1990: "Murder Rap", Above the Law

Now we come to a group that I sincerely believe to be one of the all time great first wave gangsta rap ensembles, and possibly the most underrated of the 90s. First of all, there is a very good case to be made that the G-funk sound made famous by Dr. Dre's The Chronic had already had the seed planted two years earlier with ATL's debut, Livin' Like Hustlers. Dre was assistant producer (with ATL's Cold 187um) and the album was issued on fellow N.W.A. alum Eazy E's Ruthless Records, so there is always the question of which producer had the most influence over the album's sound. Either way, even assuming Dre was the real mastermind this record nonetheless marks a stripped down, funk laden departure from his work with N.W.A., retaining the heavy beats but otherwise holding the samples to just one or two per track, and occasionally having live musicians recreate elements of a sample's instrumentation.

But regardless of whether ATL influenced a single other rapper or producer, the consistency and energy of their work is worth repeat dips to the well. Cold 187um's calm, steely delivery was fairly unique with his laid back style and penchant for rhyming words during any part of a line - beginning, middle or end:

When I sit down and write and recite for the mic I hold
Make sure my beats are loud, and bold, and Cold
187, that is my name, makin it simple and plain
Here to rearrange and change
The things that I didn't do in the past
Don't be surprised when you got a shotgun up your ass

None of ATL's trio of rappers - Cold 187um, KMG or Go Mack - were particularly gifted wordsmiths, but each had a gift for entertaining, crowd pleasing tales from the hood. Lyrically they weren't pioneers, but they immersed themselves in the gangsta narrative of the time and chewed the fuck out of the scenery with sincere enthusiasm. Livin' Like Hustlers would not turn out to be their greatest album - primarily because side two, where all the pimp tracks were concentrated, didn't quite live up to the brilliance of the gangsta tracks on side one - but it was a hell of a start.