On surprising new albums, '80s trailblazers LL Cool J and MC Lyte sound thrillingly revitalized, thanks to sharp production choices and a willingness to bend their signature styles toward the moment.
, one of rap’s most elemental groups, had to start from scratch. After elevating hip-hop in the late 1980s and ‘90s with a four-album run that rivals any in the history of the genre, the trio found itself snake-bitten by its own inventiveness — specifically its copious use of samples as inlays in a fanciful mosaic, which swept it into protracted legal battles that kept the music inaccessible well into the post-Napster digital age.
Selflessly making something cool or new or fun or better happen in the autumn of one’s artistry has been a challenge for many of De La’s golden-age peers. Rummage through the late-career work of artists like Public Enemy, Ice Cube and KRS-One, and you will feel a pretty dramatic drop-off from the punchy provocations of their groundbreaking days.
Lyte made the album with her pastor, the Grammy-winning producer Warryn Campbell, who has existed at the intersection of gospel and rap his entire career, and together they bring her mission-minded music to a devotional place. Campbell ushers her toward reflection with beats that jump across time, from boom-bap to jazz rap with soul sampling and choir direction, and she struts through each with a matter-of-fact delivery that suggests fortitude.
Both LL and Lyte are anchored by the same ideals on their new albums: faith and activism. Across the two records, there is spirited music of praise and protest grounding the comebacks..” “Nucleus of the culture, so he is African sculpture / Carved by the gods and clappin’ at all these vultures,” LL raps, drawing a line between his stature and the responsibility that comes with it.
For each artist, thinking of themselves and of rap as vessels for some kind of higher power seems key to their renewed focus. It’s right there in the title of the LL album —. The cover art has the phrase that acronym represents, “frequencies of real creative energy,” scrawled in squiggly lines that imitate wavelengths. In activating those frequencies, MC Lyte and LL Cool J are able to draw upon the ever-elusive, the flow that pours out of all great hip-hop, no matter the era.
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