So why is Jurassic 5’s Power in Numbers on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I grew up in New York, and by the time the ‘90s hit I was savvy to the extraordinary amount of hip-hop being produced in and around NYC.
I’m drawn to rap music that had an underground flavor to it, and especially to hip-hop music that mixes in jazz effectively (see: A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Digable Planets, and the very recently covered and outstanding Uptown Saturday Night, by Camp Lo, #299 of best 1,000 albums ever).
I moved to California in late 1998, and by the early 2000s I was enmeshed in the tech industry while meanwhile trying to figure out what kind of music was being produced on the west coast in those days.
I recall messing around with the early “peer to peer” file sharing services (read = Napster) and stumbling into Jurassic 5. There was a raw version of the astonishing “Jayou” (with that sizzling flute sample!) that really got on my radar, and it helped open me up to all of this great new music being produced out of LA.
In the startup game, an “unfair advantage” is when a young company is ahead of its competitors in some way that can’t be made up easily, even through money or other resources. Jurassic 5’s unfair advantage in music comes in the form of its perfectly calibrated talent roster – Charles Stewart (Chali 2na), Dante Givens (Akil), Courtenay Henderson (Soup aka Zaakir), and Marc Stuart (Marc 7), who are backed up by the mega-talented DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist.
Power In Numbers is the first of three Jurassic 5 albums that will appear on the best 1,000 albums ever project, and given that we’re already into the Top 300, I think that shows the huge amount of love and respect I have for them.
“What’s Golden” grooves and scorches at the same time. See what I mean about the “unfair advantage” Jurassic 5 has as they seamlessly pass the mic from one rapper to the next, each with his own style and sound and all in an elite league in terms of talent and performance.
We tight like dreadlocks or Redd Foxx and Ripple
We pass participles, and smash the artist in you
The saga continues, this I won’t get into
‘Cause there ain’t enough bars to hold the drama that we been through
“Thin Line,” a collaboration with Nelly Furtado, slows things down considerably in a more soulful mode, yet it still remains an effective and energetic hip-hop tune.
And then tracks like “Break” show how adept the collective is at working the mic against a tasty funk guitar lick and wild hip-hop break beats.
“If You Only Knew” and “High Fidelity” get back to the jazzy hip-hop, and prove that these West Coast boys can do it just as well as the NYC crews*. It should also be noted that the sound production here is absolutely exquisite. These are special tracks.
* Note that this is a big admission coming from this native New Yorker!
Personal stuff that has something to do with Jurassic 5’s Power in Numbers
I would in no way call myself a “guitarist,” but I’ve gone through phases where I’ve messed around with the guitar daily (such as during the height of the pandemic, where this went on for some months), mostly messing around with simple chord combinations and writing songs.
One song of mine that dates back many years is “also” called “If You Only Knew,” which is why I’m mentioning it here. I guarantee you it is drastically different than J5’s “If You Only Knew”!
Some stats & info about Jurassic 5 – Power in Numbers
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Hip Hop, Rap, Alternative Rap, Underground Rap, Jazzy Rap
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Power in Numbers released? 2002
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #297 out of 1,000
Jurassic 5’s Power in Numbers on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Jurassic 5’s Power in Numbers that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
We holding onto what’s golden, on a stage I rage and I’m rollin’.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.