RAW TEXT
Never Judge A Book (Asha)
Reviewed by Jason Thornberry

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With mic skills in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, two hard boiled, rogue emcees came together with a whole new spin on the Hispanic Hip-Hop made popular by Funkdoobiest, Delinquent Habits, Cypress Hill, and Ozomatli.

After things went sour for a deal with Ruffhouse/Columbia Records, Gusto, one half of Raw Text, parted company with his old crew, and went to work on some solo projects. Meanwhile, Spits, the other cipher, was doing more or less the same thing: looking for ‘it’.

‘It’ came in the form of jobs working with rapper Af The King, after they had already hooked up, and started making the demos that would make up a chunk of the Raw Text live show, eventually getting hold of the mic on Lovely from his excellent Torture Taught Ya’ album. He spins with almost as much authority as he has on the microphone, and proves this with his guest cuts on Gimme Da’ Mic.

Spits and Gusto will 'verbally abuse ya like a white-trash biker kid' on any of the sixteen tracks on this praiseworthy, highly qualified debut cd.

The most re-playable tracks here include "Accessory Ta’ Murder," "In It For Life," "I Love It," the "Open Mic Nite" set, "My World," "Pay Dues" and "What’cha Want?," with co-producer Angela Piva’s sultry vocals. The bonus is the live instrumentation that gets mixed imperceptibly with the cut up, funky, hip hop score. Recommended! [www.asharecords.com]

© 2001 - Jason Thornberry