A female voice gets dirty
Yep, it’s out: the first album of the Flipmode Squad’s first female. Rah Digga, a woman hip hop-fans often talked about, a woman many people heard on the “Flipmode Squad”-record for the first time. Rah Digga, a female voice many people have acclaimed since then. Rah, a woman e had to wait for quite a long time, but it was worth the patience: this record is hot as hell!

“I be that bitch niggas wantin’ in the lab / Rhymes comin’, rhymes goin’ like I was a dollar cab / Fingerin’ the man tryin’ to tap into his feelings / A misguided soul so ain’t checkin’ for the lyrics / Many different players, only one hold the ball/ Ghetto fabulous chick, go against the protocol / With the grittiest lingo, still such a little sweetheart / Book educated with a whole lot of street smarts / Follow me now, as I build my fanbases / Makin’ rappers worry like they got open cases / Harriet Thugman, y'all can see shit through / Like a whole world of people wait for Episode Two / I be the rap purist, the walking hip hop thesaurus / The innovator, spawned from Libra and Taurus / Do away cats with the same ol' whack / Lead a nation up north where the real party at / A place where we spray when our asses get older / No shots in the choke, no getting’ pulled over / A place where graffiti ain’t considered a crime / And your favourite underrated MC's is primetime / A land good and fruitful, where lyrics free people / Black presidents, and all the weed legal / No rich or poor, we break bread and drink merry / Smoke a little Mary for the real visionaries”.

After the intro, Rah gets into it with the track “Harriet Thugman”, a kind of second intro as you can read above. During one and a half minutes, Rah tells us who’s on the mic. The second track isn’t worse: “Tight”, as the title says, equipped with a tight beat, keeps our body hot. “What They Call Me”, one of the best tracks of the record, produced by the true master Pete Rock, is another one with a dope beat that keeps us nodding: “…I'm prime time, you're on local or cable / I'll battle you on your dick and then waste the label / Hit you with heat sweeter than vanilla candy / Flip it type wicked like cinderella family / (Fo' what) For tryin' to step to a Rah situation / Less rhymin' years, less formal education / Gettin' less Benz' than a BBS / Less hype in the street. an' you writin' even less / You ain't fresh... MCs goin' crazy / Nah, you ain't fresh, y'all can never out-blaze me…” Ladies and gentlemen, till now, it’s been time for burner-tracks on Rah’s record!!! And this was not only because of the beats, Rah is a very good MC, she’s got the flow and the skills.

But then, unfortunately, the production changes: Ruff Ryders’ Shock isn’t able to come up to the first three tracks at all! Ruff Ryders’ beats might be something I generally (or mostly) dislike, but Shock produces exactly as we expect it from a so-called Ruff Ryder, and in my opinion, a nervous, clubbish beat isn’t able to win a beat-duel against a Pete Rock or a DJ Premier! We’re lucky to hear better things again after that, “Curtains” and “Showdown” are dope! The Rockwilder-track “Break Fool” reminds us at once of “Rockwild” on the Method Man & Redman-record, and it has got a similar style and is very cool, too! Five tracks follow this one, also well-performed and well-produced. And then, we finally come to this record’s diamond: Primo’s “Lessons of Today”. No need to say anything, Premier’s beats are always hard as stone, I think they can’t be killed, not even by the wackest MC, and Rah is hot as hell , on this one as well as on the whole album!

This record is dope, Rah is one of the best female MCs ever heard, and the beats are overall good, too! And if these two Shock-produced tracks weren’t… I know, Ruff Ryders fans perhaps don’t understand my opinion, but I prefer Primo, Pete Rock, Rockwilder etc. And as you can see, records just become doper if they are produced by such rulers and if there is a Dirty Harriet rockin’ – no discussion: go and run like hell for it!
M.