At Your Own Risk

About

Though it is often overshadowed by Ice Cube’s <i>AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted</i> and N.W.A.’s <i>100 Miles and Runnin’</i>, King Tee’s 1990 album <i>At Your Own Risk</i> is among the primary works of West Coast hip-hop. The elastic funk beats of “Time to Get Out,” “Can This Be Real” and “Played Like a Piano” bridge the skeletal blasts of old-school rap and the sleek G-funk Dr. Dre would unveil with <i>The Chronic</i>. Produced almost exclusively by DJ Pooh, <i>At Your Own Risk</i> is the kind of focused, cohesive collaboration between rapper and producer that has become all too rare. Performers like Tee are rare too; as a rapper, he was an anomaly. Tee wasn’t a lewd party rhymer like DJ Quik, a politicized aggressor like Ice Cube, or a kingpin like Ice T. Instead, he was a little of everything. He rhymes with total authority, yet never takes himself or his subject matter too seriously. His approach to the music is aptly summarized on “Can This Be Real”: “I'm the rap reverend, hip-hop evangelist / Yo, I can handle this, pass me the cannabis / Pro rap artist, and my rhymes are kinda raunchy / Start with somethin’ smooth, end with somethin’ punchy.”

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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