Three Times Dope Posted by Junior

Three Times Dope: I Got It and I Ain't Try'n 2 Hear It From: Live From Acknickulous Land [Arista, 1990] Apparently today is the most depressing day of the whole calender year which is good to know. Things were getting a little bit Office Space this month and logically if we peak today then life can only get better tomorrow. We hope. Combating those January blues and in a desperate attempt to slow down the people throwing themselves in front of trains and slowing my journey home lets have some turn of the nineties hip hop by the foolishly forgotten Three Times Dope. Although TTD's first album Original Stylin' was a reasonably big success their 1990 follow up, Live from Acknikulous Land, was pretty much buried as soon as it came out. As with 99% of other listeners I've gotta hold my hands up and admit that I've been sleeping on this one for a long long time but boredom will eventually cause you to revisit a collection and on hearing it again I can't stop playing it - full of simple loops and quality rhymes the album is a more than solid listen from start to finish. I Got It is an unashamedly party orientated anthem as they flip the classic James Brown Super Bad sample with rapper EST's fluid mcing over the top. The instruction for "Chuck Nice hit me twice" followed by the horn stabs gets me every time. I Ain't Try'n 2 Hear It is a more introspective track with some lovely guitar led production by Chuck Nice and some top drawer verses by EST. I've missed having tracks like this in my life. TTD did release a third album in 1998 but by that time they were resigned to the waste bin in my brain and I never bothered checking it out. Any idea about whether I'm sleeping once again?