Blu - The 5 Albums That Changed His Life

 

Blu talks with EgoTripLand about the 5 albums that changed his life I can definitely see the influence in his rhymes.  Before I heard of Kendrick Lamar I just knew that Blu was going to lead the West Coast back to the mainstream, but like most Dope A$$ underground artist they don't received the proper promotion.  But back to the list which includes albums from Ice Cube, Redman, Jay-Z, Common and of course, Nas. You can read the full interview below.

Blu: Yeah. i’m from the west. i slept on pac. i only banged snoop or dj quik if they were on the radio. i never heard compton’s most wanted or nothing. herb, i know.

tell you the truth, i can’t even remembering buying death certificate but all i know is when i heard it, nothing compared. it brought me back to the streets of l.a. that i grew up in but had no idea what was really going on. all i knew was niggas was on crack, gangsters was killing each other over colors and 2pac died. i was never into gangsta rap. maybe because i was into so many progressive artists who came out after all the gangsta rap shit that i thought the shit was ignorant or something. there was no respect really for west coast music outside of hip-hop. it was the lowest of the low, it was gangsta.

so yeah, i finally get death certificate. i remember my step moms’ favorite was ice cube so i was conscious that i wouldn’t let that “corny” fact ruin my listen. my nga, what the fuck. the 40z, the bean pies, the korean liquor store, uncle sam running in hoes in the hood, the message, the gang banging, and all where i grew up. this shit reminded me of my aunts, my uncles, my dad, my block, the blocks i never went down, the korean liquor stores, the bean pies, my g. this was the definitive l.a. shit. i remember going back banging pac, n.w.a, too short, ice-t, all them shits and nothing came close to death certificate, except amerikkka’s most wanted, go figure.

ice cube was like krs-one but like eazy-e too. he wasn’t the deepest but his message felt the most potent. it was straight to the point and the way he delivered it was hard, hard my nga, ice cube. I’m listening to the beats like damn, bomb squad did their thing but really it was sir jinx. the nigga learned everything bomb squad did on the first album and took the wheel and banged that shit harder on the second album. i was like damn, i remember ice cube but i had no idea this was ice cube. what he did for l.a. is unprecedented in music. i don’t think there has ever been a record to paint a demographic and capture the time period of a culture as great as death certificate.

the hardest rap album of all-time.