MASTA ACE INCORPORATED

A loose concept album, it’s at once an intense expose and a roughneck paean to the hip-hop lifestyle that broke new ground by merging the grimy lyrical sensibility and beats of East Coast rap with the funk-dripping subsonic bass grooves of the West Coast producers of the time. The track “Jeep Ass Niguh” was a major hit and a quintessential cruising song of the summer of 1993. It would later appear reworked as “Born to Roll” on some versions of the release, garnering the group a top 25 single on the Hot 100. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, this reissue features vinyl cut under the supervision of Dave Cooley (J Dilla, Madlib) at Elysian Masters.