Album Of The Day: An Octave Above The Original by Ill Harmonics

Album Art of Ill Harmonics's An Octave Above The Original album - On the top and bottom is a black background, and the middle is a color photo of two young, white men, one with fairly short hair with frosted tips and glasses, the other is bald with a bit of facial hair. Both are wearing suits and the bald one is wearing a tie. Both are looking to the left of the camera. Behind them is a few different walls, some with graffiti on them. Above the photo, in brown italics is the group's name. At the bottom, it has the album title in smaller letters, alternating between brown and blue text on the words.

"Rhymes come fresh and they always ill / When we rockin' the rockin' the Casbah." Released on this day 25 years ago, this is the first album from hip-hop duo Ill Harmonics. After rapping together in the Dallas area starting in 1995, they made it on MTV's "The Cut" in 1998, and this album on Uprok Records made them a part of a burgeoning Christian hip-hop industry. The duo of Blake Knight and Playdough (aka Harry Krum or Krum) switch off rapping over guitars, keyboards, bass and drums, a bit more sparse of a production than most rap albums. They make fun of the fact that they're white men on "Gringos", talk about their insecurities on "Will I?", about how competitive the rap game is in "Woe Is We", and there's lots of fun wordplay and a few samples throughout the album. Sadly, this album seems to be not currently available on streaming, so I guess you'll have to find a CD or something like that to give this a listen.

Release Year: 2000

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