One need not look far to witness the enduring influence Brand Nubian has had on Hip-Hop. It’s in today’s fashion trends, in all of today’s nods to the ’90s, and it’s most certainly in the music of today’s up and comers. The New Rochelle, New York group’s featured MCs, Grand Puba, Lord Jamar, and Sadat X (formerly Derek X), have since become icons in their respective solo rights, but their joint contributions to the group’s 1990 debut album continue to knock heavily in the music collections of Heads around the world. One for Allis a fun-loving scholar’s album, one that preaches the importance of staying aware, not in a patronizing manner but rather a celebratory one, as Brand Nubian aimed to invite listeners on the educational journey along with them. In addition to contemporaries like Poor Righteous Teachers and X Clan, Brand Nubian represented many of the same fundamental beliefs as the Native Tongues Crew – love, peace, Afrocentricity – but in a more austere, straightforward manner (albeit with no shortage of sexually driven lyrics, either). With all three members full-fledged followers of the Nations of the Gods & Earth (also known as Five Percenters, a Harlem-based sect of the Nation of Islam), it was no secret that themes of racial justice, revolution, and war influenced them greatly, and their God-given enlightenment was to be something treasured. And yet, as exclusive and marginal as the Five Percent community is, Brand Nubian opted to title their debut after something universal – brotherhood.
One for all brand nubian rare coins Various features may be available in different versions of services, and possibly all features in your country. The combination of these beats & lyrics give Brand Nubian a totally unique sound that they never managed to duplicate again. 'One for All' is a truly outstanding album and is definitely recommended to all fans of early 90's hip hop.
Signed by the legendary A&R man and industry executive Dante Ross, Brand Nubian became a part of Elektra Records’ growing roster of progressive, alternative Hip-Hop acts like KMD and Leaders of the New School. Almost immediately upon One for All‘s release (December 4, 1990), any shock or fascination in the group’s Black-supremacist perspectives (“I’m out to squash the whitewashed brainwashed line of thought”) were quickly overshadowed by what really made the album an instant classic, and that was its relentlessly creative lyrical content and delivery. With most of the production work credited to the group, Skeff Anselm (of A Tribe Called Quest-shout out notoriety), Dave “Jam” Hall, and Stimulated Dummies also put in some serious work, helping to make a solid debut just a few months after having formed the trio. And while many of the cuts delivered sobering lines (like Lord Jamar having “no tolerance for Black ignorance”), in whole the record is a jovial, fun-loving series of boasts, beginning with the opening track. “All for One” sports references to everybody from the Temptation’s David Ruffin to English popstar Engelbert Humperdinck (the latter actually gets two shout outs in separate songs, thanks to Grand Puba and Positive K), and enough braggadocio for the whole LP. The boasts continue in droves on “Ragtime,”“Step to the Rear,” and “Grand Puba, Positive, & L.G,” and are much more Grand Puba’s realm. And, while Grand Puba is certainly the voice most frequently heard on the album, plenty of fans feel that the album’s most important lyrics come from Lord Jamar and Derek/Sadat X, who are far more inclined to discuss things like culture, race, history, and religion.
Authenticity and self-love are championed on songs like “Feels So Good” (“A synthetic cosmetic, it was pathetic/If they was real, then yo she got the credit/But they wasn’t so she doesn’t/I like the natural look, so I kicked it to her cousin”) and “Slow Down” (ironically, the track is a plea for drug addicted women to love themselves more but is also one of the few places on the album where a woman is called a “bitch.” For many, some of the references to women on the album reside somewhere between disrespect and misogyny, with questionable phrases sprinkled throughout (for example, at the top of “Ragtime,” Grand Puba can be heard saying “Hit her! I mean, let’s hit this”) coupled with seemingly endless references to sexual conquests. However, One for All has some very serious conceptual tones in it, with “Brand Nubian” leading the way in terms of bringing forth an African-American history lesson through lyrics. It’s here where Lord Jamar offers up a definition behind the group’s name, as well as the knowledge of his own personal lineage.
History lessons also abound in cuts like “Concerto in X Minor,” where the headlining-making story of Huey Newton’s murder is mentioned in the same breath as the much lesser known story of Yusef Hawkins, a young African American boy killed by a mob of White people the very day after Newton’s murder. It is here, in this song’s lyrics where Brand Nubian’s real genius is exerted. In this particular example, the Five Percenter notion that they represent the 5% of the population who has been given true enlightenment (while 10% of the population is an elite group keeping the remaining 85% of the world in the dark) is expressed beautifully in the simple yet powerful decision to breathe the names Newton and Hawkins in the same bar. Five Percenters believe it is their duty to enlighten their fellow brothers and sisters, and “Concerto in X Minor” mirrors such an attempt. By rightfully deeming Hawkins’ murder to be just as tragic as Newton’s, the group is inviting its listeners to learn even more by piquing their curiosities with the mention of a (generally) unknown name. Furthermore, the song contains prescient reflections on society that could not ring more truly in today’s social climate. Included in the song is an interaction between police and a suspect, with the latter crying out “Yo why you pushin’ me? Why you hittin’ me, man?,” a line eerily similar to the final words spoken by victims of police brutality like Eric Garner and Oscar Grant, who pleaded for their lives while police forcefully attempted to subdue them. And, as Derek/Sadat X laments, “and black mothers need sons, not children that’s been killed by guns/It’s just another form of slavery, a modern day lynchin’.” That historical perspective is repeated in “Dance to My Ministry,”“Drop the Bomb,” and “Wake Up.”
After all of the swaggering bombast and cerebral content, the album closes with “Dedication,” which reminds listeners of why the album exists – Hip-Hop. It’s fitting, in a way, that so much time is spent discussing genesis of man and the millennia of human history throughout the album, only to finish it by referencing the (at the time) contemporary youth movement that was just beginning to show its first signs of becoming a global force. Indeed Hip-Hop, as with any art form, does not happen in a vacuum, and it feels quite perfect to close One for All by acknowledging the group’s present surroundings after all of the preceding retrospective. In “Dedication,” Grand Puba shouts out their comrades and peers like Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, LL Cool J, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, and Rakim in an effort to thank the previous generation of artists who allowed Brand Nubian to flourish. As Grand Puba raps, “What more could I say? I wouldn’t be here today if the old school didn’t pave the way.” And so now, a quarter century after Brand Nubian appeared, one can now see the path Grand Puba, Lord Jamar, and Sadat X paved. Today’s young artists who are seemingly embracing a ’90s renaissance through their music (such as Joey Badass, Bishop Nehru, and others) owe much to groups like Brand Nubian, some of the earliest purveyors of the ideas that run through massive cultural events like Afropunk Festival and the Black Lives Matter movement, where being proud of one’s Blackness, heritage, and history is celebrated by the thousands. But, most of all, the music is here to remind us that we are all in it together, and that it truly is one for all.
Related: This Might Be Grand Puba’s Best Song In 10 Years & It Resonates (Audio)
Most Recent Stories
One for All | |||
---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | |||
Released | December 4, 1990 | ||
Recorded | 1989–1990 | ||
Genre | |||
Length | 71:34 | ||
Label | Elektra | ||
Producer |
| ||
Brand Nubian chronology | |||
| |||
Singles from One for All | |||
|
One for All is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Brand Nubian, released on December 4, 1990 by Elektra Records. The album was highly acclaimed for its politically charged and socially conscious content. Sales never matched the wide acclaim — the album has only sold 350,000 copies as of May 2013[citation needed] — but it has remained in print since its 1990 release. The album is mainly produced by Brand Nubian, but it also features production by Skeff Anselm, Stimulated Dummies, and Dave 'Jam' Hall. The album's production contains many motifs of hip hop's golden age including James Brown-sampled breakbeats and funkyR&B loops. The album is broken down track-by-track by Brand Nubian in Brian Coleman's book Check the Technique.[1]
- 1Reception
- 4Charts
Reception[edit]
Commercial performance[edit]
One for All charted at number 130 on the U.S. Billboard 200, spending 28 weeks on the chart.[2] It also reached number 34 on the BillboardTop Black Albums chart, on which it spent 40 weeks.[2] Alex Henderson of Allmusic writes of the album's commercial performance, 'In black neighborhoods of New York and Philadelphia, [One for All] was actually a bigger seller than many of the platinumgangsta rap releases outselling it on a national level.'[3]
Critical response[edit]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [4] |
Los Angeles Times | [5] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [6] |
The Source | 5/5[7] |
The Village Voice | A−[8] |
One for All was a critical success upon its release.[9]Los Angeles Times writer Steve Hochman called it 'an impressive debut' and commended 'the power of the lessons delivered with style and creativity', stating 'There's a playful ease to this record recalling the colorful experiments of De La Soul, and there's as much sexual boasting as Islamic teaching.'[5]Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the album as 'a peculiar merger of sexual boasting, self-promotion and occasional political perspective.'[10] J the Sultan of The Source gave it the publication's maximum five-mike rating and wrote that it 'overflows with creativity, originality, and straight-up talent. [...] the type of record that captures a whole world of music, rhymes and vibes with a completely new style.'[7] In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave One for All an A− rating,[8] indicating 'the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction. Anyone open to its aesthetic will enjoy more than half its tracks.'[11] He commented that 'most black-supremacist rap sags under the burden of its belief system just like any other ideological music,' but quipped, 'This Five Percenter daisy-age is warm, good-humored, intricately interactive—popping rhymes every sixth or eighth syllable, softening the male chauvinism and devil-made-me-do-it with soulful grooves and jokes fit for a couch potato.'[8]
It has since received retrospective acclaim from publications such as AllMusic, Rolling Stone, and ego trip.[12] AllMusic editor Alex Henderson complimented the group's 'abstract rapping style' and stated, 'On the whole, Nubian's Nation of Islam rhetoric isn't as overbearing as some of the recordings that other Five Percenters were delivering at the time.'[3] In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), music journalist Peter Relic stated, 'they had a sobering lyrical style equally effective whether promoting African-American consciousness ('Concerto in X Minor') or telling hoes to chill (the Edie Brickell-sampling 'Slow Down')'.[6]Trouser Press writer Jeff Chang praised the group's 'marriage of party groove and polemical grit' and cited the album as 'a high point of East Coast hip-hop'.[13]
Accolades[edit]
In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums and its lead single 'Slow Down' was featured on the publication's 100 Best Hip-Hop Singles of All Time list.[14] One year later, Rolling Stone placed it on a list of the Essential Recordings of the 90's.[15] It was additionally ranked #2 on ego trip's 1999 list of 'Hip Hop's 25 Greatest Albums by Year (1980–98)'.[12]
Track listing[edit]
# | Title | Songwriters | Producer(s) | Performer(s) | Sample(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 'All for One' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba, Sadat X, Lord Jamar |
|
2 | 'Feels So Good' (CD Bonus Track) | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian, Dante Ross | Sadat X, Grand Puba, Lord Jamar |
|
3 | 'Concerto in X Minor' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Sadat X |
|
4 | 'Ragtime' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus, S. Anselm | Skeff Anselm | Grand Puba, Sadat X, Lord Jamar |
|
5 | 'To the Right' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba, Sadat X, Lord Jamar |
|
6 | 'Dance to My Ministry' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Lord Jamar |
|
7 | 'Drop the Bomb' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba, Lord Jamar, Sadat X |
|
8 | 'Wake Up (Stimulated Dummies Mix)' | M. Dixon, D. Ross, J. Gamble, G. Dajani | Stimulated Dummies | Grand Puba |
|
9 | 'Step to the Rear' | M. Dixon, D. Ross, J. Gamble, G. Dajani | Stimulated Dummies | Grand Puba |
|
10 | 'Slow Down' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus, K. Withrow, E. Brickell J. Houser, J. Bush, A. Aly | Brand Nubian | Sadat X, Lord Jamar, Grand Puba |
|
11 | 'Try to Do Me' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus, D. Hall | Dave 'Jam' Hall | Grand Puba |
|
12 | 'Who Can Get Busy Like This Man...' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Sadat X, Grand Puba |
|
13 | 'Grand Puba, Positive and L.G.' | M. Dixon, A. Arrington, C. Carter | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba, Positive K |
|
14 | 'Brand Nubian' (CD Bonus Track) | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian, Dante Ross | Lord Jamar, Sadat X, Grand Puba |
|
15 | 'Wake Up (Reprise in the Sunshine)' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba |
|
16 | 'Dedication' | M. Dixon, D. Murphy, L. Dechalus | Brand Nubian | Grand Puba |
|
Personnel[edit]
Credits for One for All adapted from Allmusic.[16]
- Skeff Anselm – producer
- Carol Bobolts – design
- Brand Nubian – producer
- Geeby Dajani – mixing, producer
- John Gamble – mixing, producer
- Grand Puba – producer
- D. Hall – mixing, producer
- Dante Ross – executive producer, mixing, producer
- Mark Seliger – photography
Charts[edit]
Chart (1991) | Peak position |
---|---|
US Billboard 200[17] | 130 |
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)[18] | 34 |
Singles[edit]
Song | Chart (1991)[19] | Peak position |
---|---|---|
'Slow Down' | U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs | 63 |
U.S. Hot Rap Singles | 3 | |
'Wake Up' | U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs | 92 |
U.S. Hot Rap Singles | 5 | |
Song | Chart (1992) | Peak position |
'All for One' | U.S. Hot Rap Singles | 17 |
Notes[edit]
- ^Coleman, Brian. Check The Technique: Liner Notes For Hip-Hop Junkies. New York: Villard/Random House, 2007.
- ^ ab'One for All – Brand Nubian'. Billboard. Nielsen Business Media. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ^ abcHenderson, Alex. 'One for All – Brand Nubian'. AllMusic. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN0-85712-595-8.
- ^ abHochman, Steve (May 5, 1991). 'Rating the New Rappers'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^ abRelic 2004, p. 102.
- ^ abJ the Sultan (December 1990). 'Brand Nubian, One for All (Elektra Records)'. The Source (16): 56. Archived from the original on March 22, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^ abcChristgau, Robert (February 26, 1991). 'Consumer Guide'. The Village Voice. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^Herrmann, Brenda (February 22, 1993). 'Religious Rappers'. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^Pareles, Jon (December 16, 1990). ''Radical' Rap: Of Pride and Prejudice'. The New York Times. sec. 2, p. 6. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^Christgau, Robert (October 15, 2000). 'CG 90s: Key to Icons'. Robert Christgau. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ^ ab'Acclaimed Music – One for All'. Acclaimed Music. Retrieved 2008-08-30.
- ^Chang, Jeff (March 7, 1997). 'Brand Nubian'. Trouser Press. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
- ^'The Source 100 Best Rap Albums'. RockList.net. Retrieved 2008-08-30.
- ^'Brand Nubian One For All CD'. CDUniverse.com. Retrieved 2008-08-30.
- ^'One for All – Brand Nubian'. Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Credits. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
- ^'Brand Nubian Chart History (Billboard 200)'. Billboard.
- ^'Brand Nubian Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)'. Billboard.
- ^'Brand Nubian > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles'. Allmusic. Retrieved August 30, 2008.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- Relic, Peter (2004). 'Brand Nubian'. In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN0-7432-0169-8.
External links[edit]
- One for All at Discogs
- One for All — Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide
- One for All — Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs
- New Music Preview – Brand Nubian — Spin
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=One_for_All_(Brand_Nubian_album)&oldid=898110226'