Steady Playing With The Hustlers

Steady B: Let The Hustlers Play and Serious
From: Let The Hustlers Play [Jive, 1988]

Hey, how you doing? It's been a while I know. Part of my absence is due to the fact that real world moves have resulted in me being in the middle of moving home (what with this and J's impending nuptials it's grown man time on the Fuzz) and part of this has been for less stressful reasons. You see, I finally pulled my finger out my ass and picked up two vital things - new headphones for my Mp3 player and a far improved soundcard for my PC.

The purchase of these two items has led me on a journey of musical rediscovery as I started hearing things a way I hadn't since I burnt everything on to a hard drive. Suddenly beats banged harder, bass vibrated stronger and singers had more soul. It felt like the equivalent of aural spectacles. Unfortunately the opening of my ears meant that I was so lost in my music I forgot to share.

Anyway, no crying over spilt milk, so what have I got for you today? Well, one of the albums that truly felt like a rediscovery was Steady B's 1988 album, Let The Hustler's Play. Suddenly I remembered why this never used to leave my decks and why I regarded it as one of The Great albums to have blasting out the car.

With production from two greats at the top of their game - Chuck Nice and KRS One, the album's beats are bananas (no room for slow love songs here) and Steady B's flow is never showy but always on point.

Let The Hustler's Play kicks off the album at a tempo that never slows down. Chuck's production hides it's class in it's simplicity. Steady details the life of a hustler and, while his rhymes aren't going to win any awards, the level of swagger and confidence of a guy who was still only 18 at the time of this release carries the track with irresistible power.

Serious features the unmistakable production and shout outs of KRS and throws absolutely everything into it's three and a half minute running time. Absolutely blistering old school insanity and as hard as anything coming out today.

Steady released two more albums after this before fading into obscurity in the early nineties. Unfortunately his return to the public eye was in the worst possible manner and it's highly unlikely that he'll turn up on any future versions of Nas's Where Are They Now. He was just 26 at the time.

However, separating the artist from the music, this album should be played at very high volume, preferably in a residential area and reintroduced as part of the late eighties collection of classic rap albums. Oh yeah, a reissue wouldn't go amiss either ya know?