Special Ed - Legal (1990)
This was young Brooklyn born. Edward Archer’s second album and after the success of The Youngest In Charge (1989), Profile marketed him as some kind of rap heart throb, ignore the album cover and go straight to the music, once again Ed hooked up with the great Hitman Howie Tee who laced Ed with hype tracks for him to get busy too.
Special Ed had one of the smoothest flows in Hip Hop history, check “Come On, Let’s Move It” where he goes to work over a loping James Brown track or the Salt and Pepa sampling “The Mission” which also sports the banging drums from Billy Squire’s “Big Beat“, an often used break beat, Ed had skills and could tell great stories “Picked up the phone, yo who the hell is this?, somebody said this is serious business” he rhymes on “The Mission”.
Ed gets busy over the dope and sparse drums of “I’m Special Ed” and the early Gang Starr sampling “Ya Wish Ya Could“, which also flips the infamous Honeydrippers-”Impeach The President” drums and samples Johhny “Guitar” Watson’ and Ed boldly states all he needs is “just a mic and a track”.
“Ready 2 Attack” samples Rado & Company’s “Where Do I Go” three years before Pete Rock used it for Run DMC’s “Down With The King” and hard hitting Kool and The Gang drums allow Ed to wreck the mic, alongside a Big Daddy Kane vocal sample used for the hook.
“I’m The Magnificent” gets the remix treatment and “Living Like A Star” has Ed attacking a dope beat,while the posse cut "5 Men & A Mic" has Ed sharing mic duties with his brother, his DJ, Aksun and Little Shawn and all up, Legal was a great follow up album and still sounds dope a good 18 years later.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks