Notes & Personnel Info |  | The kind of crunk Lil Jon took to the top of the charts isn't all there is to the genre, but the way some compilers focus on it you'd think it was. Crunk Classics ain't goin' out like that. Lil Jon is here, but the collection earns respect from the tracks it surrounds the King of Crunk with. Crusty classics like Three 6 Mafia's "Tear da Club '97," UGK's "Pocket Full of Stones," and Gangsta Boo's career-defining "Where Dem Dollas At" make Crunk Classics one of the more desirable collections of the genre, and are evidence the compilers knew what they were doing. The proof is the amount of shoulda-been-bigger numbers included -- Drama's "Left Right Left" and "Do It" from Rasheeda being the best. Listeners coming to the collection from the Lil Jon angle might be surprised at how sparse and down-low most of the tracks are, but that's what makes them so visceral, so thug, so crunk. Unfortunately, there are no producer credits, no liner notes, or any attempt at telling the story. The Southern rap community has always felt underappreciated and their triumphs are horribly undocumented. Crunk Classics will still make newbies hunt for the whens, the wheres, and the whys, but it's close to what a crunk fanatic might make you if you begged for a mixtape. ~ David Jeffries | | Mixed by Atlanta radio DJ Greg Street, Crunk'd shows there's more to crunk than just partying and Lil Jon. This isn't party rap as much as it is raw, hedonistic, low-down, and minimal Southern rap with a deep boom and foul mouth. It's not what you'd call a hot selection -- most of the tracks are two years or more old -- but Street is a DJ with a good memory and can school you on where 2004's radio-friendly crunk came from. There's the excellent and electro "I'll Pay for It" from Soulja Slim, the swaggering and street-level "Amped Up" from Turk, and two brash rockers from the pre-"Salt Shaker" Ying Yang Twins. The biggest surprise for the crunk non-faithful has to be the two gems from the sexy and hotheaded La' Chat with her slang-filled "Slob On My Cat," the highlight of the album. There's none of the hollow-headed, wannabe, ripoff music that clogs up so many crunk compilations and even if you don't see the big names, Street knows his stuff. Let him take you deeper into the Southern rap underground. ~ David Jeffries | | Sometime in the early 1990s, a new sound began to emanate from the swamplands of Georgia and its surrounding Southern states. It was a growling, grimy noise descended from Too Short, the Geto Boys, and other gangsta rap artists. Heavy on the bass, this funky and decadent music from the Dirty South became known as "crunk." Although brought into the public consciousness by the otherworldly musings of hip-hop renegades Outkast, it wasn't until an Atlanta DJ and former record executive named Lil Jon declared himself and his East Side Boyz "the Kings of Crunk" that the rap style really took off. | | CRUNK CLASSICS collects tracks from the apex of the sub-genre, including artists from all over the Dirty South. The disc swoops down to Miami for Trick Daddy and JT Money, and journeys into Tennessee to pick up members of Three 6 Mafia. This album also visits North Carolina for Petey Pablo, returns to the heart of Georgia for Youngbloodz, Archie Eversole, and, of course, Lil Jon, who captures the essence of the compilation on a duet with the legendary Too Short. | | The kind of crunk Lil Jon took to the top of the charts isn't all there is to the genre, but the way some compilers focus on it you'd think it was. Crunk Classics ain't goin' out like that. Lil Jon is here, but the collection earns respect from the tracks it surrounds the King of Crunk with. Crusty classics like Three 6 Mafia's "Tear da Club '97," UGK's "Pocket Full of Stones," and Gangsta Boo's career-defining "Where Dem Dollas At" make Crunk Classics one of the more desirable collections of the genre, and are evidence the compilers knew what they were doing. The proof is the amount of shoulda-been-bigger numbers included -- Drama's "Left Right Left" and "Do It" from Rasheeda being the best. Listeners coming to the collection from the Lil Jon angle might be surprised at how sparse and down-low most of the tracks are, but that's what makes them so visceral, so thug, so crunk. Unfortunately, there are no producer credits, no liner notes, or any attempt at telling the story. The Southern rap community has always felt underappreciated and their triumphs are horribly undocumented. Crunk Classics will still make newbies hunt for the whens, the wheres, and the whys, but it's close to what a crunk fanatic might make you if you begged for a mixtape. [Crunk Classics was also released in a "clean" edition, containing no profanities or vulgarities.] ~ David Jeffries |
|
CD
