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Kool G Rap-- His lisp is still crisp-- Possessing one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop, he blazed a trail for several rappers to follow, despite being relatively unknown by mainstream standards. He's kind of like Iggy Pop of the hip hop world-- he never sold a tremendous amount of records, but he maintains a cult following that won't quit, while scores of newcomers point to him as an influence.
The 2 disc collection starts off in the late-1980's, back when the Marley Marl-led "Juice Crew" was among the early hip-hop posses to achieve prominence, being signed to Prism Records, which eventually would become Cold Chillin'. Shortly afterwards, label head Ty Williams secured a distribution deal with Warner Bros.
"I'm Fly" and "It's a Demo" are sparse early tracks which makes listeners focus even more on Kool G's lyrics. At this time, he was somewhere between LL Cool J and Rakim, spouting whimsical braggadocio with occasional inflections of sober battle-ready aggression. His technique would be fine-tuned on his first album, "Road to the Riches", featuring the title cut, "Dope Car" (sampling Gary Numan), "Poison", and "Men at Work". Marley's 808-driven funk production is at it's best here. The first disc has the original album and a few bonus cuts including the early, non-album singles. The second disc has a great collection of rarities, including radio promos & interviews, as well as alternate takes, remixes & instrumentals which were previously only available on 12" maxi-singles during the original release of the album (the best of the bunch: an alternate take of Big Daddy Kane's "Raw" featuring Kool G. The collection has better than average liner notes, including commentaries from photographer George DuBose, Ty Williams and Kool G Rap himself. There are also lyrics printed for all the original songs.
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