Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Maxwell's House #1
Now we flip over stateside for some more 80's/90's realness courtesy of a long time favourite of mine - 'Grand Puba' Maxwell. Known to his parents as Maxwell Dixon, he first surfaced on the New York hip hop scene alongside his group "Masters of Ceremony". Their only lp (Dynamite) featured a hip hop/reggae crossover sound, aided and abetted by Dr Who, DJ Shabazz and Don Baron. It spawned a series of singles that were popular on the underground circuit, including "Cracked Out", "Redders Posse", "Sexy", "The Master Move" and "Dynamite" (the latter being an all time favourite of mine from back in the day).
Encouraged by his modest success, Puba decided to go solo and was promptly snapped up by Dante Ross at Elektra Records. Unfortunately for Maxwell, the recording of his lp wasn't going well. As a result, Ross suggested that he hook up with label mates Brand Nubian, who were also recording a debut set but struggling to pen an lp's worth of tracks. The result of the collaboration was outstanding - "One For All" - a generation defining album for hip hop's afrocentric new skool. The 5 mic rated debut spawned turn of the decade classics such as "Wake Up", "Slow Down" and "All For One".
At the end of the project, Puba and Nubian went their seperate ways. Grand Puba started rolling with SD50 and finally dropped his debut lp "Reel to Reel" in 1992. Although it had a feel good party sound, fans of the afrocentric style of hip hop were naturally disappointed to find Puba's conscious rhymes of old noticebly absent. Undetered, Maxwell continued to stay busy grabbing guest spots on lots of other projects at that time, as well as ghost writing for his cousin Pete Rock on the seminal "Mecca & The Soul Brother" lp.
The remainees of Brand Nubian (Sadat X & Lord Jamar) put out two more lps before losing their sense of direction. Although they did manage to produce a hip hop classic 12" in the form of "Punks Jump Up To Get Beatdown".
Sadat X went onto to perform some succesful solo and guest work, while Jamar faded away, but not before guesting on The Artifacts "Collaboration Of Mics"; a classic posse cut alongside Lord Finesse.
Grand Puba wanted a second stab at a solo lp and received a warmer reception for his somophore effort "2000" - confusingly released in 1996(!) The singles "I Like It" and "A Little Of This" got mad airplay on MTV, and went someway towards re-instating Puba's reputation as versatile emcee.
Rumours of a Brand Nubian re-union at this stage were rife, especially after Sadat guested on Buckwild's remix of "I Like It", and Puba/Jamar appeared on X's "The Lump Lump" remix. In 1998 the full re-union was official and "Foundation" was dropped to a mixed reception. The main problem being Brand Nubian's insistance on using old funk samples way past their sell by date.
Brand Nubian decided to take a break once again, only to reform in 2004 and drop perhaps their most disappointing work to date, namely their 5th lp "Fire In The Hole". Puba found time drop one more album in between these final BN lps in the form of "Understand This", released on Koch records in 2001. It featured a nice selection of tracks, one of the best being "Up and Down".
I hope you enjoy the below selection of Puba rarities; big shout out to Kore321 for the "Sexy" video - make sure you check Kore's blog in the links section, as he has a slammin selection of old skool videos.
# posted by clawdada @ 7:40 pm 
Comments:
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do you have the All for ONE by brand nubian but the Video? I liked the video version of the song,..but i cant find it,...and i live on a island so i need to learn to swim to get it,...thankx and keep up this blog man,..!!
# posted by 
: 4:04 pm
: 4:04 pm
hi,
i have the "video" mix on mp3 but not in video form. i think they have it on launch or winamp, albeit not for d/l.
props
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i have the "video" mix on mp3 but not in video form. i think they have it on launch or winamp, albeit not for d/l.
props
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