What's happening ladies and gents?! This salute goes to an underground album that was widely considered ahead of its time. Two young emcees from Harlem and Brooklyn got up with underground juggernaut El-P to create a work that provided grim and disturbing views of NYC over some of the most dense yet layered production one could ask for. What Vast Aire and Vordul Mega provided us was something that must and needs to get talked about more when it comes to stellar and epic efforts within the turn of the century. Representing the burgeoning Definitive Jux label, they delivered an album that was slightly less about political conspiracies and apocalyptic nightmares and more so about the brooding gunpowder that resided outside their windows in Harlem, but done in such creative and thought-provoking ways. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cannibal Ox and their album, The Cold Vein.
At a time where albums from Nas, Jay-Z, Ghostface, Wu-Tang, Beanie Sigel and Busta Rhymes were the talk of New York during this period, there were albums that were criminally overlooked and deserved to be mentioned in the same class as the efforts from the aforementioned if not more so in a few cases. Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein was damn sure one of them. The label Def Jux was just starting. With Aesop Rock's critically acclaimed debut Labor Days being released later that year, Def Jux was making a ripple in the underground. Before he became the sonic force behind arguably the most dangerous duo in hip-hop, Run The Jewels, El Producto was the mastermind boardsmith behind a true underground treasure in '97 with Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus. Aiming to provide a similar feel, he provided Mega and Aire with some of his grittiest work to this very day. Take cuts like "Iron Galaxy", "Raspberry Fields", and "Vein", that all give chills of the vivid imagery of the crime-ridden, poverty laced streets of Harlem and Brooklyn, in a way like you feel you're in the foxhole with them.
While Mega is definitely a dope emcee and shouldn't be taken lightly whatsoever, it's Vast Aire that's the Prodigy of this Mobb Deep. Considered one of the most gifted emcees around, his knack for putting unsettling pictures together through words and his rhyme scheme were completely top notch here. Not a single track did he lack on. Not a one. His delivery, lyricism, and mic charisma made him a standout during this time period. With other cuts like "The F-Word", "A B-Boy's Alpha", the only El-P mic collaboration "Ox Out The Cage", and "Atom", Mega and Aire are a tag team tour de force and continue to display their tremendous talents with a style that immediately puts a screwface on you with production to match.
While it took fourteen years for them to reunite and present their second effort, Blade Of The Ronin (which although didn't touch the classic nature of their debut was a strong effort in its own right), they showed that they still had that tag team chemistry that made a known topic in the underground to begin with. With The Cold Vein, this has compared to the likes of 36 Chambers for its rawness and grimy nature on wax, but what can't be denied is the impact this album created and how even twenty years later, not only has it aged excellently, but people that slept on it are now realizing the enormous nature of how this album should be considered among the greatest underground hip-hop albums of all time. We lift our glasses in a salute and a happy anniversary shout to Cannibal Ox and their landmark album, The Cold Vein. Until next time folks!
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