Check Your Head
Artist: Beastie Boys
Community Score: 7.71

Check Your Head brought the Beastie Boys crashing back into the charts and into public consciousness, but that was only partially due to the album itself -- much of its initial success was due to the cult audience that Paul's Boutique cultivated in the years since its initial flop release, a group of fans whose minds were so thoroughly blown by... Read More

Way 2 Fonky
Artist: DJ Quik
Community Score: 7.00

DJ Quik proved his mettle with "Jus Lyke Compton," a definitive bit of regional touting that proclaimed West Coast rap the style-setter and all others followers. Whether or not you bought the line, you were hooked by the rap. Nothing else on the disc matched this single's intensity and wit, but it helped him earn a second straight gold LP. ~ Ron... Read More

Xodus
Artist: X-Clan
Community Score: 10.00

More of the same is hardly a bad thing when considering X-Clan's second album. They're still jacking beats -- from Special Ed, D-Nice, and Main Source, for instance -- and they're still spreading their knowledge with righteous, if occasionally vague, verve. The most significant change in the group's sound is the decreased reliance upon... Read More

To the Extreme
Artist: Vanilla Ice
Community Score: 7.00

On the strength of the incessantly catchy single "Ice Ice Baby," To the Extreme was an enormous success, holding the number one slot for 16 weeks and selling over seven million copies in America. Apart from that single and a cover of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music," the album was unmemorable, with limp beats and tepid rhymes. ~ Stephen... Read More

Together Forever: Greatest Hits 1983-1991
Artist: Run-D.M.C.
Community Score: 7.00

For the most part, all of Run-D.M.C.'s most important singles and biggest hits are included on Together Forever: Greatest Hits 1983-1991. That alone makes the compilation a necessary purchase. However, that doesn't mean it's a perfectly assembled collection. Instead of presenting the singles in chronological order, the sequencing skips back and... Read More

Live From the Styleetron
Artist: Raw Fusion

When Money-B came out with his side project Raw Fusion, it was clear that the Digital Underground member wasn't trying to duplicate Underground's sound. Parts of Live from Styleetron are as quirky and eccentric as Underground, but while Underground was heavily influenced by the 1970s funk grooves of George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic,... Read More

Years of the 9, On the Blackhand Side
Artist: Professor X

A New York-based hip-hopper who preached a Black nationalist philosophy, Professor X was the founder of the Black Muslim organization known as the Blackwatch Committee and the leader of the group X-Clan. X's debut solo album, Years of the 9, on the Blackhand Side, contrasted sharply with the type of graphic, profane gangster rap that had become... Read More

Wake Your Daughter Up
Artist: No Face

A hardcore rap group that dabbled in new jack swing, No Face had an underground hit in 1990 with Wake Your Daughter Up. In contrast to social and political commentators like Ice-T, Public Enemy and KRS-One, No Face set out to not to educate or inform, but strictly to entertain. There's nothing groundbreaking or innovative about the group's... Read More

Latin Alliance
Artist: Latin Alliance
Community Score: 5.00
Kwamé the Boy Genius: Featuring a New Beginning
Artist: Kwamé
Community Score: 5.00

Kwamé's debut album, Kwamé the Boy Genius: Featuring a New Beginning, is an all-too-brief affair, clocking in at just over half an hour. Although it makes no explicit connection, it's a perfect fit with the daisy-age revolution being spearheaded by De la Soul around the same time. Positive vibes and offbeat humor abound, and even if producer... Read More

And Now, the Legacy Begins
Artist: Dream Warriors
Community Score: 4.00

Part of the slew of grand early-'90s hip-hop releases that avoided tough criminal posing for inventive, witty lyrics and arrangements, And Now the Legacy Begins is a hilarious, entertaining rollercoaster of a record. That the Warriors themselves were Canadian shows that north of the US border isn't all Rush tribute bands, as the duo plays around... Read More

Quik Is the Name
Artist: DJ Quik
Community Score: 8.28

The release of DJ Quik's debut album, Quik Is the Name, in 1991 begged the question: does rap really need yet another gangsta rapper? Indeed, by that time, rap had become saturated with numerous soundalike gangsta rappers -- most of whom weren't even a fraction as interesting as such pioneers of the style as Ice-T, N.W.A, and Schoolly D.... Read More