Straight Out The Jungle＜限定盤/Smoke Vinyl＞

ATCQに加入する前のQ-TIPが参加した事でも高名なJUNGLE BROTHERSのデビュー・アルバム『STRAIGHT OUT THE JUNGLE』のアナログLPがSMOKE VINYLとなり登場!!

1988年作クラシックアルバム!! ULTIMATE BREAKS & BEATS系のレア・グルーヴと、周波数の基目の粗いザラついた打ち込み(醍醐味はコレですよ!)、そして船体に流れる「SOUL」の一文字が最高に格好 良い不朽の名作。 Jimmy Caster"Its Just Begun"Babe Ruth"The Mexican"等々2枚使いした"On The Run"ほか良曲揃い!!

The landmark opening salvo from the Jungle Brothers, Straight out the Jungle was also the very first album from the Native Tongues posse, which would utterly transform hip-hop over the next few years. That alone would be enough to make it a groundbreaking release, but Straight out the Jungle also contains the musical seeds for a number of soon to be dominant trends. Their taste for jazzy horn samples helped kickstart the entire jazz-rap movement, and their concurrent James Brown fixation was one of the first to follow Eric B. & Rakim's lead. Plus, the group's groundbreaking collaboration with legendary house producer Todd Terry, "I'll House You," is also here; it paved the way for numerous hip-house hybrids that shot up the dance and pop charts over the next few years. The lyrics were often as cerebral as the music was adventurous and eclectic, appealing to the mind rather than the gut -- and the fact that rap didn't necessarily have to sound as though it were straight off the streets was fairly revelatory at the time. "Black Is Black" and the title cut are some of the first flowerings of Afrocentric hip-hop, but the group isn't always so serious; "I'm Gonna Do You," "Behind the Bush," and the sly, classic "Jimbrowski" are all playfully sexy without descending into misogyny. To modern ears, Straight out the Jungle will likely sound somewhat dated -- the raw, basement-level production is pretty rudimentary even compared to their second album, and makes the jazz-rap innovations a bit difficult to fully comprehend, plus the album ends on several throwaways. But it is possible to hear the roots of hip-hop's intellectual wing, not to mention a sense of fun and positivity that hearkened back to the music's earliest Sugar Hill days -- and that's why Straight out the Jungle ultimately holds up. ~ Steve Huey