1994: Kurious Jorge - A Constipated Monkey

Amalgam Digital is one of the most exciting projects to come along in hip-hop since the MPC2000. I mean, there’s just so much music coming out every week, and there has been for decades, so it’s tragically easy to fall through the cracks unless it all goes perfectly. Following their well-noted success in resurrecting the obviously still-viable careers of The Jugganots and Smiley Da Ghetto Child, they’ve now turned their Lazarus glare unto New York’s Jorge Alvarez. Looks like another sure winner, as far as I’m concerned.

This plucky Puerto Rican/Cuban Latino burst onto the scene way back in 1994 with his Sony debut. Despite featuring the same vein of quirky samples and, with the exception of some mild but standard homophobia, socially uplifting words that simultaneously worked wonders for Fu-Schnickens, A Constipated Monkey was released a couple years too late, and a pop world gathering interest in mean-spirited, joyless gangsta rap allowed sales to quickly stagnate. Consequently, Kurious Jorge got the boot from Sony, walking entirely away from the bidnezz shortly thereafter.

Snap to 2007, and Amalgam has an action plan on the go. With a two-album deal in his pocket and the blazing hot MF DOOM in the studio (Jorge was featured on DOOM's Operation: Doomsday), Kurious Jorge is set to make his sophomore record over a decade after his premiere. Just to remind you about the quality of character in store for that release, we are now treated to a well-deserved reissue of A Constipated Monkey, his under-appreciated debut.

For those who can remember 1994, all the beats on this album are of the exact flavor you loved to roll with. Over time, styles may have changed to a more synthetic sound, but they never really improved upon the old boom-bap, especially when you’ve got some crazy, canned soul horn samples on that shit. Hieroglyphics’ Casual and the notorious MF Grimm’s appearance on “Baby Bust It” is an aural anomaly and clear highlight, with some Asian strings, a moaning funk bassline, and a gettin’-jiggy-with-it chorus, oozing a blunted haze through any stuffy atmosphere. Pete Nice, DJ Lord Sear, and The Beatnuts also stamp their incredible sounds and personalities onto the product. Is that a Go! Team sample I hear on “Nicole”? 5th Dimension? Oh, no, they di’n’t! Break yo’ self, fools: this is a necessary reminder of rap’s Golden Age.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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