Rolling Stone (6/22/00, p.133) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Breathes new life into old-school hip-hop....taking ill beats mined from the deepest of crates and tweaking them into dirty-funk masterpieces....uncompromisingly intense and hard to resist." Entertainment Weekly (6/23/00, p.102) - "...There is much to love. The 4 MCs are playful and progressive, and the virtuoso DJs quilt vintage funk with surgical scratching and deep-crate sampling..." - Rating: B Q (8/00, p.99) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Pleasant fiction....fashioning sparky new shapes from hip hop's basic ingredients..." Uncut (8/00, p.94) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Draws on De La Soul's back-to-basics beat deconstructions and lateral-thinking word association in artfully dishevelled rambles....Breezy, blunt-smokiing, bohemian hip hop par excellence..." The Wire (6/00, p.49) - "...The record is nice. Upend that frown, spin it on its head and pass the double dutchie on the left-hand side." Mixmag (7/00, p.166) - 4 out of 5 - "...Simple, hands-up, dope beats...and pointed, witty lyricism...that never fails to hit the spot....an album that's sure to appeal to hip hop heads and part-timers alike. Top." CMJ (6/19/00, p.3) - "...A supremely produced modern variation on old school hip-hop...brilliantly balancing the retro purity rooted in post-gangsta rap of the Native Tongues with new school innovation..." The Source (7/00, pp.209-10) - 3.5 mics out of 5 - "...An artful collage of old-school-sounding snare hits, horns, guitar licks and scratches....[it's] an album of rhythms and flows that move with remarkable cohesiveness....an ill album in completely original fashion..." Mojo (Publisher) (7/00, p.98) - "...This is a truly freeflowing masterpiece....the beast are old-skool, party hardy, uptempo horn-stabbing '70s funk variety....Perhaps the time is right for new, ego-free hip hop..." NME (Magazine) (7/1/00, p.45) - 6 out of 10 - "...Fluid interplay and...evolving musicality..."

Rovi

In June 2000, almost seven years after their formation, underground rap's most lauded crew finally hit with a full-length. Great expectations aside, Quality Control hits all the same highs as Jurassic 5's excellent EP of three years earlier, stretching out their resume to nearly an hour with a few turntablist jaunts from resident beat-jugglers DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist. The formula is very similar to the EP, with the group usually going through a couple of lines of five-man harmonics before splitting off for tongue-twister solos from Zaakir, Chali 2na, Akil, and Marc 7even. As expected, there are plenty of nods to old-school rap, from "Lausd," with its brief tribute to hip-hop classic "The Bridge" by MC Shan, to "Monkey Bars," where the group claim inspiration (yet just a bit of distance) from their heroes: "Now you know us but it's not the Cold Crush, four MCs so it ain't the Furious/Not the Force M.D.'s or the three from Treacherous, it's a blast from the past from the moment we bust." Where Quality Control really laps previous Jurassic 5 material is not only the lyrical material, though, but the themes and focus of the message tracks "Lausd," "World of Entertainment (Woe Is Me)," and "Contribution." The four-man crew take on major media and the responsibilities of adulthood with a degree of authority, eloquence, and compassion never before heard in rap music. (Just check out the lyrics to any of the above three at an online archive like www.ohhla.com.) Though critics and uptight rap purists might fault them for not pushing the progression angle enough, Jurassic 5's rhymes are so devastating and the productions (by Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist) follow the raps so closely it certainly doesn't matter whether the group is old-school or not. ~ John Bush

Rovi