Don't let the Run-D.M.C. look-alike album cover fool you. Willie D, Scarface, Bushwick Bill, and DJ Ready Red's breakthrough album, 1989's GRIP IT! ON THAT OTHER LEVEL, challenges Eazy-E and company for the title of most fearsome group rap performance ever put to wax. Before their minds were playin' tricks on them and before Bushwick Bill's infamous self-inflicted headshot, this ruthless Houston crew truly brought hardcore hip-hop to that other level of the title. On GRIP IT! listeners get their first glimpse of gangsta rap's Al Pacino fetish ("Scarface"); Willie D takes the lead on a Public Enemy-esque black-power anthem that sings the merits of explicit content ("No Sell Out"); and the crew reaches for the apex of lyrical misogyny on the now-legendary "Gangsta of Love".
All bold subject-matter aside, the production sound here is seriously funky. DJ Ready Red flips a gang of classic samples including the Steve Miller Band, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, the Ohio Players, the Soul Searchers, Lyn Collins, Kool and the Gang, Pink Floyd, Parliament, and even the theme from "The Odd Couple." GRIP IT! is STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON's Down South cousin--two equally compelling and uncompromising albums that heralded the arrival of the gangsta genre.