During the summer of 2002 i was in the middle of my 6-month deployment in the US Navy. And during this deployment i was gettin the newest mixtapes sent to me by a local VA (Virginia) music store back at my duty station. I made a agreement with them to send me the newest joints so i can stay in the loop of whats goin on in the music world.
So when i started gettin these mixtapes i was noticing a trend in some of them. All the rappers on these tapes seemed to be freestyling over this certain beat 90% of the time. Now when I 1st starting hearing this beat, it went hard! It was just a hard knocking beat that alot of rappers seemed to be goin off on. Now up to this point i didnt even know that this beat came from a song or what, i thought it was just a hard bangin instrumental.
When we got back from our cruise by the end of the summer, alot of songs was bangin at that time, but 3 seemed to stand out. 1 was Nelly's "Hot In Herre". 2 was Styles P " I Get High" (crazy story about this song and ill get in to that on SP's Lp Thoughts). And about the 3rd one, when we got back me and my boys immediately gathered around a Tv and turned it BET to see what was hot and thats when I heard that beat again with actual lyrics to it! This was when i was introduced to the Clipse! And the name of the track was called "Grindin", and remember my duty station was at VA and they are from there so just imagine how much this song was in rotation!! The Clipse at this time owned VA and The Neptunes was as much part of it as well. So when word got out that the LP was comin out by the end of the summer i was more than ready! Plus the Neptunes was on production and this was during the time they was takin over on how hip-hop was sounding at the time. I was very curious to see how they was comin!
It was a no-brainer that i picked up this LP the day it dropped! Right away the LP starts off hot with "Virginia", a very slow sounding track but hard as well and they tell u about where they come from. Then "Cot Damn" gets u groovin a bit with those dope horn samples and some tight verses by Roscoe P Coldchain (anyone know where this name originated from? a rap group invented this name.) Next is "Ma, I Dont Love Her" with Faith Evans' soultry singin on it, i love this track! The beat compliments it well. Then the next track is always etched in my mind because of a hot video "When the Last Time", this is a club banger indeed! The video is always etched in my mind cause back then Rap City used to come on at night and this video always got me hyped on those late nights! "Comedy Central" is a nice selection as well, the beat is kinda different but i like it and Fabolous represents on it. On "Gangsta Lean" the Clipse let Pharrell get his thing off on the track. I used to repeat this song like crazy because the beat is so nice and Skateboard P's vocals go hand & hand with the song. Last but not least is the Grindin Remix with NoRE, Lil Wayne & Baby, now if u exclude Weezy & Baby the track is nice. I love NORE's verse but thats it. So there u have it, this was very nice LP in my opinion with alot of nice tracks on it.
Its just a shame that The Clipse couldnt capitalize from this LP, i know they had label trouble and all of that and thats sad. They didnt release another LP until 2006! 2006!!! Thats 4 years! And this is way too long. I was mad dissapointed that it took them so long to release another LP, this group should of had more success than it did. But as i look back in '02 it was a great time man. Living in VA and seeing how "Grindin" impacted a entire city and how The Clipse made a huge mark in hip-hop in how they rapped was great memories for me. I wish i can go back at times and relive it. This LP to me is about a 4 out of a 5!
So, Whats ur thoughts on this LP?
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