 Various Artists One of a million hip-hop compilations you'll find skulking about the budget bins here and there, Rap's Greatest Hits Volume Two collects a few choice "mid-school" classics along a couple of crowd pleasers and a few connoisseur selections … a typical CD you buy for one or two tracks and ultimately sell back. The junky packaging kept this one from ever entering my "real" collection, and it hovered for a couple of years in my piles of "ambivalent CDs" (ones I was still deciding whether to keep or not). The fascinating minutiae of my CD collecting habits aside, this is a functional rap disc that is best suited for parties. You can't really dislike a CD that kicks off with "Wild Thing" by Tone-Loc and also includes the likes of "Bust a Move" by Young MC, "Request Line" by Rock Master Scott, and "Lovin' Ev'ry Minute Of It" by Doug E. Fresh. But most of the songs here have been assembled on better (and better packaged) compilations. "Parents Just Don't Understand" has long since overstayed its welcome, but the rest of the tracks pay off and bring back that neglected late-80s era of hip-hop before everything got all scary and shootin' and pimpin' and all that. "Freaks Come Out at Night" by Whodini is always worth a listen – the sort of song that they just don't make anymore: electro-funk meets old-school lame rap (I mean that in a good way). Queen Latifah weighs in with "Dance For Me" (and I still contend that Latifah is one of the best ever). "Just Buggin'" by Whistle is pretty much total filler. No real purpose or continuity here, just a bunch of good ol' hip-hop. Incidentally, I have my doubts as to whether there is a Rap's Greatest Hits Volume One.
Review by Young John Goodman |