10 Underrated Hip-Hop and R&B Albums Atmosphere’s Ant Thinks Everyone Should Own
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The post 10 Underrated Hip-Hop and R&B Albums Atmosphere’s Ant Thinks Everyone Should Own appeared first on Consequence.
For this special edition of our Crate Digging series, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop by chatting with Atmosphere’s Ant about 10 underrated hip-hop albums. Check out his picks below, and be sure to see our exclusive merch featuring our Hip-Hop 50 design at the Consequence Shop.
Coming out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Atmosphere producer Ant knows there’s a gigantic, purple elephant in the room when it comes to talking about the music of his hometown. “Prince is obviously going to be the main factor whenever you mention Minneapolis, it just goes without saying,” he tells Consequence over Zoom. “So it’s almost like why bother mentioning him? You know what I mean? But you have to, because it’s how it goes, right?”
Which is not to say he’s not a fan of the revolutionary artist (spoilers for his Crate Digging picks, he emphatically is), but rather that there’s a smattering of talented Minnesotans that not only influenced his own work, but the work of hip-hop artists across the globe. From the legendary producers Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam to Prince collaborator Morris Day, the northern state has plenty more to offer. Luckily, he’s here to shine a spotlight on a couple of these overlooked artists.
For good measure, Ant also throws in a few of his favorites from the elsewhere in the country, as he details the influence records like MC Shan’s Born to Be Wild or Smif-N-Wessun’s The Shining have had on his creative approach.
“It’s one of those records that I can skip around, and I’ll be inspired to make something pretty fast,” he says of the latter. “Obviously, I end up making something completely different, but I mean, it gets me in a mood if I’m not in the mood, you know?”
Check out all of his picks below for a selection of great-sounding, scratch-heavy, underrated hip-hop albums. Atmosphere is also currently on tour off the back of the recently released So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously. You can grab tickets to a show near you here. In addition, be sure to check out the exclusive Hip-Hop 50 merch available now at the Consequence Shop.
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The Time – The Time
My favorite band from Minneapolis, maybe besides Parliament-Funkadelic, is The Time. The Time’s first record, self-titled, is the one to me. I mean, pound-for-pound, Ice Cream Castles might be the best one, but the first one is the one with the splash, like most people’s music, you know? And the funny thing about that record, as far as I really understand it, is Prince did everything on there. He did all the parts, and then Morris Day came in and just re-did them or maybe wrote with him — but it wasn’t the whole band that did that first record, which is really amazing, and I didn’t find that out until a few years ago.
Cherrelle – Fragile
Anything by Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam I love, especially from that time period. And one of the records they had was Cherrelle, her first record called Fragile. Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam producing it is the only thing that really makes it Minneapolis, but it is a Minneapolis sound. One of the main songs on there is “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On.” And if you listen to it, it’s got this crazy synthesizer solo at the end — just insane. It was covered by Robert Palmer, and he made it famous, but to me, the Cherrelle joint is amazing. It’s just top notch.
The S.O.S. Band – Just the Way You Like It
This might be the Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis show, now that I think about it, but who cares? You have to [give them props], there’s no way around it, and Just the Way You Like It just happens to be kind of my favorite. They also did one song called “Just Be Good to Me,” which is very similar, and that’s on the album called Rise, but on Just the Way You Like, there’s three songs in a row that they produced and they’re just phenomenal. When I first heard them, when I was like 13 or 14, I was just mesmerized, and I still can be mesmerized by it. They used the 808 drum machine back when it wasn’t really that popular at that time … and the baselines are incredible.
It also just felt like that changed a lot of R& B stuff at the time. Like, people started using the 808 sounds more and more, and made it their sound too, but the original was The S.O.S. band, Terry Lewis, and Jimmy Jam. No two ways about it.
Prince – The Truth
And then I’ll take any Prince record, right? Seriously, any record. Obviously, Purple Rain is one of the best records ever made, so there’s no real reason to even talk about that, right? It’s kind of like The Beatles in that way, you know — who gives a shit, right?
But one record I would mention, he did one in the ’90s and it was like a promo record and it was called The Truth. I’m sure he’s rolling over in his grave, but thank God it’s been re-released, because I don’t think a lot of people knew about The Truth, which is basically an acoustic record. It’s just him and his acoustic guitar. I mean, he also has synthesizer sounds and weird animal sounds in the background on a couple of joints, and some interesting drumming sounds. It’s a fucking amazing record and some of the topics are great.
It was during the time when he had changed his name for a while, and so I think the industry tried to bury him, you know what I mean? And maybe people didn’t talk about [this record] much. They tried to make him sound crazy. The guy wasn’t crazy. If you listen to that record in specific, it’s fucking brilliant — And I’m glad I got to speak about it because I didn’t even know I had that much to say about it.
Kool G Rap and DJ Polo – Live and Let Die
Everybody loves Kool G Rap, especially his earlier songs, but this album is produced by Sir Jinx. Sir Jinx is one of my favorite producers of that time period because of his Bomb Squad kind of way of doing things, but he had a little more funk to it or something. He was really great at doing interludes, as well and putting records together. When I go back and listen to it now, I’m like, “Damn, it’s hardcore.” It’s so mean, but very intricate.
The way that things were done at that time, it’s pretty amazing. There was more work put into those records — as far as sequencing and structures and scratches and adding all these weird things — than most records now. And I’m totally not dissing records of now, I think the records now are amazing. It’s just interesting how times change, you know what I mean?
MC Shan – Born to Be Wild
Now, this is a Marly Marl-produced record — that’s enough to be said. Just very influential to everybody that does this. He’s obviously worked with Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, and all of the Juice Crew. But for me, this is the most complete record, as far as the beats and scratches go, where you could listen to it from beginning to end. To this day, I don’t think there’s anything really I have to skip on here.
Smif-N-Wessun – Dah Shinin’
This thing, at the time I knew it was good and I liked it a lot, but as time has gone by, this has become more of a masterpiece. It’s one of those records that I can skip around, and I’ll be inspired to make something pretty fast. Obviously, I end up making something completely different, but I mean, it gets me in a mood if I’m not in the mood, you know? Just to get me going and thinking about making hip-hop music. I don’t have to do it often, but when necessary, this Smif-N-Wessun record is amazing for that.
Pete Rock & CL Smooth – The Main Ingredient
Everybody loves Pete Rock. There’s no denying his greatness, but once again, this is the record that’s the best to me and I don’t think it’s talked about as much as some of his other amazing works. It’s just that this is the most complete, and it reinvigorated scratching in the song.
Usually, on a lot of these records, there’ll be scratching in the chorus or at the end or something like that, and that’s it, even at this time period. This record, though, is all over the place. They’re scratching, like, every eight bars or something. All the beats are great, and especially for the technology of the time, and it sounds so damn good. Like, how is that possible? It’s just so good.
Tuff Crew – Danger Zone
This was a big deal to me and a lot of my friends, but it didn’t make a big splash. Maybe, like a lot of the other records from that time period, it was because there was so many groundbreaking things. Hip-hop was not that old, and so there was groundbreaking things all the time. So, this probably just got over-missed.
There’s a handful of rappers on there, like four dudes, who all have distinctive voices. There’s even one dude that has like a a Chuck D thing going on, because, you know, Chuck D was the man. It’s a pretty intense record. How does it hold up today? It’s always hard to say, because I just hear it just like I heard it at the time. Like, I remember when I couldn’t even imagine doing anything close to this, you know what I mean?
X Clan – To the East, Blackwards
I love everything on here, every song on it is amazing. Brother J is one of the greatest voices ever to me. And this is just a powerful record. And at the time too, with the styles of samples they were using, it was just a gold mine.
10 Underrated Hip-Hop and R&B Albums Atmosphere’s Ant Thinks Everyone Should Own
Jonah Krueger
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