Search - Various Artists :: Best of International Hip Hop

The Future of Hip Hop? Check This Out!

11/18/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Now, I may be showing my age, but I came up in NYC in the late '80s when, to my mind, Hip Hop was at its creative zenith. Every group had its own sound - Eric B & Rakim didn't sound like PE who didn't sound like De La, and so on - and more often than not they were talkin' loud and sayin' SOMETHING. To find that now you need to go underground with groups like Zion I. But some of the best is coming from foreign shores, and the top sounds are on The Best of International Hip-Hop. A friend of mine tipped me to this, and it blew me away! Sample Algeria's MBS - OK, they're chatting in Arabic, but you FEEL how these brothers have been wronged. Frustration transcends languages. And Croatia's Tram 11...think about it for a second - here's a country ripped apart by a decade of ethnic urban warfare, and you can here it in this song. It immediately reminded me of "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, only tougher. And Australia's Trey & Beats R Us is mellow, jazzy, funky. Perhaps more impressive is that it comes from an all-female Hip-Hop collective. Were only the birthplace of Hip Hop so progressive.... I admit, I was skeptical at first, but this is one of the best Hip Hop albums I've heard in a long time."