House, R&B, Soul & Rap > H House, R&B, Soul & Rap > Stax / Southern Soul

Advantages: Some excellent tracks
Disadvantages: Not as good a sountrack as original

...miserably. In the case of Shaft this was made even more difficult due to the fact that not only the film had become a cult classic but also it's soundtrack had too as a standalone piece of work. The original shaft was made in the early 70's and was the best example of what was known as a blaxploitation movie. These were mainstream feature films that relied on a black audience and black characters, portrayed using all the current clichés in order ...
...Shaft getting soul legend Isaac Hayes to produce the soundtrack extenuated the effect. He produced a classic creating a cool hip brand of street soul that encapsulated the essence of the shaft character. The album is mostly music but one key song 'Theme from Shaft' was a huge hit. The problem that the makers of Shaft 2000 had was to try and recreate not only an updated version of the film but also to create a modern hip street sound to match the ... Read review

Advantages: A high water mark for the great Stax label, and you can hear why.
Disadvantages: South Park fans may be dissapointed.

Hayes revolutionised soul music with this, his second outing. The first symphonically orchestrated concept soul LP (blimey, quite a mouthful). It only contained four tracks, but four is more than enough with the sheer power and intensity on show here. The eighteen minute extravaganza of By The Time I Get to Phoenix is a standout matched by his twelve minute take on Burt Bacharach and Hal David's Walk On By. To give an idea of the standard of this ...
...releases on the Stax label within three weeks of release and became the first gold release for the company, a big deal in 1969. Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic (another mouthful) and One Woman keep the quality high and although the tracks are long, there is no sense of self-indulgence, helped by the shifting rhythms and tight arrangements. Hayes vocal, well before the self parody of the South park years, lends a sophisticated air to what is an ... Read review

Advantages: Great lyricism
Disadvantages: Repetitive beats

...debut from Slick Rick. "The Great Adventures of Slick Rick" comes three years after debuting with the beatboxer Doug E. Fresh as part of the Get Fresh Crew, who brought Hip Hop classics "The Show" and "La Di Da Di", which are both sampled through this record. Slick Rick is a rapper originally born in London, and moved over to the US at the age of ten, due to it occurrin at this specific age, you can tell that he is able to interchange between a British ...
...here Ricky D raps with great swagger and expressess how he feels about being abel to do what he does, and how people compleement him on it constantly. **Four Stars** 12. "Lick The Balls" I can't say that I really understood this one, or found a reason why the title was used, because the raps, aside from the chorus where far from where you you would think the theme of the raps are going. I think that this exposes he weaken in losing the plot when ... Read review