Innercity Griots Freestyle Fellowship SKU: BEWITH101LP Barcode: 4251804125369 25.00 £25.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Be With Records Released Date: 16th July 2021 Buying Format: 2LP Out of stock Back Order Add to your Wishlist Description Product Info Innercity Griots, the second album from Freestyle Fellowship, is perhaps *the* essential West Coast leftfield rap album of the early ’90s. Released in 1993 on 4th & Broadway, it’s a towering, progressive hip-hop masterpiece that expanded rap’s boundaries through lyrical elevation and production innovation. Their talent was ahead of everybody else by light years. This is pure b-boy jazz. Format Notes: 2021 double vinyl reissue, 140g vinyl, includes “Pure Thought” bonus track from the original CD version, original picture sleeve and printed inner sleeves based on the original one. The original single vinyl LP is now hideously scarce, and of course the sound suffers from not being officially released as a double. This Be With re-issue fixes both problems, and for completeness also includes “Pure Thought” from the CD version of the album. This incredible display of imaginative hip-hop sounds better than ever. Freestyle Fellowship were some of the earliest technically dazzling rappers to come out of California. Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., Aceyalone and Self Jupiter – along with DJ Kiilu – forged their famed lyrical dexterity in the ultra-competitive crucible of the Good Life Cafe. Founded in Leimert Park, South Central LA in December 1989, this earthy health-food store and cafe was where the city’s finest microphone fiends would gather to showcase their freestyle skills at the Thursday night open-mic. Innercity Griots has been described as the Rosetta Stone for rap styles. The group’s dense, vibrant wordplay and enviable interplay quickly earned the attention and respect of the city’s hip-hop underground. Frenetically trading acrobatic rhymes with agility and grace, the Fellowship used their voices as instruments like true virtuosos, spraying improvised raps like a Coltrane sax solo. With the bulk of the album’s production handled by The Earthquake Brothers, and Bambawar, Daddy-O, and Edman taking over for some of the tracks, Innercity Griots dances between organic and programmed music, largely forgoing sampling and instead built around live jazz jams. The likes of Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay” and Miles Davis’s “Black Comedy” were used more as templates for house band The Underground Railroad Band to spiral out from. As Pitchfork noted in their recent 9.0 review of this classic album, “Freestyle Fellowship embodied the style and spirit of jazz on a molecular level. They shared the effortless cool and tough countenance of the great bebop players from the ’50s without verging into jazz-rap parody. Their innate jazziness felt tangible and hard-earned”. The unusual approach to the music was matched by the Fellowship’s lyrics. Eschewing the tired rap tropes of the time, this multifaceted album instead explores their ruminations on greed and homelessness, weed, sex, survival, insecurity and tribalism. Remastered by Simon Francis for double vinyl and cut by Pete Norman, we hope this long-overdue re-issue of Innercity Griots satisfies the legions of fans that have since been bewitched by the majesty of this record. It should also introduce some new listeners to yet another overlooked classic. Mykah 9’s beautiful and moving “Park Bench People” is one of Innercity Griots’ most beloved and unique tracks, something that wouldn’t feel out of place on a traditional vocal soul-jazz record. Arguably as skilled a singer as he is a rapper, Mykah 9 weaves a downbeat tale of the homeless in Leimert Park and across LA, channeled into stream-of-consciousness scats and whispers, bellows and moans. Just sensational. The strung-out “Heavyweights” reveals the Fellowship at their most adversarial. They bring plenty of back-up to this rowdy posse cut, perfectly distilling the uproarious intensity of a cutthroat MC battle. The album closes with the patchwork rap kaleidoscope of “Respect Due” and of course, for the sake of completeness, there’s also “Pure Thought” from the CD release, a stunning track full of elegant fireworks and a brilliant sample of Billy Cobham’s “Stratus”. Amazing. The Fellowship weren’t all that concerned with following industry trends and 4th & Broadway struggled to market the group and get airplay. Overshadowed by the hype around fellow ’93 rap classics (Wu-Tang, Snoop, Tribe) the group never got the wider recognition that they deserved at the time. In West African tradition a griot is a repository of vital history, sharing stories and wisdom with each generation by setting words to music. Over the past three decades, Innercity Griots has been ushered from rapper to rapper and from fan to fan as a rite of passage. As both oral history and foundational rap music, it will, indeed, outlast us all. Aceyalone was right. Remastered by Simon Francis for double vinyl and cut by Pete Norman, we hope this long-overdue reissue satisfies the legions of fans that have since been bewitched by the majesty of this record. It should also introduce some new listeners to yet another overlooked classic. Artist Freestyle Fellowship Genre Rap / Hip Hop Label Be With Records Buying Options 2LP Format 2LP Condition New Country UK Track Listings Blood (1:08) Bullies Of The Block (4:55) Everything’s Everything (3:47) Shammy’s (4:16) Heat Mizer (1:08) Six Tray (4:39) Danger (3:58) Inner City Boundaries (4:39) Bomb Zombies (1:06) Cornbread (4:21) Way Cool (4:22) Hot Potato (4:30) Mary (3:45) Park Bench People (4:59) Heavyweights (6:11) Tolerate (1:01) Respect Due (3:53) Pure Thought (3:14) Share this On Facebook On Twitter Via Email More from Rap / Hip Hop View Product Quick View Knxwledge 1988 Rap / Hip Hop | Stones Throw | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 8th April 2022 £25.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Knxwledge 1988 £25.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Stones Throw SKU: STH2409-5LP Formats: 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 8th April 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Wu-Tang Clan Enter the 36 Chambers – National Album Day 2022 Rap / Hip Hop | Sony | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 14th October 2022 £25.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Wu-Tang Clan Enter the 36 Chambers – National Album Day 2022 £25.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Sony SKU: 19658720531 Formats: 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 14th October 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Nas Nasir Rap / Hip Hop | Virgin EMI | 1LP, Gatefold Sleeve Released 3rd January 2019 £22.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Nas Nasir £22.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Virgin EMI SKU: 6781674 Formats: 1LP, Gatefold Sleeve Released Date: 3rd January 2019 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Joey Bada$$ 1999 Rap / Hip Hop | Pro Era Records | 1LP Released 25th November 2022 £26.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Joey Bada$$ 1999 £26.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Pro Era Records SKU: ERE844 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 25th November 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Blackbear Digital Druglord Rap / Hip Hop | Polydor | 1LP Released 10th November 2017 £18.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Blackbear Digital Druglord £18.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Polydor SKU: 5791594 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 10th November 2017 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Dr Dre 2001 (Instrumental) Rap / Hip Hop | UMC | 180g, 2LP Released 15th November 2019 £24.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Dr Dre 2001 (Instrumental) £24.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: UMC SKU: 7779419 Formats: 180g, 2LP Released Date: 15th November 2019 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Jay Z In My Lifetime Vol. 1 Rap / Hip Hop | UMC | 180g, 2LP Released 30th May 2018 £26.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Jay Z In My Lifetime Vol. 1 £26.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: UMC SKU: 5363921 Formats: 180g, 2LP Released Date: 30th May 2018 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Future Future Rap / Hip Hop | Epic | 2LP Released 12th January 2018 £21.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Future Future £21.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Epic SKU: 88985480931 Formats: 2LP Released Date: 12th January 2018 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Run The Jewels RTJ3 Rap / Hip Hop | Seeker Music | 2LP, Coloured Vinyl, Gatefold Sleeve Released 29th April 2022 £29.00 - £30.00 Select options Run The Jewels RTJ3 £29.00 - £30.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Seeker Music Formats: 2LP, Coloured Vinyl, Gatefold Sleeve Released Date: 29th April 2022 Read More Select options View Product Quick View Ice Cube Death Certificate Rap / Hip Hop | Back To Black | 180g, 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 30th March 2015 £18.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Ice Cube Death Certificate £18.00 Genre: Rap / Hip Hop Label: Back To Black SKU: 4712803 Formats: 180g, 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 30th March 2015 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders See more in Rap / Hip Hop Start again
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