Charm is an epic narrative where Danny! plays the role of a desperate musician, also named Danny, who feels he deserves recognition for his contributions to music and longs for stardom and wealth. He finally starts to get his flowers but his rising fame only complicates issues in his life, as he leaves his own hometown and tours on the road and experiences racism and hardship and finds solace in the bottom of a bottle.
Once upon a time… A powerful assassin left the temple to gather his own army. For 10 years he dwelled in the Psycho Realm and joined forces with the rebel soldiers of Street Platoon. Their symbol was the mask. The Grandmaster heard of his disciple’s rising legions and arranged a meeting on Cypress Hill… DJ Muggs brings his dark, atmospheric production to this great post-apocalyptic concept album.
The national weed smoking day is 4/20, so Method Man named his album 4:21… The Day After. “Because after that day, you have this moment of clarity when you’re not high and you see things clearly.” – Method Man The album is chockful of themes of smoking weed, obviously.
The first triple-album in Hip Hop history, each of American Hunger‘s records corresponds to a particular meal in the day (Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner). MF Grimm has stated once that the album is not intended to be listened to in one sitting, rather it is intended to be taken in over the course of three separate listening sessions, reflecting the names of each disc: “Breakfast,” “Lunch” and “Dinner. American Hunger uses these themes and is harsh in his assessment of American society and corrupt politicians.
“When I say ‘Hip Hop Is Dead‘, basically America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead … Our way of thinking is dead, our commerce is dead. Everything in this society has been done. That’s where we are as a country … what I mean by ‘hip-hop is dead’ is we’re at a vulnerable state. If we don’t change, we gonna disappear like Rome.” – Nas
It is intended that Subtle’s first three studio albums (A New White, For Hero: For Fool and ExitingARM) will serve as a trilogy about the rise and fall of the character Hour Hero Yes, and the character may indeed live on throughout the course of all their studio output, with the lyrics derived from his perspective. On the cover of For Hero: For Fool, Hour Hero Yes, appears in old military garb, with fire for hair. And for hero for fool begins with the tip of his quest… no longer undecided on the direction and dire in his dive… he began to eat at the world… and walk its straights… and so for hero for fool… unravels… as his quest for a most honorable death… or something a step beyond it… and so yes quests… each song detailing a day terror or hallucination like moment in sun…
Fishscale is a Concept album about organized crime, specifically surrounding the drug trafficking trade. The album’s title derives from a slang for high grade cocaine, in allusion to Ghostface Killah’s signature subject matter (he also abused it in the 1980s). Since its release, the term has become even more so popularized.
In The Hour of Chaos is a concept album that resulted in an epic 17-track recording which explored the relationship between the spiritual and the physical, the light and the dark. “I played a Constantine-Esque character manoeuvring through the minefield of the physical realm and the other side, battling demons both externally and within. I stumbled across the concept of chaos magic and was very intrigued. We went as far as to design a chaos medallion and have it forged from pure silver. The man that did this for us had his workshop which was built by Loch Ness! We shot a video for ‘Playing With Fire’ in rural Ireland and a video for ‘The Ark’ deep inside Chislehurst caves. These are memories that I will cherish forever.” – King Kashmere
This is an instrumental hip-hop concept album: It’s meant to be a soundtrack to a nonexistent movie in Madlib’s imagination. Movie Scenes are instrumental hip-hop productions by Madlib presented in the style of 70s TV & film library records.
Mo’ Mega is a concept album about the intersection of lower-class culture with an increasingly modernizing world, and how the latter is adversely affecting the former. The title itself captures what Lif describes an irreconcilable clash between the world’s wealthy elite and the have-nots. He takes on the UN, Homeland Security, even fast food corporations. “Mo’ Mega is the juxtaposition of the slave and the elite with no common ground between the two” – Mr. Lif. In the album’s liner notes, Mr. Lif wrote: Mo’ represents the dialect of the Black slave in America. Mega represents the hyper-modernized world we live in. As the cost of living increases at an exponential rate, more of us are finding it difficult to keep pace. I feel that the term Mo’ extends beyond race to describe the masses whom have not achieved elite levels of wealth. Mo’ Mega is the juxtaposition of the slave and the elite with no common ground between the two
On Dennehy, we are introduced to Kenny Dennis, the life of Serengeti’s alter ego, a middle aged man living with his wife, Jueles, in Chicago. Kenny enjoys grilling chops and brats with his buddies while drinking his favorite brew, O’Douls. He also enjoy playing softball in the park and has a passion for the professional sports teams of Chicago. His favorite actors are Brian Dennehy and Tom Berenger. You can see him driving his damn Buick. This is #1 in the Kenny Dennis Saga Kenny Dennis is a mustachioed Chicagoan who raps in a flat Midwestern bluster. When he debuted on 2006’s “Dennehy,” Kenny was a playful near-stereotype, the hip-hop Chicago Party Aunt. In the ensuing years, Serengeti developed the character across multiple albums and EPs. Kenny drinks O’Douls for the taste and his mustache is a tribute to the only photo he ever saw of his father, wearing a fake mustache on Halloween.
Slept On Fam cooked up some highly addictive Audio Crack, a dosage intended to send fiends galloping back from the projects to the suburbs.
As If We Existed is the first entry in The Listener’s Trilogy by Solillaquists of Sound. In As If We Existed we’re introduced to the characters of “the play”, and the issues and struggles that these characters deal with. The characters are the individual members of Solillaquists of Sound, and most importantly the audience (most often referred to as “the listener”).
A Life in the Day of B19 explores the lives of 3 fictional characters as they negotiate the challenges of an ‘ordinary’ day. From songs set in the local job centre, to train stations, B19 sets out to find the poetic and grand in the often mundane setting of a Birmingham postcode.
Moonlighting by Tanya Morgan (Donwill & Von Pea) is an album about a cassette tape being passed around that never finds its intended listener because the song they missed was the one they would have liked. It’s a humorous social commentary on the changing format of sellable music and how the new breed of listener consumes. And while it’s extremely hard to find, the actual cassette tape being played on the album exists in real life.
The 911 Report: The Ultimate Conspiracy‘s theme is the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and it is considered one of the most controversial hip-hop albums of recent times. On the first track “Warning: Boxcutterz on Airplanes” the group retells the attack from the perspective of the lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. LCOB don’t glorify the event and they criticize the terrorists in the outro of the song. On the next track, they pay tribute to all victims of the attack and the following wars. The following songs are about the events before 9/11, that may have led to the attack, and about the aftermath.
