Review: X Raided - The Unforgiven Vol. 1

Artist: X-Raided
Album: The Unforgiven Vol. 1
Year: 1999
Label: Black Market Records

Most people into bay rap would know the story of Sac rapper X Raided and his 31 year sentence he received for supposedly killing a rival gang members mother. His debut album "Psycho Active" was released on Black Market Records in 1992 and the cover had a picture of him holding a gun to his head which prosecutors claimed was the murder weapon in a '91 home invasion. In '91 X Raided and a few other gang members home-invaded the home of Patricia Harris and one of them shot her to death. Raided claims he was present but did not pull the trigger. He was locked up for the crime at the time of his debut release and has been ever since. Although X Raided admitted to being at the scene of the crime and denies pulling the trigger he has never snitched on the actual man who did.


^ His debut album "Psycho Active"^

In '95 he released "X-Orcist" also on Black Market recorded from prison over the phone which was a pretty crazy album, just let down by it's poor vocal quality which can be forgiven under the circumstances. This caused a bit of trouble over the fact he was able to release an album from prison.

In '95 he dropped my personal favourite X Raided album "Unforgiven Vol. 1". This caused mega amounts of controversy on the high standard of sound quality that lead to Californian prison officials investigating Black Market Records on how the album was recorded without the static and echos.

As for the album itself, it's pretty much incredible that all the vocals were done from prison. Every single track from start to finish is worthy of making the album, there are no fill in tracks rushed to make up the numbers. There are 16 tracks all together including the "Madman Intro" and the "Outro", track 2 which is actually the first track on the album is one of my fav's with a dope beat produced by Shareil, then it gets into the title track which is all about him getting locked up and all the rumours about him inside including getting shanked and dropped from the third tier. "Who Is Y'all Niggas" is pretty much dissin' those dissin' him and is quality, the beat to "Spitten Venom" which was also produced by Shareil is so perfect for X Raided's raps (or vice versa) that it makes me wonder whether the beat or the lyrics were made first?

"Macaframa" disses the bitches that leave their men after they get locked up amongst other things, "Cemetary Fulla G's" is kind of him having a dream about getting killed and gives R.I.P.'s to those already gone. "Dead On Arrival" is another favourite of mine focused on death, infact he makes so many comments about him dying on this album it makes you wonder what was on his mind while writing these tracks.

The next two tracks are simular in the way they're both about his upbringing as a youngsta, first "Land Of The Lost" and then "Mama's Pride And Joy" about his birth to his sentence with the hook:

"1974, the president was Nixon, they cut the umbilical cord and did the circumcision, I was 8 pounds 8 ounces a bouncin baby boy, Americas nightmare, my mamas pride and joy"

The last couple of tracks are also dope. After this was released The Source reviewed it and after crediting it, they gave it only 2 and 1/2 mics, X Raided got pissed off that they said it was all just gangsta rhymes and wrote a letter to them dissin' them for being hypocritical about other albums they review that talk about gangsta shit and even a DMX track where he mentions raping girls over 15 and giving it more mics than his album which X Raided personally thought deserved about 3 or 3 and 1/2 mics. He also said that after Master P put in thousands of dollars of advertising in the Source magazine, no "No Limit" album gets less than 3 mics and most get about 4.

After this release he dropped "Vengeance Is Mine" that caused even more drama that lead to courts holding thousands of dollars from record sales and sacking a prison guard who apparently brought in a recording device for X Raided to use to record his album with higher quality which was probably the reason why the Unforgiven album was so crystal clear.

X Raided has dropped a few other albums since including "X-Ology" (best of), "Deadly Game", "The X-Filez Vol 1", "The X-Filez Vol 2", "And He Shall Appear" and "The Initiation" I think there might be another one or two however some of these are just using his name to sell albums with X Raided on only a few tracks.

I'm not sure exactly what the case is with X Raided today, the last I heard was from a letter he wrote himself stating that they have done some investigating of their own and found out that the man that did the murder he's doing time for confessed to the crime and is in prison for the crime.



This is a message from X-Raided To: Worldwideconnected.com (2005)

First of all, thank you for sending all those messages to me! That landed at a good time...I was real frustrated that day... then I received the messages and actually felt better when I read them! Thanx to everyone who took the time to post something! Not enough artists express appreciation to the people, but my situation has taught me a lot about loyalty and betrayal. I've been in the penitentiary for nine years but my name is still hot... and that's becuz I've got a loyal core-group of people who support me no matter what! So I keep it all in perspective... y'all the best. Good lookin' out to everyone. I recently became aware that a man has pleaded GUILTY to the very murder I'm in prison for. No lie. We looked into it and it's true: a dude pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, the murder weapon, and burglary... specifically, someone has just admitted to killing the person that I am in prison for supposedly killing. I've said this for years but no one seemed to believe me; I didn NOT kill anyone that night! I am NOT guilty of this crime! So now we have ONE person who was killed by ONE bullet from ONE gun. A dude pleaded guilty to all of that, but I'm still in prison?! Wow! So my team is presently working to secure the necessary documents and have the lawyer present the situation to the judge. Pray for me, man! I swear, this is dead serious! Happening RIGHT NOW! I should be home before christmas... we are smashin' on it! Much love! X-Raided Loc

MP3:
X-Raided - Misanthropy

Rating: 4 and 1/2 Daytons out of 5