Illegal Business?

One of the most powerful hip-hop debuts this side of Nas’ *Illmatic*, Mac Mall’s *Illegal Business?* is an album powerful enough to successfully capture the character of the Bay Area Hip-Hop scene. Though Mac Mall’s controlled drawl and down home portraits of Oakland ghetto life are clearly derived from Too Short’s freewheeling tales of pleasure and excess, Mac Mall’s lyrics are bolstered by his incisive sense of social injustice and his unerring eye for detail. Tunes like “Young N’ Da Game” go beyond mere reportage to offer insights into the cyclical nature of crime in Oakland, while the complex narrative of “Da Bank Heist” combines Slick Rick’s talent for storytelling with KRS-One’s righteous outrage. As if this were not enough, *Illegal Business?* features some of the most thrilling production ever to come out of the Bay Area. The virtuosic producer Khayree laces things with a series of sprawling, synth drenched beats that offer a baroque counterpoint to the tight, minimal G-Funk being pioneered by Los Angeles producers like Dr. Dre and DJ Quik.

Mac Mall's first album, released locally in California on his own indie label, Young Black Brotha, is a refreshing entry in the West Coast gangsta rap genre for 1993.