A Mix of Thoughts

When I saw that I had to purchase DJ Shadow’s “Entroducing…” for English 414 I was actually surprised. The only DJ Shadow song I had ever really heard was “Organ Donor” in high school when I went I started my hip-hop head music phase. I went back to listening to music from Eric. B and Rakim’s “Paid In Full” and EPMD, and while looking for music to download I wound up with DJ Shadow’s “Organ Donor “ on a mixed album I found online. Although there is a quite the year gap between “Paid in Full” and “Entroducing…” DJ Shadow had clearly stuck to the roots of  classic hip-hop. The song “Organ Donor” definitely makes me think about when I would was trying to learn how to break dance. I’d definitely say “Organ Donor” is my favorite song on the album, but that was probably because it made me think back to memories of high school I actually enjoyed. 

Aside from “Organ Donor”, a song that really stood out was “Why Hip Hop Sucks In 1996” with the only lyrics being “ it’s the money”. I’m not sure of why DJ Shadow would use those only lyrics in the song and title it “Why Hip Hop Sucks in 1996” unless he had good reason. I personally think that 1996 was an amazing year for hip hop in 1996. The “Score” by the Fugee’s is by far one of the greatest hip hop albums even today and “It Was Written” by Nas which was his second album to be released after “Illmatic” and Nas is considered to be one of the best hip hop artist today. Money has always been a part of hip hop as far as it’s content goes. One of my favorite songs “Paid in Full” by Eric B. and Rakim is all about getting paid and affording to have a great dinner with their girlfriend and this was a song that came out in 1987. The song itself reminded me a little of what west coast hip hop sounded like, which made me think that DJ Shadow might not have been happy with the state of west coast hip hop at the time, but even then 2Pac’s “All Eyes On Me” was released that year, everyone knows 2Pac was a monumental figure to hip hop and released excellent albums. This simply leaves me with accepting not knowing and just having to disagree with DJ Shadow because I loved the hip hop that came out in 1996 even if I didn’t hear it until years later.