You can think about the confusion on some listeners’ faces once they placed on Black Sheep’s debut album, A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, for the primary time. “So this duo is from Native Tongues? They’re down with De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Queen Latifah? They must be cool and sunny, not nasty like that 2 Live Crew…” Get house, put it on… “What the okely dokely is this? Doo-doo eatin’? Pee-drinkin’? Hide your hos… Is this a joke?!”
Listen to A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing on Apple Music and Spotify.
Released within the autumn of ’91, Black Sheep weren’t as well mannered as their pals in Native Tongues, the casual aggregation of rap artists who got down to keep away from clichés and promote clever Afrocentricity. A few years after De La’s 3 Feet High And Rising, and within the face of the comparative industrial failure of Jungle Brothers’ wonderful second album, Done By The Forces Of Nature, Black Sheep clearly realized issues had been altering in hip-hop, so that they didn’t comply with the Native Tongues’ template. While the grooves had been way more downbeat than the hardcore model on the West Coast, and so they nonetheless laced their speak with humor and brainpower, Black Sheep had been rough-edged. They didn’t pull the wool over anybody’s eyes: the opening “Intro” states their hip-hop household roots, however makes it clear they’re referred to as Black Sheep for a purpose. Dres and Mr. Lawnge (“Long”) did their very own factor on A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, letting assumptions slide off them like lamb chops off Teflon.
Once the cautious hip-hop fan bought round these preconceptions, this was one hell of an album. In reality, it bought properly, making No. 30 within the Billboard chart and delivering a collection of spanking singles together with “Strobelight Honey,” which topped the R&B chart, and the mighty “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited).”
Black Sheep had a huge impact, however their misfortune was to ship their debut in a yr the place hip-hop classics had been popping out on a weekly foundation (Naughty By Nature and Cypress Hill’s debuts; Gang Starr’s Step In The Arena; Main Source’s Breaking Atoms; and so forth). It was simple to be overshadowed in that firm, and the truth that Black Sheep made music laced with satire and a sarcastic, acrid wit, meant that their full message was by no means going to be loved by everybody.
If a few of it has misplaced its that means (that explanatory “Intro” not serves the identical objective), their album remains to be filled with tunes. Dres’ lyrical circulate is prodigious, silky-smooth, good, deeply funky; hear “Flavor Of The Month,” a message of positivity tracing his improvement from scorned child to assured grownup. “To Whom It May Concern” ranges by musical racism, STDs, sell-out rappers, and talentless teams signed to be written off as a tax loss, with Lawnge displaying huge microphone chops. There are skits (“LASM,” a music that’s an interview; “Go To Hail,” an encounter with a reluctant, racist cabbie; “For Doz That Slept”), declarations of lust (the completely outrageous “La Menage,” that includes a visitor spot by Q-Tip), and a few deep, severe moments, akin to “Black With NV.” It holds collectively superbly, with samples stacking R&B classics and jazz as cohesively as may very well be imagined.
A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing may be purchased right here.