The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick (Deluxe Edition)

the take

It's always been a bit difficult getting into newly-discovered (or in this case, newly-fully-listened-to) hip-hop that was released before 1990. It's not that I don't think it's bad; it's just that when you came up on early- and mid-90's rap, anything from the decade before sounds a bit dated. And dated is what Slick Rick's debut "The Great Adventures of Slick Rick" is. I'm not entirely clueless about this album, though. Many years ago, my father tried to get me into this album by playing its most popular songs ("Children's Story", "Teenage Love", "Mona Lisa"), which I've either enjoyed or tolerated this whole time but never took the time to invest myself in the rest of the album. But DAAAAAAMN, I slept on this album for the longest. Dated and all, it's hard to ignore Slick Rick's flow and storytelling throughout the album. Not only does it go hand-in-hand with the production to make each song better, but the way he raps captivated me and made me invested in what he wanted to say the entire time. I can officially say I see why this album is so highly regarded. It definitely is one of those defining albums of hip-hop's golden age.