Outlaw Posse - Enforce The Positive / Living In Hackney 7"
7" - 2018 - 45 Live Records
A - Enforce The Positive
B - Living In Hackney
"The early 90’s is generally referred to as The Golden Era when it comes to hip-hop, and rightly so. It was a time where sublime creativity - fuelled by the limitless sampling opportunities before the lawyers gathered steam - fused with positive attitudes to produce hip-hop music that was rich in musical gravitas whilst enforcing messages of love, political empowerment, social commentary and above all fun! Over in the USA, groups like De La Soul, Gang Starr, ATCQ and the like brought jazz firmly into the fast-evolving hip-hop stew, mostly grabbing all the headlines, but over in the UK, there were some trailblazing crews too with Outlaw Posse definitely up there as one of the pioneering few. Outlaw Posse’s début album ‘My Afros On Fire’ (1990) dropped in the same years as Gang Starr’s masterpiece ‘Step In The Arena’ and ATCQ’s phenomenal ‘People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm’, with all of them achieving spectacular results with their clever and intricate use of use of samples and positivity in their raps, it was indeed the original dope.
Skip forward to 1993, and Outlaw Posse record the equally brilliant ‘My Afros On Fire Vol. 2’ on Gee St / Island Records which was due for release but after some difficulties with the label they decided to part ways, and the album was sadly shelved. Kgee then went on to produce All Saints whilst MC Bello B went on to write for the KLF as well as working with various groups like The Young Disciples, Mica Paris, Damage, Carl Thomas, Push, Nexus and many more, the guys sure weren't sitting around. And now in late July 2018, that lost album is finally coming out digitally directly from the guys via their Bandcamp page. As soon as we heard about it we immediately got in touch to show our respect and love and ask if we might be able to do a 7” single taken from it, and they said yes! So cue up 2 absolutely banging jazz-soaked dancefloor bombs, pure boom bap, pure gold." - Written & Produced by Karl Gordon & Azat Bello
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