Freestyle Fellowship Innercity Griots CD

Freestyle Fellowship: Mikah Nine, Aceyalone, MtulazajI, PeAce, Self Jupiter (rap vocals).
The Earthquake Brothers: Mathmattiks (rap vocals, DJ); The Jamm Messenger D, The Mighty O-Roc (rap vocals); DJ Kiilu (DJ).
The Underground Railroad Band: Cockney "O" Dire, Archie, Volume 10, Spoon (rap vocals); Marvin McDaniel (acoustic guitar); Rodney Millon (guitar); Randall Willis (flute, saxophone); Jon Williams (trumpet); Tom Ralls (trombone); Onaje Murray (vibraphone); Christy Smith (acoustic & electric bass); Kevin O'Neal (acoustic bass); Robert Harris, Alfred Threats (bass); JMD (bass, drums, tympani, percussion); Don Littleton (percussion).
Producers: The Earthquake Brothers, Freestyle Fellowship, Bambawar, Daddy-O, Edman.
Engineers: Matt Hyde, Rich "Crash" Herrera, Dawud, Daddy-O.
Recorded at Sonora Studios, Summa Studio, and Crystal Recording, Los Angeles, California and Studiodad Recording, Brooklyn, New York.
Contains 9 samples, including "F-Encounter" (Bootsie Collins/R. Ford/R.L. Evans/George Clinton Jr.), "It's A Musical" (C. Small/Bootsie Collins/George Clinton Jr.), "Beaux J. Poo Boo" and "The Lovers" (as recorded by Les McCann) and "Tenor Song" (Dizzy Gillepie).
Freestyle Fellowship emerged on the L.A. rap scene during the early '90s. Given the chance to hone its skills at a health-food store's open-mic nights, the group quickly earned the attention and respect of the city's hip-hop underground. Their second album, 1993's Inner City Griots, is the only completely collaborative album released during the group's career. Surprisingly, each MC (Mikah Nine, Jupiter, Peace, and Aceyalone) seems fully matured at this early stage. On Inner City Griots, the production is improved to match the group's vibrant, dexterous wordplay. Swapping rhymes with agility and grace, the Fellowship is a rap tag team par excellence. At times, the lyrics are so dense and the delivery so quick that the words are practically indecipherable. Yet the rappers are just as adept at slowing down the pace without losing a bit of their lyrical energy or creativity.
Unrestricted by tired rap themes, the Fellowship strikes at a range of subjects. The abrasive opening one-two of "Blood" and "Bullies of the Block" might throw listeners off guard but as "Everything's Everything" opens, they provide assurances that "It's all right y'all." The guns are dropped and microphones prevail. Inner City Griots (a griot is an African storyteller) takes on Aceyalone's twisted nursery rhyme "Cornbread," the positive vibes of "Inner City Boundaries," the locker-room machismo of "Shammy's" (an inevitable ode to the ladies), and "Way Cool," a tale of serial killing horror. On "Park Bench People," the Freestyle Fellowship even asks whether rap music is big enough to take in a sung rumination on homelessness. With live instrumentation provided by the Underground Railroad (whose members appear throughout the album), the song stretches into a section reminiscent of '70s Stevie Wonder. Like all great groups that preceded it, the Fellowship was simply testing the limits of hip-hop and its own capabilities on this multifaceted collection. ~ Nathan Bush
If success were measured in terms of influence rather than units sold, INNERCITY GRIOTS would truly be ghetto platinum. Not only did this collective of the Los Angeles underground's finest take the art of free-style to a new plateau of complexity, but their signature sound of double-time flows and jazz-inflected harmonies foreshadowed an entire generation of Midwestern & southern rappers in the "Bone Thugz N Harmony" mold. The album's first cut "Blood" acts as a quick introduction to their distinctive style. They shift between vocalese and scat, straightforward battle rhymes and polyrhythmic cascades of internal rhyme schemes that can only be described as a capella drum & bass (before either the sound or the term had risen from the London underground to touch U.S. shores).
Although backed by mostly solid pEntertainment Weekly (7/23/93, p.61) - "...Here's some L.A. rap that doesn't reek of post-riot jargon or empty gangsta threats. These four L.A. bohos use fluid rhymes and funky jazz jams to create some of the best hip-hop vibes since Boogie Down Productions' `Criminal Minded'..." - Rating: A-
Q (7/93, p.88) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Griot tradition involves a bush-troubadour allowed free rein to criticize...The application of the term here to a South Central LA rap crew is appropriate...[the album falls] outside the genre's attitudinal poles of gangstas and New Age black hippies..."
The Source (3/93, p.79) - 3.5 Stars - Very Good - "...an innovative step in the `next' direction...The best thing about this group is that they dare to be different. They provide rap with a new perspective..."