Review Summary: Check this out if you are into eighties music or old school hip hop at all, this is considered a classic to old school hip hoppas as well as eighties pop fans.
While most other music took a dive in the 80s, this was when hip hop began walking on water. The birth of a culturally and musically unique musical art form is an experience that is rarely witnessed, yet Hip Hop’s birth in the 70s was the closest thing anyone born in the last 30 years has come to experiencing it. Generally speaking, it took about a decade for hip hop to find its sound, purpose and message throughout the eighties; it then grew into the golden age of the early nineties, and died circa 1997 as record labels killed the integrity, candidness and intelligence of the music. Whodini, early pioneers to the sound of Hip Hop, formed in 1981 in Brooklyn, NY. They have a familiar, yet well done, 80s electronic-pop sound, while adding hip hop flow and lyricism to the mix.
Whodini's best-known second album,
Escape is almost entirely a party album: it consists mainly of dance songs, such as their most sampled song “The Freaks Come Out at Night”. Most of you have probably also heard the opening track, their single “Five Minutes of Funk”, or at least heard some knock off of the verse, whether it was P Diddy or Jermaine Dupri biting the notorious line: “The party don’t stop 'til I walk in/ and I usually don’t leave until the thing end/ but in the mean time, and in between time/ if you’ll work your thing I’ll work mine.” “Five Minutes of Funk” is funky, relaxing, and the lyrics are just smooth and fun. It makes you like the artists personality for writing relate-able verses; you can just completely chill out to the music because it is about enjoyable every day topics. Those familiar with MF DOOM will also recognize the sample used on Deep Fried Frenz on the albums other single “Friends”. The incredible futuristic beat (drop) on “Friends” has also been sampled by Lil Wayne, Nas (“If I Ruled the World”) and countless other hip hop artists. On “Friends”, the lyricism about good and phony friends is very insightful and also relate-able to virtually everyone. The song reached #84 on the billboard top 100 chart.
I learned after watching this same older black dude dancing his ass off in the same spot every week at the same bar on eighties night, that eighties music is corny yet very catchy, so the key to enjoying it is to stop worrying, relax, and have fun instead of looking for things wrong with the music. If you do, it is arguably the most fun type of music to dance to. This is a unique mix of hip hop and eighties-electronic-pop that helped pioneer hip hop’s sound. Yet, it is still enjoyable to the modern listener and has a handful of tracks that will make it on anyone’s party playlist.
