Artist: Awesome Dre & The Hardcore Committee
Album: You Can't Hold Me Back
Year: 1989
Label: Bentley Records / Priority
The way alotta people act you'd think that Eminem is a Detroit hip hop pioneer, but waaay back when Marshall was hanging his pink Alf T-Shirt on a piece of string between two trailors, artists like Kaos & Mystro, Bombshell, DMW and my personal favourite Awesome Dre were putting Detroit on the underground hip hop map.
"You Can't Hold Me Back" is Awesome Dre's first album and is probably a little bit better than the follow up "A.D.'s Revenge" although that is still a def album. Instead of giving a play by play of this album i'll put it like this, There are no wack tracks on it and almost every track is filled with sick scratches and hip hop samples that aren't the usual thrashed samples that you hear on alot of early '90's gangsta albums. Some of his rhymes are sick but others are a little simple but for some reason he makes them sound crazy. All the beats have an original sound to them that I can't really describe, but they are all crazy.
Anyone from Detroit thats into hip hop would have heard the name "Awesome Dre" and his side kick "Tony Tone" (backbone of stone) and i'm sure alot of the rappers that have come out of D-Town in the past decade or so would have been inspired by A.D., Esham mentioned his name on the "Repentance" album and Violent J from Insane Clown Posse (formerly Inner City Posse) mentioned how Dre was an inspiration to him on a documentary and also in an interview he did with Murder Dog Magazine where he said:
"I look at Awesome Dre. He was one of the greatest of all time in my book. Fuck that, he was the shit. I brought him back and put him in front of the juggalos and they booed him off stage, straight up. I had him open up the show. That was in 1995. I don’t know what the deal was, man."
The only flaws to this album are a few of the tracks could be a little longer and that Priority cut a couple of tracks on the vinyl (no fault of Dre). A couple of things that i'm curious about is what was behind the track "I Don't Like You" which is a Kool Moe Dee diss track and where Tony Tone is today, I heard a rumour that he was killed in a Detroit jail by the 1%ers, like I said it's just a rumour and could be a load of shit? Last of all, The album has one of the best covers i've seen and is probalbly one of the few albums thats harder to get on cd than wax. The hard part of this review is choosing the MP3's as every time I listen to the album my favourite track changes.
MP3's:
Awesome Dre & The Hardcore Committee - Killer On Wax
Awesome Dre & The Hardcore Committee - On The Rampage
Rating: 4 and 1/2 Daytons out of 5
7 comments:
Yeah this was a great album. I remember the video being up on "Yo" back in the day. I ran ou the next day and got the tape, which I don't have anymore. Been searching how and low for a copy of it on CD, but good luck. I've seen some on Amazon for $50-60 bucks.
I know, "A.D.s Revenge" is about just as hard to get, but when you get 'em you appreciate them that little bit more.
Good luck on the hunt.
other than LL Cool J & Run DMC, i think this was the first rap album i ever owned. somehow i lost my cassette years back, but i just recently came across a used CD and bought it. I'm telling you, this is the ultimate rap album! Here it is nearly 2 decades after the initial release and this album sounds just as good, if not better, than it did before! Give it a listen and i think you'll see just how under-rated Awesome Dre really was! i'm rating this disc a 5 out of 5. That's right, i'm giving it a big ol' 100% A+. If anyone deserves this it's definately Awesome Dre!
I was umming and ahhing to give it 5 but went with the 4 and a half, but it's good to hear somebody else has the same love for A.D. as I do.
I'll put up a review of his second album 'A.D.'s Revenge' soon.
PEACE
Hey, anyone have a copy of this that they are willing to put on mp3? The shit is out of print, and it is hard to find. I had it on cassette back in the day, but like a fool I lost track of a lot of old music.
If your a member of MYSPACE give me a message and I can put it up when I get a chance. Unfortunately we don't put full albums on the site.
PEACE.
#JAYSTREETWILLIAMS & THE FAMILY presents COLdbLOOD WE$TSIDE LOVEISlOVE www.jaystreetwilliams.com 1994-
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