NFL
By: Joe Cardoso
The year 1994 was a good one for hip-hop as the Golden Age was in full swing and emcees from all over were dropping heat and raising the bar with each release. A kid from Queensbrige by the name of Nas was the end-all, be-all of the rap world, grabbing the often-sot after 5 mic rating from The Source which at the time was the bible of anything hip-hop. If the Source said it was wack there was no way you got my money or any hip-hop fan. While Nas earned all the praise he got at the time another cat from out in Brooklyn burst on the scene with the backing of heavy-weight production and producers O.C. gave us “Word…Life” and it was and still is AMAZING. I first heard of him on a song called “Fudge Pudge” with Organized Konfusion and off the break his flow and wordplay was nice so I figured we would hear from him again real soon. Nas was chill and easy on the mic while O.C. was in your face and his voice demanded attention. One fun fact about his debut was that the executive producer was MC Serech of 3rd Bass who also had his hands all over Illmatic, talk about a small world.
Word…Life had a classic 90’s sound with a mix of soul samples and jazz both a perfect match for how O.C. raps. When talking about standout tracks from his debut I will always start with “Time’s Up” and the reasons are many and quite simple the beat is BANGING and from the jump, he attacks it and puts fake emcees on notice. You can not step into this thing called hip-hop being fake and coming with basic rhymes. His second verse is embedded in my mind still in December of 2023. It was bars of fire.
“Your Persona’s drama that you acquired in high school is acting class/Your whole aura is plexiglass/What’s-her-face told me you shot this kid last week in the park/That’s a lie: you was in church with your moms.”
And in today’s age where what you say is so low on the important scale, he roasts people with this heater.
“Of course, we got to pay rent, so money connects/But, uh I’d rather be broke and have a whole lot of respect/it’s the principle of it, I get a rush when I bust some dope lines I wrote/That maybe somebody’ll quote.”
This harks back to a time when ya pen game had to be wicked or you would be shown the door quickly. And the conviction with which he says his bars just gets any real hip-hop head hype. I can not tell you how many times rolling up to a basketball court this was booming in my ears. And the whole album is like this as if he knew this is my shot and I will not waste it with trash music. I think about songs like “Point O Views”, the title song, and “Constables” which all the way back in 1994 speaks about the racist police and how they treat people of color. I also love “No Main Topic” That beat is a neck-snapper as is most of the entire body of work. He went on to release “Jewelz” in 1997 along with 12 more albums and his commitment to being true to the genre has not gone away at all. He also did not let another emcee outshine him as heard on “Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers” his verse requires you to rewind and catch all the flavor.
As we continue to celebrate hip-hop 50 I couldn’t let one of the best emcees of the golden era get passed out and not talked about. He may not have had the commercial success some others need, but if we are talking about putting pen to paper and dropping gems I would put O.C. up with anyone. His debut is an underrated classic period. If you have no idea about 90’s hip-hop I suggest you grab a solid set of headphones and swing on over to YouTube.
