A look back at Heltah Skeltah's Nocturnal
It was 1996...
I was locked in a cubicle, pick in fro, crappy dingy beige Mac underneath my fingertips, cold depressing Chicago wind pushing me to and from work… For that year, only 2 things kept me from jumping out of the office window:
One: our company’s windows were locked and sealed shut.
Seriously, it was an old building and for insurance purposes the windows on the
high floors were sealed shut to keep people from jumping then suing the
company. Now I was pretty sure anyone who could survive a voluntary 300-foot
header wouldn’t be thinking lawsuit as much as they’d be thinking “F**k, this
didn’t work either!”
But the other thing that kept me sane was a little collabo called “Nocturnal.”
Nocturnal wasn’t the first New York hip hop album I’d heard, but it
was the first one that made me want to drop everything I was doing and move to
NYC. Even to this day, whenever I put on this Sparksy and Dutch opus I just wanna pack a
bag and head east.
From the first muffled chants of Here We Come, I just felt
like I was eavesdropping on some secretive,
back-alley-of-a-warehouse-in-Brooklyn-after-dark madness. Like dudes were just
stomping down the street spraying graffiti and rhyming their asses off against
all comers.
Thanks to Nocturnal I walked down the halls at work for like
a week mumbling, “My clique roll thick like Hasidics.” Which was weird given
that I was usually walking by myself, and all my white stuffed-shirt coworkers
knew as much about cliques as I knew about Hasidics. But no matter…
Heltah Skeltah just blew me away.
Letha Brainz Blo was probably the track that pushed Rock in
my Top 10 for the entire decade. You hear that voice and it’s like that one
crazy uncle you don’t leave your kids around because you know they’re gonna
come back repeating stuff he said and if you don’t smack it outta their mouth
on the spot, they’re gonna get themselves into a world of hurt later on.
Rockness was just a beast. He took aliases and working his name into his rhymes to a level I hadn’t heard since KRS-One’s heyday. How wild was Rock? Rock's antics nearly relegated Ruck (aka Sean Price)—one of the wilder lyricists to ever jump off the eastern seaboard—to a serviceable straight man. Between his growls, wild sub-references and sinister energy, you really did forget just how good Ruck was. I mean who else could call themselves, “the lyrical rocket launcher” and have you go, “yeah, I’ll buy that”? Better yet, show me another MC that could say “Word to Bon Jovi” like it meant something other than fitting a rhyme scheme without getting laughed out of their own city?
"the hell with angel dust/plus I bust the devil's lungs with lyrics from the tip of the tongue, now you strung..."—Sean Price
More than charisma and character, Nocturnal showcased Heltah
Skeltah as serious hardcore street
lyricists. They didn’t bill themselves as
thugs turned rappers, or D-boys turned rhyme-slingers… They were just dudes who
seemed to be as much a part of the block as a curb who could also spit with
just about anyone in the '90s.
The other thing I still dig about Nocturnal is the darkness
of the production. Where predecessors like RZA were dark and choppy and the
Bomb Squad was trying to scramble brains Nocturnal was just sinister angry
grooves… somewhere between Mobb Deep or J-Dilla after an 8 year bid in Riker’s.
The more you listen, the more you wanna nod your head and just mean-mug every cat
that walks by.
But seasons change. Since Nocturnal, Sean Price has resurfaced
as a people’s champ of the underground releasing a whole slew of muscular punchline-heavy
mixtapes and solo projects to much success. (Word to Kimbo Price). As for Rock,
“Mr Bummy Jab” has battled labels, drug addiction, and assorted legal issues
including a manslaughter charge.
In 2008, Ruck and Rock reunited for their under-appreciated
D.I.R.T.(Da Incredible Rap Team). And continue to work on new projects for Buck and Dru Ha on the reconfigured Duck Down
Records.



















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