I was neither a gangsta nor a Black Panther. I’d never talked to a cop let alone broken out of an oppressor’s jail. We were young white kids of suburban Auckland. It was also difficult to connect personally. You might get away with Eric B & Rakim getting Paid in Full but it was a hard no to Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos. You could try to slip on PE or NWA but the mood would change so quickly it would be considered a massive party foul. But every party I went to was Guns N’ Roses and The Stone Roses. If Public Enemy was a warning, NWA was a mugging, a vicious one at that. One month later NWA released Straight Outta Compton. Politics, self expression and straight-up building-dissolving bass pressure, combined to make an album that even today sounds like the starting pistol to a rebellion. It immediately elevated hip-hop from good time get-down party music to an art form that could change the world. In July of ’88 Public Enemy released their pivotal classic It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. The NME treated them like the second coming of Mozart while across the Atlantic musical revolutions were starting to pile up on top of each other. Sure the album is just some semi-melodic chanting with psych guitars and a vaguely funky rhythm section, but it’s fun enough. Their debut album and general air of rock starness made for great copy. But it was another purchase that day that immediately changed my perspective on music and life in general, 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul.ġ989, lifetimes away now, and there was nothing bigger in the British music press than The Stone Roses. And Justice for All, Spirit of Eden and Tutu - all records I’ve grown to love enormously. My part-time cleaning job paid me once a month, king for a day, broke for 29, and I was ready to spend it all on tapes. I walked into Jim’s Record Spot in Panmure and saw a brightly coloured cassette cover, with flowers on it. Photo: Getty Images De La Soul’s groundbreaking music is available again, so Cain Lindegreen reconnects. Vincent "Maseo" Mason (rear left), Kelvin "Posdnuos" Mercer (glasses), and David "Trugoy" Jolicoeur.
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