On their final album, Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi rekindle a chemistry that endeared them to hip-hop fans worldwide. Filled with exploratory instrumental beds, creative samples, supple rhyming, and serious knock, it passes the headphone and car stereo test. “Kids…” is like a rap nerd’s fever dream, Andre 3000 and Q-Tip slaying bars. Phife—who passed away in March 2016—is the album’s scion, his roughneck style and biting humor shining through on “Black Spasmodic” and “Whateva Will Be.” “We the People,” “The Donald,” and “The Killing Season” (featuring an uncredited Kanye West) show ATCQ’s ability to move minds as well as butts. We got it from Here—Thank You 4 your service is not a wake or a comeback—it’s an extended visit with a long-missed friend, and a mic-dropping reminder of Tribe’s importance and influence.

Fear of a Black Planet is the third studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released on April 10, 1990, by Def Jam Recordings and Columbia Records. It was produced by the group's production team The Bomb Squad, who sought to expand on the dense, sample-layered sound of Public Enemy's previous album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988). Having fulfilled their initial creative ambitions with that album, Public Enemy pursued a different direction and aspired to create what the group's lead rapper Chuck D called "a deep, complex album". Their songwriting was partly inspired by the controversy with member Professor Griff and his dismissal from the group in 1989.

dead prez may have been slightly ahead of their time during their golden years, but that is definitely meant as a compliment. Sermonizing Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the benefits of a healthy and just lifestyle during the height of the Bad Boy/Roc-A-Fella era of nihilistic excess in the late ‘90s, they also signed to a major label (Loud / Columbia) despite leaning much more towards the burgeoning indie aesthetics of the day. But this was a good thing – using major label muscle to wake up righteous hip-hop fans who might have fallen asleep at the wheel.
The group itself – consisting of MCs stic.man and M-1, who produced or co-produced most of the duo’s music – was formed in Tallahassee, Florida in the early 1990s (M-1 originally hailed from Brooklyn). By later that decade, the duo had started making significant waves, having their music heard on the soundtracks to “Soul In The Hole” and “Slam,” as well as appearing on albums by Big Pun and The Beatnuts.
By 1998, they released their first official single, the serious, stark “Police State,” on Loud, appropriately brought to the label by Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian. After building a solid rep over the next two years with fiery live performances, in 2000 they unleashed their debut album, Let’s Get Free. The album was a welcome return to provocative and often radically political rhetoric that hearkened back to hip-hop forebears including The Coup, Public Enemy and KRS-One (as well as poetic descendants like the Last Poets and Watts Prophets).
Let’s Get Free was critically acclaimed and benefited from multiple singles, including the infectious, thick analog drive of “Hip-Hop” (which became the de facto theme song for “Chappelle’s Show”); “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop,” with a remix co-produced by a young Kanye West; “Mind Sex” (with Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets); and the poignant “I’m An African.”
But the singles weren’t the only worthy songs, as just about every cut here has deeper meaning than most full albums by their early 2000s peers. Highlights: the thought-provoking, anti-drug album opener “Wolves”; “We Want Freedom” (co-produced by frequent collaborator Hedrush); “They Schools” and “Propaganda” (co-produced by Lord Jamar, one of five songs he assisted on).
All in all, this is one of the more underrated and possibly Top 5 fully-realized political hip-hop albums of all time. If you don’t agree with the previous sentence, give Let’s Get Free another listen… you might be surprised at how well it has held up over the years.

Genre: R&B
Sub Genre: Underground / Alt Rap
Engineer: Mark \"Spliffler\" Pistel
Studio / Live: Studio
Stereo: Stereo
Format: Performer

Dagmar Krause，1950年6月4日出生于德国汉堡，14岁便开始了她的歌手生涯，曾先后加入过Slapp Happy, Henry Cow和Art Bears等实验先锋乐团。也曾演绎过Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill和Hanns Eisler的音乐作品。她的嗓音迷离特出，别具风情，为她经历的乐队与个人作品打上了鲜明的烙印。
在这张专辑中Dagmar Krause用德英双语演绎了德国乐人Hans Eisler的作品。
It seems odd to consider the work of Dagmar Krause as specifically rock, mainly due to her superb talent singing non-rock popular music. It is because of her association with German progressive rockers Slapp Happy, and British avant-garde prog rockers Henry Cow and the Art Bears that Krause becomes a suitable subject for inclusion in guides to rock & roll. And, ultimately, that's a good thing, because talent as formidable as hers should not go unheard, nor should it be relegated to some arcane status ostensibly beyond the interests of the "average" rock fan. Simply, Dagmar Krause is a great singer, and you'd be wise to own some of her recordings. A native of Hamburg, Germany, Krause began her professional career at 14 as a nightclub singer in the Reeperbahn sex district (made infamous by the wanton exploits of the pre-fame Beatles). At the time, Hamburg, along with numerous sex joints and prostitution, had a thriving avant-garde arts scene that attracted numerous European musicians interested in pursuing aesthetic freedom and musical experimentation. It was here she met Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad and formed Slapp Happy.
Radical in both music and politics, the band relocated to London in the early '70s, eventually joining forces with progressives Henry Cow. After Cow's demise in 1980, Krause teamed up with former-bandmates guitarist Fred Frith and drummer Chris Cutler in the wonderfully anarchic Art Bears, who disbanded after three excellent records. Turning to solo work, Krause, in 1978, starred in a London production of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill play Mahagonny. As much as anything she'd sung up to this point, Krause's elegant alto was perfectly suited to the emotionally and politically charged music of Brecht and Weill. Embracing this German song tradition with gusto, Krause went on to record the most stunning work of her career, culminating in two extraordinary releases, Supply and Demand and Tank Battles (the latter the music of Hans Eisler), that are eloquent arguments for Krause's eminence as a singer in the German song tradition (something for which she doesn't receive enough credit).
As a vocalist, Krause is arguably something of an acquired taste. Her husky, vibrato-laden alto can suddenly swoop into a breathtaking upper register with a power that belies her small, frail physique. Her English singing retains a heavy German accent, but whether she sings in German or English (which she often does on the same record), she retains her impeccable phrasing and ability to inject the most oft-heard lyric with almost palpable emotion. In fact, Dagmar Krause belongs in the pantheon of great contemporary European singers along with June Tabor and Anne Briggs. Unfortunately, Krause's last record, Tank Battles, was not released in the U.S. A sad state of affairs for such a talented vocalist.

OK kids, it's rockin' time! Detroit's MC5 kicked off the '70s with a bang on Back in the USA, released January 15, 1970. A roadmap for punk's class of '77, the album condensed the epic, throbbing sprawl of Kick Out the Jams into the pure essence of rock & roll: machine gun blasts of pure energy and hooks, with nods to the founding fathers (Chuck Berry and Little Richard) and freshly-minted teen anthems for the ages ("Shakin' Street," "High School," "Tonight," "Teenage Lust," etc., etc.).

Holy Terror is the twelfth album by rap/spoken word pioneers The Last Poets released in 1993. The album was financed and released by P-Vine Records in Japan and then released by Rykodisc Records in the United States and the United Kingdom later that same year, with a release in 2004 by Innerhythmic. The U.S. and UK releases featured one bonus track entitled "Black And Strong (Homesick)". The lead figures in the Last Poets at this time were Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole. The album was part of the Black Arc Series, launched by producer Bill Laswell in 1992.