24K - NO ENEMIES LP (Djax - 1990)

These days hip hop is truly a worldwide phenomenon. As clichéd as it sounds, the internet has really made the world a smaller place and the knowledge of and exposure to hip hop from countries other than the USA and UK is easily available to anyone from anywhere.

Things were drastically different in 1990 though. Whilst everyone knew about hip hop in America, and to a lesser extent the UK, not many people would have known much about artists from continental Europe (unless perhaps you were living in the same country as those artists). One such European group was 24K, who were from the Netherlands and they gave us a fantastic debut album “No Enemies” (which was the first Dutch hip hop album ever released).

Before going any further I have to admit though that there is nothing particularly Dutch about the album at all. The words are all in English, the accents rather American, the music is very much like the hardcore hip hop from the US and UK at the time and there were no local references in their lyrics at all. This is not however meant as a negative as it’s apparent that their agenda was elsewhere with lyrics, samples and themes that lie more in the internationally relevant black consciousness domain of artists like Public Enemy, Katch 22 and Paris (which is a good thing in my books).

In fact there is a LOT of Public Enemy influence on display in the music itself. Whilst for the most part the beats don’t quite have the same level of intense air-raid siren noisy production skills of the Bomb Squad, a track like “As My Dream Goes On” is not too far from it with its wailing sirens sitting on top of a heavy and funky breakbeat. Furthermore to the notion of PE influence is the voice and delivery of one of the MC’s (ie. ARC-S) who comes across as a deeper sounding Chuck D, this being no more evident than on the dramatic and powerful sounding “4ce of a Renegade”. “Straight as a Line” and “Mindbenders” are other tracks on here that could be distant cousins of the material that Chuck and crew were creating.

The album is far from a clone of PE though. A totally different yet no less hardcore sound is found on “People Wake Up”. This noisy and rapid track is one that would undoubtedly please UK britcore fans with its fast paced emceeing, hyper DJ work and has a couple great changeups in the music that act almost as interludes between the ballistic verses.

Funky tracks add a bit of variety here as well. “Black in Music” is the solo showpiece for the crystal clear vocal delivery of ENB. Whilst I prefer the deeper voiced ARC-S this is a pretty cool song with a style of beat that you might normally hear Positive K or Grand Puba rhyming on and ENB really grabs me with his rhyme style on this one. “I Plead the 5th” is another one of the many songs from the days of old backed by the Apache break but the break’s usual hardcore resonance is somewhat diluted into a funkier state by various horn stabs and guitar licks on top of it.

It’s pretty hard to fault this album as there’s not a bad track on it. If I was forced to find a negative then I would say that the “No Self Control” instrumental track with its Guy sample is a little unnecessary and repetitive but I’m being really picky in mentioning this.

It is one of the best hip hop albums to come out of the Netherlands in the early 90’s and is another example of the quality of European hip hop and proof that they could match it with the hip hop groups from the States. In fact, if 24K were based in New York and released this album to the US market they may have been reasonably successful by golden era hip hop standards.