not perfect synonyms. gangster is within the confines of what it meant to be street but what it meant to be street is all over the place in the eye like Q-tip being a dude that had these connections

but was also a bit of a nerd cat like there was room for that. The idea that the nerd acts white only exists in a world where white people are part of the equation, right? If it's all black people, then it's all black because all you know was black people. And so the industry at a time

at that time had a better reflection of that than we wound up getting down the line. And this year is something that show that kind of gets into what we're discussing there. Yeah. Hip hop is still in this year, Joyceian, right? It's a culture in discussion with itself. It's self-referential.

You have to be part of the end group to understand what the records mean, but it's finally starting to drift away and become music made by black people for an audience that isn't black with music that isn't black serving as a sample sources. And that, that gets a little

tricky. But you're, I think about the song of the last thing I would say, people tend to think the hood is just drug dealers and bullies. If it's all bullies, who's going to be bully? If it's all robbers, who's getting robbed? You know, if there's nobody who's a nerd, who's making all this music? Who's digging through the crates? You know, so that vision of the hood and of this idea that only people who were suburban

and integrated high schools were nerds is really bizarre to me. Sean Price is a nerd. He's a nerd that could beat you up, but he does graffiti. He can dance. he's like, yo, let me do some art. He's got a sense of humor in an encyclopedic recall of culture that he works into his lyrics for humor.

That's nerd shit. That's my man, Jason England. Check him out. Google him. Check out his work. You find him chronicler higher education, see some of this stuff at the Defector. My brother, I appreciate you for joining us here working on this series, man. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you for having me always, man. Appreciate you.

No problem, man. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this four days a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.