![]() ![]() Bigg Jus and El-P, the two main rappers on Funcrusher Plus, were the products of this 1990s hip-hop counterculture movement, and their content reflected its principles and beliefs.įuncrusher Plus portrays New York as a futuristic place, inhabited by a variety of characters, each with a dark sense of realism - like the 1981 movie Heavy Metal in musical form. MCs like Kool Keith, for example, would deride the corporate aspects of hip-hop in acerbic tracks with derisive rhymes. After years of ideological disagreements, the underground scene of 1997 had become fervently opposed to corporate rappers. As a recently converted drum and bass label, Rawkus Records was becoming a mainstay in the underground hip-hop world, and this album marked its inception as such. In addition to Diddy's work, tracks and albums by Will Smith, Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes, and LL Cool J also helped shape the hip-hop landscape of 1997 - a landscape that was completely subverted by Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus.Ĭompany Flow did not mess with the radio, and their signing to Rawkus Records further solidified this stance, bringing the group's mantra to a scene whose aversion to the mainstream ran deep. Even so, these hits seemed untouchable at the time, gaining popularity among hip-hop fans and mainstream pop audiences alike. ![]() These tracks sounded like money-making ploys, capitalizing on the hard work of others without much effort to reimagine the originals. His work on Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous Life After Death undeniably enhanced the project's sonic landscape, solidifying the Brooklyn MC's Legacy, but his own compilation album No Way Out prompted some major backlash after songs like "I'’ll Be Missing You" and "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" copied The Police and David Bowie respectively. The mainstream landscape was largely dominated by Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, who was widely regarded as rap's omnipotent figurehead, a reputation that warranted both acclaim and harsh opposition. It is worth taking a moment to establish what hip-hop sounded like in 1997. Yet Company Flow's combination of punk-rock attitude and experimental rap birthed a hip-hop magnum opus that radically reimagined the boundaries of the genre. In 1997, if you were to ask the average hip-hop fan about Company Flow and their debut album Funcrusher Plus, they wouldn't have known whom or what you were talking about. ![]()
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