What's up world?! It's a new year, which means there are a lot of albums turning twenty this year, and quite a few of them are legit, genuine hip-hop classics. There are others that are grossly underrated and deserve their place in critically acclaimed folklore. Those are the albums we will focus on throughout the next few weeks. We will start with an album that annihilated people from outta nowhere, much like an RKO (only my wrestling people will get that one). Covering the bloody streets of Queens came two young cats that presented nihilism in its most reckless form, and it resulted in one of the hardest albums to emerge from NYC in the nineties.
In '97, Queensbridge representative Capone and his Lefrak City brother Noreaga (now N.O.R.E.) presented a dark and murky stick-up underground anthem with "Stick You", only to hit us in the head with the equally potent "Illegal Life" with Mobb Deep's Havoc on the hook. There was a small yet attention-worthy buzz about these two cats that were loosely affiliated with the likes of Mobb Deep and Nas. Unfortunately, during the recording of the album, Capone got sent up north to do a bid so Noreaga had to soldier the majority of the album, along with close mentor, and QB veteran Tragedy Khadafi. The first official single and video was released with "T.O.N.Y.", however they caused a slight stink with the inflammatory response to Tha Dogg Pound's "New York, New York", with "L.A., L.A.", in which the beat was the same one used in the aforementioned "New York, New York", plus the video was accompanied had scenes of some poor fool getting tortured then eventually being thrown over the bridge into the ocean (for the record, the Marley Marl-produced remix was stupid better than the original beat for it). The album, The War Report, was finally released, and it became an instant classic. Seen in the same mold as Mobb Deep's two prior monuments, The Infamous and Hell On Earth, this album was filled with drugs, guns, sticking up, and mayhem, with occasional five-percent gems thrown in. Considered one of the hardest and most realistic albums to get delivered from NYC in the entire late nineties, there were hits a plenty. From the INCREDIBLE mafioso-sounds of "Iraq (See The World)" to the Hell On Earth-sounding "Parole Violators", the dedication to Capone "Live On Live Long", and their own version of "Shook Ones", the BANGIN' "Halfway Thugs", this album has been considered, at times, even better than Infamous or Hell On Earth. While that point is certainly debatable, what's not is how impactful this album became as we approached the new millennium.
Another thing this album did was make a star out of Noreaga. While his brother-in-arms was incarcerated, he decided to pursue a solo career until it was time for Capone to come home. The next year, Noreaga dropped N.O.R.E., which was almost as critically acclaimed as The War Report. However, things changed in '99 when Capone came home and they started work on their sophomore album, The Reunion, to get released in 2000. While it was a definite banger, and the chemistry sounded as good as it did in '97, it wasn't the blood-soaked epic their debut was. Subsequent albums such as Channel 10 and the sequel, The War Report 2: Report The War, were decent but couldn't equal the monster they released in '97, although they certainly tried and in all respects provided mostly solid work regardless.
Although there were two cuts were left off the album due to sample clearance issues, "Married To Marijuana" and the Nas-assisted "Calm Down", The War Report didn't really need it, as it was practically a flawless effort within the gangsta rap time, in which Mobb Deep, Nas, Biggie, and the Wu were running things from NYC. This debut is still regarded as one of the most rugged debuts of the decade and deserves its place as a hardcore classic. Happy 20th to "the other" CNN.
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