KATCH 22 - DIARY OF A BLACKMAN LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE LOST (Kold Sweat - 1991)

Deep, intelligent, conscious, afrocentric lyrics.
Hardcore, raw, funky beats.
Articulate, aggressive, wisdom possessing, unique MC...

... that is Katch22 and this is their debut album "Diary of a Blackman Living in the Land of the Lost".

The album starts out with short excerpt from a live show, a few words from an old Louis Farrakhan speech and then you are greeted by the track "Ghetto Child". This track sets the scene for the whole album topically with black consciousness in full glorious effect (and it stands as one of the most afrocentrically aware LP's to come out of the UK scene at the time along with Black Radical's "Blackman's Leviathan"). The MC of the group, HuntKillBuryFinn, is easily one of my top rappers of all time - he comes with a clear, commanding, strong voice - intelligent, thought provoking lyrics - yet rough and rugged enough to give his flow the necessary hardcore street appeal. Musically this track comes raw yet funky enough with the "often used but never over used" Apache beat quite well concealed beneath a solid bassline and spicks and specks of horns and keyboards throughout.

"Katch Mission" brings you a somewhat abstract use of what sounds like a screechy trumpet or saxophone screaming constantly over nice guitar licks and beats. It actually sounds quite like a less structured PE track. HuntFinn tears this track to sheds with his commanding tones laying out his description of Katch22's mission statement.
"UK rap can't excel if we copy the US" - indeed!

"Cynical World" comes with a very different sound to the prior track as this track is far less urgent and more laidback but far from being mellow as it is very raw in a sparse sense - a simplish beat with dirty horn samples at much lower levels behind the main track. HuntFinn also rhymes somewhat differently and at times stylistically here he reminds me of KRS on "Criminally Minded" - interestingly enough the Teacher earns himself a sample on this track as well.

"Service with a smile" is probably one of the harder tracks for me to write about as it is one of my favourite rap songs of all time and once i start praising it i won't know where to stop ! Anyway here it goes in a few words - booming, rocking, uptempo, smash your head in beat ... HuntFinn aggressive and threatening as you'd ever hear him but at the SAME TIME crystal clear and 100% perfect vocal execution and amazing lyrical complexity ... and to top it off THREE DEEJAYS ON ONE TRACK - each with his own turn at cutting up s**t in the chorus breaks - one with the brilliant name of DJ Kill-A-Man-Twice. That's it i'll say no more ... u just gotta hear this !

"Son of Shem" gives the listener a chance to catch their breath and think for a little bit after the last head banger. This is basically an interlude with a jazzy track topped with various samples from mostly Farrakhan with a bit of Malcolm X and some UK people along the black awareness lines. It's not the kind of track that's really possible to rate as dope or wack as such - it's just "there" and seems to fit the theme of the album perfectly in fact.

Keeping things at a mellower pace is "Mindfield". Not normally my style with it's jazzy, laidback stylings and sung chorus however it has great drums and HuntFinn can really make most tracks exciting and interesting with that voice of his. Obviously the title indicates it's another knowledge dropper of a song - this album is certainly not for those who like nonsense babbling talking loud but saying nothing freestyle MC's, the man HKFinn comes with wisdom for the uneducated masses ...

... and he will "slap you with the truth from his microphone" as he does on "Diary of a Blackman". This gem comes full circle back to the harder sounds found in the earlier LP tracks - rugged and busy beats, dramatic horn stabs, nice DJ cutting, it's all here. No prizes for guessing that he gives Chuck D a run for his afrocentric knowledge in this one and yes he does it WELL. Farrakhan gets sample airtime once again as does Richard Pryor amongst others. Great, great, great song.

The jazzy side of HuntFinn shows itself again on "State of Meditation" - a side which seemed to come more to the forefront as his career evolved. Rhyming quite slowly almost to the point of being a spoken word track this one won't have you waving your fist in the air but will have you kickin, back, chillin to the smooth sounds and expanding your grey matter with this knowledge laden meditation track.

The scales tip to the hardcore side once again with "Who's Business". Featuring a soundtrack that sounds like someone adjusted a 33RPM reggae loop to 45 this one is really raw and rugged with HuntFinn dropping a style akin to a rougher Mike J with just a small touch of "rapping down a telephone" 75% recording quality to his voice - and it comes off something lovely.

"Stalag 22" actually brings us reggae dub style at normal speed this time. Not too much i can say about this track as it is a rather token "rap over reggae" track but without doubt he sounds much better over beats like this than a lot of US MC's with their fake Jamaican wannabe attempts in the past.

The quality posse cut "Rogues Gallery" is next batter up and features label mates Dynametrix and the always superb Shaka Shazam (i always wanted a solo album from him to be made!). A very funky bassline sitting behind a pretty simple uptempo beat drives this one but the definite highlight here are the MC's. The Dynametrix guys sound almost better than on their own stuff (the Busta Rhymes syndrome?), Shaka Shazam delivers his booming aggressive messy style and HuntFinn closes out things above them all with a nice verse at the end. Not the posse cut to beat all but very, very solid and Shaka and HKFinn together on another track is what my UK hip hop dreams are made of (also heard on Hijack's 10/10 hardcore perfection "The Contract").

Once again the now slightly strange speed it up/slow it down pattern continues with "The Brown Clown". This has another very slow pace to it with a kind of plodding drum programming with a flute behind it. I can't hate on it as it is nice for what it is and the flute is somewhat hypnotic and HKFinn again "keeps em eager to listen" with his voice and message but it's not the sort of thing you'd want to be playing on a long drive if you're half asleep behind the steering wheel of your car !

Busy drums welcome you to "Get Together Now". The track has that James Brown funky soul feel to it and is basically the instrumental outro to the album with only 20 seconds or so of rhymes from HKFinn. Pretty good way to close out the album but it would probably be a better 1 minute track than a 3 minute one (i tend to stop it halfway through).

Despite the somewhat confusing 2nd half of the album structure with extreme tempo/style changes from track to track this is overall a superb album (thanks mostly to HuntKillBuryFinn's vocal and lyrical presence). It goes down in my personal music listening history as one of the albums that made my love for UK hip hop what it was and is to this very day and for that i'm ever grateful to the sounds of Katch22 with their hardcore tracks of knowledge.