Black Moon – Enta Da Stage

RUGGED. The east coast BOOM BAP renaissance begins with this t right here. FEEL THA IMPAK!

Interesting that the OG test press hasn't been submitted. I own a copy but to be honest my experience of submissions is it's just a headache. Self righteous overly anal people pulling the submission apart for not dotting i's or crossing t's. I'll hopefully get around to it soon, with a few sharp intakes of breath. Dope album anyway!

I just got hold of a sealed copy that fits the criteria of the 1999 repress, but on heavy vinyl. It's quiet in places but no buzzing as mentioned in another post. I'm suprised it was never originally pressed on 2 xLp as it's over 50 mins long. An all time classic

I have repress with NRV 9101-02002-2 barcode, somebody knows what year is it?

They even sampled from cassettes.

Surely the precursor to 36 Chambers and is the turning point that took hip hop back home to New York when Snoop, Dre & Pac were running things in LA.

First of all the production on this is perfect, better than perfect.
It was obviously mostly made up of samples actually sampled from vinyl; it has that dusty lo-fi feel to the whole album.
The Beatminerz (Evil Dee especially) just excelled themselves with the most simple of beats.

Mostly consisting of old breakbeats with added hits, hard hitting beats, infectious basslines and the odd mid range sample melting it all together.
I can’t praise the production enough.
It sounds muddy, classically oldskool in the same vein that RZA’s production did on 36 Chambers. Its like a mix of early RZA production and Q-Tips beats for ATCQ.
Still maintain that jazzy, soul sound but with a dark edge.

Then of course with have the MC's, Buckshot is the main man here and takes responsibility for most of the album.
He has such an amazing flow, brilliant deep laid back voice (like Guru but not so monotone); featuring boastful and threatening raps all along the same thuggish lines but it doesn’t get boring.
He paints a picture of how real Brooklyn is, violence and robbery is nothing, but he sounds sincere, it’s hard to explain but it feels right.
5ft Accelerator is his lyrical partner, a more wild style, higher pitched voice and comes with some disturbing lyrics.

This is a perfect 10 out of 10 album, only Illmatic and 36 Chambers can compare, even Mobb Deeps 'The Infamous' pales in comparison.
You just don’t get hip hop like this at all anymore, rugged street hip hop, no RnB hooks, playa shit.

Track highlights....
How Many MC's
Who Got Da Props
Powaful Impack!
I Got Cha Opin
Slave

If you are a fan of hip hop you need this, especially if you like the classic 1993/1995 ages.
If you are a fan of Nas, Gang Starr, KRS-One, Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang, Biggie, Onyx, ATCQ etc, you must check this out.