Hip-hop and hippies have never been a happening thing in the music scene. It’s a case of two political movements using different tactics to get the same means but never shall the two meet type thing. Yet once upon a time in my youth, somewhere around 1992, Arrested Development came on the scene and somehow forever merged the two. For that moment in time it was okay to be a nerd, okay to be a hippie, okay to be everyday people, to just be if you could dig the scene and the vibe. Funky beats mixed with genius samples that no one would dare interpolate and dope memorable rhymes created a landscape that made Arrested Development a franchise that, for a lot of us in my generation, was our version of Parliament Funkadelic.
Many a good day Arrested Development was here at the center of the music apex, and then they seemingly seemed to be gone, hidden in the hip-hop ether.
Virtually disappeared from the commercial landscape of modern music after their debut album and erased from the public consciousness thanks in part to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 consolidating local radio stations across America into a corporatized dictatorship that would make Sir Nose D’void Of Funk bat an eye and have a revolt, Arrested Development have been in the ambiance of hip-hop, hiding in plain sight in the underground cyphers of artists that push good vibe, good beats, without a single body being dropped on the record or a single bag of drugs being smoked, sacked or sold. Like the proverbial guardian angel protecting hip-hop for those of us longing for the good old days of maxi singles and mixtapes, its members have been easy to find if you know where to look.
I discovered them again when the legendary UK hip-hop producer Configa brought them back on everybody’s radar producing their critically acclaimed For The FKN Love album that many of us thought would be their final album. Surprisingly, Arrested Development is back at it again saving hip-hop lives with Bullets In The Chamber, a hip-hop independent release also produced by Configa and his Configaration Army, cocked, locked, and ready to rock with legendary MC’s and boom bap hip-hop firing warning shots to the recording industry and the fans of drill and future that things could get heated if we are going bar for bar on the mic.
Fronted by a collaborative of talented lyricists, musicians, producers, and their magnetic leader Speech, this new outing from Arrested Development goes hard below the rap belt. Tracks on the album i.e. Hip Hop Saves Lives, Still Fired Up, and Ain’t Got To Say No More hit hard like twelve rounds in the ring fighting for the title shot. Nothing is off limits in the real of hip-hop discussion, as the lyrics cover life, liberty, and the pursuit of hip-hop happiness (and the social, political, and economic factors that keep that from happening) throughout the album. Speech mic drops the facts to political instability and crumbling infrastructure both in the music industry and everyday life with everyday people.
Bullets In The Chamber takes no prisoners saying its peace; like a revolution that is not being televised it will not be found on FM radio, won’t be seen on MTV, and will be tuned out by the coke and a smile crowd that have gotten used to offbeat rhymes without an expanded vocabulary too eager to explain obsessions of pill popping and other poor behaviors. As Speech eloquently articulates, Arrested Development is still fired up, not for the arrogance, and wants us to realize that real hip-hop saves lives, not destroys them with a corrupted message from a recording industry hell bent on making slaves that poisons impressionable minds, begging the pondering question which ride are the listeners taking.
Bullets In The Chamber is an album for serious hip-hop heads that long for the days of those great soul samples infecting the kick on the beat, with wordsmiths wringing words of the world instead of weapons, letting their gift of iambic pentameter gab bring the heat instead of autotune and overmixed vocals designed to numb one’s attention span. It is a life lesson on good manners, of what could be with people if they listen to more positive music that give a platform to positive influences that stops the violence, brings the fun back to the music, and shuts out a predatory music business that has gotten to used to the taste of blood from the souls of their listeners.
Simply put, Bullets In The Chamber is the album that should make you excited as hell for its release date just like hip-hop albums used to make you feel.
