Album Notes

Music's very first anti-Iraq War Rap album. Critically acclaimed and nominated as Best Album Of The Year in the Rolling Stone (and The Village Voice's "Pazz & Jop") Critics Poll for 2002.

In 2003, "Hoin' For George" and "Red, White & Blue" were chosen by Woodstock Legend Country Joe McDonald ("The Vietnam Rag") and San Francisco Bay Area Hip-Hop Historian "Davey D" Cook as The Best Hip-Hip Anti-War Songs Worth Playing In Times Of War.

CRITICAL REVIEW:

"One night,....I heard some [pot head] wearing a T-shirt with a Brown logo turned inside out mention Crack: We Are Rock in the same breath as the Crack Emcee. I almost force-fed him a trash can. It's not that the Crack Emcee's been riding that train for years, having adopted the handle during Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" jihad, when cozying up to hubba was roughly equivalent to declaring for Hamas during Intifada 2002. What's important is that the Crack Emcee is - and this is no joke - some kind of genius, with a gift that seemingly sparks randomly or maybe just when he feels like squeezing off a few rounds. Call him unpredictable, unwilling, or maybe, well, you know, but genius is genius, and you've got to respect it. He tosses a mix of underplayed rock, punk, and hip-hop up against the wall on Rap's Creation, and sometimes it sticks. On "Don't You Know" he raps, "Where you from / Why you here / Why you go / Don't come near / Stay away / Don't come back / Not today / Know where you at / Don't you know I'm the motherfucker out here that gonna hurt you" over an ominous, simple bass line. The result isn't thug rap but deeply sad, desperate blues. The Crack Emcee plays soul music for a twisted world; he's radical, challenging, unapologetic, weird, and at times so fucking brilliant that you worry he'll explode like a suicide bomb."

- J.H. Tompkins, Arts Editor: THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN