> >
Gangsta & Hardcore |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Pitbull
|
|
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: £4.26
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Eminem
Any lingering doubts as to the depth of Eminem's skills, or his potential for raw-yet-compelling honesty, are dispelled on The Eminem Show's first track. Armed with a quicksilver flow and a thundering rhythm track (the record was exec-produced by long-time mentor/partner Dr Dre, "White America" finds Eminem ferociously mauling the hand that feeds him, lambasting his critics, the industry and the racism that, in many ways, helped make Marshall Mathers more than just another rapper. "Let's do the math," Em sneers, "If I was black I would have sold half….I could be one of your kids/ little Eric looks just like this." After the bombast of The Marshall Mather...
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £2.69
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Dr. Dre
How to follow the phenomenally-successful The Chronic album must have caused superstar rap producer Dr Dre more than a few sleepless nights. Five years on, for 2001 he's gathered a plethora of prime, new rap talent around him, including his prodigy-of-the-moment, Eminem, and Xzibit (who duet on boombastic anthem "What's The Difference?"); and is reunited with former compadres Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and MC Ren. While the lyrical preoccupations remain the same--sex, sess (marijuana), girls, guns and cars--the predictably flawless production has been cranked up way beyond the G-Funk formula that found him fame. "Still D.R.E." is driven by the persistent pluck of a ...
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Eminem
Guess who’s back? Yep, five years on from Encore, and after successfully battling a lengthy prescription-pill addiction, Slim Shady has returned with a new album. Produced by long-time collaborator Dr. Dre, Eminem once again wears his heart on his sleeve, namedropping a slew of prescription drugs and describing their dire effects in no uncertain terms. Opening cuts "3am", "My Mom" (about how he turned into a pill junky like his mum), "Insane" (about paedophilia) and the quirky "Bagpipes From Baghdad" see Em firing on all cylinders, combining disturbing imagery and wry humour over solid (if slightly less-than-fresh) beats from Dre. The second half of the rec...
|
|
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: £0.98
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Wu-Tang Clan
This debut revolutionized hip-hop (and launched half a dozen solo careers), as much for The RZA's raw barrage of off-kilter, off-key loops and sound effects as for its elliptically violent lyrics. Martial arts--at least as they appear in kung fu movies--are the Wu-Tang Clan's favorite metaphor, but they're also the organizing principle of the group, a crowd of eight rappers, each with his own way-out-there "fighting style." They created their own little self-contained culture, with its own symbols and shifting identities, and let listeners figure it out for themselves. Unless you're willing to immerse yourself in its world, it can be baffling and a little dry, but its agg...
|
|
List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £3.64
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Nas
Nasir Jones made this debut album at the age of 20, already armed with the calm perceptiveness and been-there-done-that attitude of a much older ghetto vet, though sometimes his inner callow youth shows itself. Illmatic is a look back at a life spent in the culture of the projects, acknowledging joy as much as pain and taking note of violence as a fact of his environment rather than a focus of his life. It's enlivened by Nas's kicky, deep-threaded multiple rhymes--you can tell he grew up listening to Mr. Magic's rap show and internalising the secrets of everybody's flow--and by tracks from a bunch of all-stars, including the Large Professor, DJ Premier, and, most m...
|
|
List Price: £4.99
Our Price: £2.74
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Eminem
|
|
List Price: £13.99
Our Price: £1.64
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Eminem
His second album finds Eminem struggling to contain the pressures of success. And he's dealing it with it disgracefully. The Detroit rapper's multiple identities are more mixed up than ever, with Marshall Mathers fighting for prominence against his alter egos: Eminem, Slim Shady, Kenneth Kaniff and his public image. Don't be fooled by the album title: apart from the eponymous "Marshall Mathers" (which runs the lyrical gamut from maudlin to maniacal) you won't learn too much about "the real Slim Shady" here. As fiction bleeds into reality, Eminem aggravates the wound to increase the flow. The Dr Dre/Mel-Man productions on this record don't have the slap-happy bounce of tho...
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £2.88
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
2Pac
An indispensable and definitive collection 2Pac--Greatest Hits showcases the passionate genius of the late rapper. The album's non-chronological sequence highlights the contradictory impulses that made Tupac's music so commanding. The 21 well-loved "hits" some slightly re-edited for legal reasons, are accompanied by four previously unheard songs. Of the new material, the raw-sounding "God Bless the Dead" has been the subject of the most speculation, owing to its subject matter: a eulogising of the late Notorious B.I.G.--a mysterious feat, since Tupac was killed six months before Biggie. And, making its first proper appearance on a Tupac album, the B-side "Hit 'Em U...
|
|
List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £10.95
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Artist:
Eminem
On The Slim Shady LP, Eminem wants it all. He is conflicted, you see; the world has treated him badly, and he wants to respond in kind. But he isn't a straight-up gangsta--this is, after all, the first release on Dr. Dre's Aftermath Records, his post-Death Row-era venture--and Eminem (born Marshall Mathers) doesn't really want anyone to follow in his footsteps, which leads to some interesting contradictions on this album. In the first single, "My Name Is", he's self-deprecating, rapping about his poor upbringing and his hairy palms. But on the very next song, "Guilty Conscience", he plays the devil to Dr. Dre's angel--that is, until Eminem brings up an incident fro...
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £0.99
|
|
|
|
|
