producers: r-diggy

The Last Kind have been around for a minute. Actually a couple of minutes as the banner of The Last Kind was walked about since the early 90s. Their goal: to make the type of raw ass hip hop they love but can't find nowhere to buy. And when they talk of raw, then they mean the raw street reality ish that is to be found in LA, the place where these cats here are from. But saying so, also means that we have cinematic fantasies clash with what's real, and the result surfaces as the type of rap that we are so often not bothered to be listening to. However, that's what hits us on the surface, but what's behind that seems to be what really makes this record. They do hide it well though. Now as their track sheet includes performances on 92.3 The Beat, Power 106, on the K-Day Arts Tour, performances with Ol' Dirty Bastard and Click Da Super Latin as well as on the stages of Project Blown and The Good Life, you will restrain yourself to let the first impression hesitate you from checking out the album properly and thoroughly.

The album starts with dominant scratching on "Revelation", produced like the whole album by R-Diggy, who throws together some traditional heavy horns, to create in your faceness. But once checking out the lyrics, the confusion begins, as there seems to be a basicness in the rhyme patterns, simplicity in the vocabulary and mentionings of street lingo and street content, seasoned with violent ranting and little creativity. The movie opening of "Streetwize" tells us that not much will change content wise, while the old Jazz sample is taking us in again. The beat is cool, but the rhymes don't elevate much beyond the level of a "his bodyguards couldn't stop the teflon don / and his brains was splattered all over the ice they had on". What is appealing though, is the ease these words are said. The flows are definitely fine tuned and practiced to fully be capable to rhyme effortless. That's a high level for a rapper to reach.

The piano on "Like Datt" is very dope, what further manifest the two different levels the beats and lyrics are living on. Here we are encouraged to 'suck dick' if we don't like what they are doing. Another movie sample is opening "Lavish", that again features a nouveau-mid 90s beat, while the rappers talk about the dreams they have to be coming about. "Whut Chu Want?" is going the same route of starting with a talked bit, this time an answering machine take, that has Derek Strong boast about some sexual adventure. This of course only paves ways for the sex you up lyrics, giving it a little twist, at times being about "I thought we had an understanding / this was a one night standing". This doesn't lack a certain needed humor, as we refuse to take this too serious. The guitar on "On And On" is not as happening as other beats while the rappers do some bragging writes. And so we are checking out the "Boyz In Tha Hood" excerpt, that is used to create the anti-pigs, read anti-cops track, called for simplicity reasons "Cops". The strings and the KRS-One sample create the needed seriousness, while the men in blue receive their bashing.

The latin influence on "Nada Nuevo" was very not called for, and has funnily enough the LK address rappers that don't offer anything new to the table. And another movie sample is opening another sex you up track, as "Backdoor Vixens" is opened by the sounds of a love siren, while the jazzyness of the track is dope in a '94 type fashion, that can still appeal today. The formula is again done on "Slug Fest" that features lines like "as the world keeps turning / priests read sermons". On "Hot Shit" Portishead gets sampled to not much effect, while "Enevitable" is featuring a previously used movie dialogue. The lyrics then go into dismissing rhymes: "I know eventually we gonna succeed / eventually the pendulum will shift the other way, away from the greed / true indeed that's what we're hoping for / open the door / and let us in, sit down and quietize / and let us begin / the instrumental combined / with the flow and pen / the crowds cheer 'encore' / we 'bout to flow it again / this is hip hop without the pistols / I drink Heineken's it's not the Crystals / that shit's for bitches". This tracks seems to be the Last Kind at their prime. "Sex For Good" gives away the content with its title, while the dope beat of "Fake Ass Rappas" again disses the 'fake gangsta ass rappers', then saying that "going where no one has gone before / on tour rocking armour". Maybe that is needed, due to the Mack 10 diss on this album (on "Lavish") that's impossible to miss.

This album is often critical of what they seem to promote, what does confuse too, but might be the most important aspect of the record, as each of the members addresses the topic at hand with his personal view of things, giving us different aspects. Just the fact that The Last Kind is released on Stray Records gives us enough reason to believe that this is something doubtlessly dope, something creative and different. Also getting all the love they get, performing in Japan, being allowed onto the stage of a Project Blown, all has to mean that these kids can't be as barely impressive as the impression they have on this reviewer.