Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep - 1994 - Gee Street
What started as a joke would go on to validate an entire sub-genre, whether the Gravediggaz wanted it to or not. Jaded by the record industry ("Tommy's Boy" specifically), Prince Paul decided to get some like-minded misfits together to record a concept album about horror movies and the macabre. And of course he's always had a dark sense of humor - remember his favorite movie is Blood Sucking Freaks. So Frukwon from Paul's Stetsasonic days was recruited along with Poetic and RZA who would actually see success from Enter The Wu-Tang during the recording sessions for 6 Feet Deep. It's highly likely that none involved expected this record to get much attention outside of the underground, which is perhaps why they sound like kids in a candy store. It's a thrilling, fun and violent ride that may even be an antidote to gangsta rap which had been riding around in a 6-4 doing victory laps at the time thanks to Doggystyle and The Chronic before it. The beats here are fantastic with most of the production coming from the visionary Prince Paul with a little help from his friend the RZA. "Defective Trip" samples De La Soul and turns the fun "Plug Tunin'" into a bad trip a la Altered States. "1-800-SUICIDE" is a whole track based around ways to off yourself. "Diary Of A Madman" finds the group trying to one-up each other with grim tales in an effort to plead insanity. At a key moment RZA "chews his fucking arm off" to make an escape. This is visceral stuff, but it's also a lot of fun like many a splatter-film. The production runs the gamut from gloomy minor key melodies and detuned guitars to slow, spacey atmospherics to some kind of weird electro-metal (on "Bang Your Head"), with much of the breaks being taken from the sort of jazz records you'd associate with Paul's previous work. If taken at face value, you might not know what to make of this one. But if you're in on the joke, it's a masterpiece of the macabre.