Yeah, that album cover is absolutely hilarious.
Jack McNair aka Starang Wondah, Barrett Powell aka Louieville Sluggah and Dashawn Yates aka Top Dog were childhood friends who went through many career choices together. First, they were children, then fuckups, then roadies, then rappers, then cameo professionals. Not the typical career path for a group affiliated with a bona fide legendary hip hop act such as the Boot Camp Clik. Especia-fucking-lly when all your BCC affiliates have hyped you up in every single one of the Clik's previous three projects, so far. And this is how you repay them?! By making the best possible album you can make?! Wait a minute...
OK, I know we started off on the wrong foot here, Messrs Clappaz. I'm only this agitated because of all the BCC, you're the act with the least amount of material. Why must the BCC release a goddamn group album for us to hear the motherfucking Originoo Gunn Clappaz spit verses? Why can't some of y'all release solo projects??!! Louie released two solo projects, you say? Oh.
Whoops.
So after marketing genius Dru-Ha made the genius decision to ingeniously cancel the Fab 5 album Without The Freddy and ingeniously split said Fab 5 back into their original groups, (Do I sound a tad bitter? Because, I fucking am.) Heltah Skeltah took full advantage and relatively hit another home run for the team with their debut Nocturnal, which contains Leflah: Arguably the most popular BCC song, (I'm not calling it by its moronic other name) and kept the momentum going after the underground popularity of Black Moon's Enta Da Stage and especially Smif-N-Wessun's Dah Shinin'. Now, it was up to the youngest trio of the group to step up and show they're cut from the same cloth as their predecessors.
Which should be an easy task, because it's not like these dudes haven't been tested before. As I said, there were numerous moments on the previous albums where various members of O.G.C. were thrust into the spotlight. Take their participations on BCC classics like Cession At Da Doghillee, Headz Ain't Ready, their Fab 5 songs Blah and the aforementioned Leflah for example, all in which they shone brightly. Especially Starang. This dude has spit punchline lava ever since he grabbed the mic with his kin Top Dog on the famed Sound Bwoy Bureill. Not to say Louie and Top Dog were bad by any means, but Starang was the clear star of the group.
I digress, though. Duck Down finally decided to release a Mr. Walt production as the lead single again. Said lead single, No Fear, had a video where the trio infamously dissed late legend The Notorious B.I.G. and his weed carriers Junior M.A.F.I.A. for some utterly stupid shit. This led to the Junior M.A.F.I.A. crew heading to a studio where the BCC were recording. Shit went down, as one would expect. Thankfully, it didn't escalate beyond that and both crews tremendously downplayed the incident ever since.
Anyways, if you think about it, the last Dewgarde bros. production that was used as any type of single was Sound Bwoy Bureill, which was two albums ago. A testament to how fast things were moving in the BCC. So now the team behind Da Storm, O.G.C.'s debut, are stuck between trying to combine the old Beatminer-saturated direction with the new collaborative direction behind the boards. So Team Beatminerz, once again producing the bulk of the album, went with the Dewgarde bros. to take five cuts while Baby Paul, production star of Nocturnal, took a backseat with just two. the rest were outsourced to much of the same people who worked on the Heltah Skeltah debut. That way, everybody was pleased with the resulting balance.
Did O.G.C. survive their proving grounds?
INTRO
This album unfortunately has the most skits out of the BCC four. That is not cool with me at all.
CALM BEFORE DA STORM
Shaleek, who handled Heltah Skeltah's solo joints on Nocturnal, opens the album up for O.G.C. with a fittingly dreary instrumental that our hosts paint their mission statement over. Basically, they're strictly about braggadocio. That's all you're gonna get. Each Clappa sounds off with a verse apiece, with Starang naturally besting his brethren. Not a bad way to set shit off.
NO FEAR
Our lead single. Mr. Walt, once again to be called Mr. fucking Walt, combines John Kaizan Neptune with Lonnie Liston Smith with absolutely unrecognizable results. It's beats like this one that demonstrate why good sampling is not stealing. O.G.C., in turn, come correct with a definite early highlight. All of them. Yes. Even Louie and especially Top Dog, whom I've always considered the weakest of the three. And yet he and Louie share more chemistry together than either of them do with Starang. Anyhow, this shit was awesome.
BOOM...BOOM... PRICK
...
GUNN CLAPP
Mr. fucking Walt keeps things simple this time, by cutting two samples from the same Earth, Wind & Fire record. And he still manages to keep things interesting. Here, our trio sound like a true group as they lyrically try to outdo each other. Starang still wins, but the effort the other two show is truly not to be scoffed at.
EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM
Big Tigger was a presence before Rap City? Didn't know that. This skit blows, by the way.
HURRICANE STARANG
If there ever was a talent who screamed: "SOLO CAREER!" It was Starang Wondah. This song is currently one of the most infuriating experiences in recent memory. Not because I didn't like it. Far from that, this is by far one of the greatest songs in hip hop history. It's because it led to absolutely nothing for its hero. I truly believe Starang Wondah is the BCC's Killa Sin. I mean, you have guys like Sean Price (RIP) who wasn't pegged out to be the "star" of an overarching hip hop group and was underestimated by everybody. And not only did he manage to shatter all doubters' criticisms, but he scorched way past his most ardent supporters' expectations. While carefully groomed talent like Starang Wondah fall flimsily by the wayside. Truly a shame, as he outright demolishes Mr. fucking Walt's brilliant composition, consisting of a New Spaces loop. Now I am most definitely not aware of what he might've went through these past 20 years, so nobody can really accuse him of negligence except those whom he allows to. Bottom line: This was truly bittersweet.
DANJER
I was pleasantly surprised with how Louie and Top Dog carried this Baby Paul production (which also samples the same New Spaces record as Hurricane Starang) effortlessly, bouncing off each other as if they were brothers, or cousins and shit. They might actually be cousins, you say? That explains a lot. Like why these two sound almost exactly like each other. It would also explain why, once again, these two have more chemistry with each other than either of them do with Starang. On that note: Imagine if Starang Wondah, instead of hooking up with these two, hooked up with Ruck & Rock. I'm sure they would've obviously been an unstoppable punchline trio but, alas, you can't have everything.
ELEMENTS OF DA STORM
Over a very intruding Steele beat, some dude called Yuwee rambles incoherently in extremely broken Arabic. Trust me. Anyone who reads this site frequently knows that I'm a longtime resident of the Arab world, (read: 20 years) and as such, I speak perfect Arabic. (Disagree? Leave something in the comments section. Lord knows there's plenty of room since nobody who comes to this friggin' site bothers to leave any feedback.)
DA STORM
Evil D returns, toting a very prevalent Moody sample, and crafts a loop that plods along in all the right ways. On this record, Top Dog interpolates Deborahe Glasgow's hook on Shabba Ranks' Don't Test Me. O.G.C. would then perform Da Storm in some club where Biggie (RIP) and his Junior M.A.F.I.A. were in attendance. And before you can say 'Shabba', out comes Junior M.A.F.I.A. with the abysmal Get Money Remix with the Big One belting out Deborahe's hook within the very first minute. May I present the aforementioned utterly stupid shit that got Starang beat the fuck up. And while I couldn't give less of a fuck about Junior M.A.F.I.A., O.G.C. were totally in the wrong here. Anyways, Da Storm by itself is pretty goddamn awesome. All three Clappaz carefully thought out their 16s and delivered, with Starang obviously being the best of the bunch again.
WILD COWBOYS IN BUCKTOWN (FEATURING SADAT X & SEAN BLACK)
DJ Ogee, longtime affiliate of the Diggin' In The Crates Crew, gives our trio one of his hand-crafted beats. The result? Not as good as one would expect when looking at the ingredients present. A kickass Quincy Jones record? Check. A bunch of MCs spitting for their life? Check. Well, except for Sean Black whose rhymes I never want to hear ever again. Whether on this album or otherwise. Which shows you that the producer is the one with the most heavy-lifting to do, and this particular tidbit surprises me since Ogee has done some brilliant work with DITC's OC on Word..Life and would continue to do so on OC's 1997 opus Jewelz. It should be noted, however, that Louieville spits some of the best shit I've ever heard from him throughout his entire career. In case you were wondering: Yes, his bars are better than any of of his fellow collaborators on this song. Sadat X aka Derek X aka Mr. Murphy. neither drags this song down nor elevates it. Shame, that.
GOD DON'T LIKE UGLY
You'd think that Mr. Murphy would appear on his fellow Brand Nubian Lord Jamar's production. Oh well. Lord Jamar, enemy of the politically correct, co-produces this song with Buckshot. Their beat is infinitely better than the last time they hooked up on Heltah Skeltah's Intro (Here We Come), with smart use of the Green-Eyed Bandit's sampled lyrics from EPMD's classic song Strictly Business throughout this cut. Our trio once again bounce verses off each other effortlessly, as if these types of grim beats are an unspoken factor to their chemistry. Starang tones down his voice just enough to make his punchlines much more direct, which was a deft touch.
ELITE FLEET (FEATURING M.S., THE REPRESENTATIVZ & BAD VYBES)
Baby Paul returns with his tried-&-true formula of sampling the first few seconds of a record, this time a John Payne Band song, and delivers his best motherfucking beat ever. No bullshitting here. I keep rewinding this track endlessly every time it plays across my iPod. Such a beat can only be complemented by a balls-out perfomance or an expertly-done posse cut. O.G.C. go with the latter, and while the guests are nowhere in the vicinity of the BCC's skills, they do just fine. Credit to Louie's closing verse, where he comes with enough energy that sells his admittedly above-average boasts.
FLAPPIN
For the album's final record, O.G.C. were blessed to gain the services of not one, but two of the absolute best producers this industry has ever seen. And they just so happened to be Alkaholiks family, who were predominantly from the West Coast. E-Swift just so happened to find himself in NewYork and specifically in front of our trio's recording studio. Oh, and future bloggerland darling Madlib came along lest you think E-Swift would be half-assing it. Which was preposterous, for his previous work with the BCC on Heltah Skeltah's Operation Lock Down resulted in an unadulterated classic hip hop song. This time, he does an even better job with the help of his wizard of a protege when they combine two loops from The Everly Bros. and Galt McDermot, respectively, with mind-blowing results. Our trio choose this very fitting beat to provide their balls-out performance that I stated earlier to be necessary for converting beats like this into classic songs, with Starang shooting to the cosmos of legendary punchliners once again. Their magic inside the booth obviously excited some of their fellow BCC brethren, as you can distinctly hear Tek ad-libbing excitedly in the background. A perfect end to the album.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I'm surprised I'm writing this, but song-for-song: This album is a tad more successful than Nocturnal. Hell, were it not for the painfully-awful skits, this might've given Enta Da Stage and even Dah Shinin' a run for their money. Proof that O.G.C. were, for a brief period of time, worthy of standing alongside their brethren as the mighty Boot Camp Clik. Sadly, the entire act would experience backlash when they made the genius decision to distance themselves from production team Da Beatminerz' trademark dusty & dreary sound. No doubt, Dru-Ha's idea. The entire BCC would find some mild success with their followup albums before plummeting hard into irrelevancy for three years until their revival with the marvelous Triple Threat campaign that showed a renewed focus from all parties involved.
WORTH IT? Would you rather proclaim your love for "tha coco" to the heavens? Because it's totally cool if you prefer that rotting piece of filth to a bonafide classic album. It's also totally cool to get your OT Genasis on somewhere away from this blog. If you'd rather not do that, then acquire this album yesterday.
TRACKS TO TRACK DOWN:
HARD TO THE CORE
This is another one of those tracks that the internet apparently doesn't know who its producer is. Well, whoever it was, he/she/they must've been working on this track before Da Storm's release. That, and the obvious 1995 shoutout by our trio. I will give them this, though: If he/she/they aren't Da Beatminerz or part of their team, he/she/they sure nailed their sound. I mean, this could've fit snugly on Da Storm. And all three Gunn Clappaz come fucking correct with their boasts-n-bullshit. Really top notch chemistry between them on display here. You should really check this out as soon as possible, especially if you loved Da Storm.
For those who crave more BCC.
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