Dylan Masvidal | Staff Writer
When first glancing at “The Main Ingredient” cover, what do you see? A crate-digging producer alongside his microphone-wielding MC.
This is hip-hop at its finest, stripped down to the barest of essentials. Phat beats that liven up your speakers while accompanied by a voice so gentle…
My failed rap dreams aside, the iconic pairing of Pete Rock and CL Smooth is one of cosmic proportions. No average Joe could possess the imagination necessary to dream it up.
After bursting onto the scene and putting the entire genre on notice in less than two years with timeless tracks, the universe deemed it unfair for us mere mortals to partake in such wizardry.
Thus, the duo’s sophomore album ended up being their last, leaving many die-hard fans to wonder “what if” as tears rained down on their precious vinyl.
After listening to “The Main Ingredient” enough times, you’ll have no shame in adding to the sorrow.
There’s no downplaying the sheer artistry on display throughout this entire record. I double-dog dare you to try and stop yourself from nodding along.
Right from the opening cut, “In the House“, Rock’s vocal chopping and brain-rattling drum loops weave effortlessly with Smooth’s silver-tongued bravado.
It’s still a mystery why Smooth, a suave rapper who waxes poetic as good as LL Cool J and drops funky cadences with the precision of Queen Latifah, is constantly snubbed by hip-hop’s “gatekeepers“.
His buttery smooth flow makes “freaktacular” a $10 word on “Carmel City“, followed up by clever imagery on “I Get Physical“: “Making stable moves, wrestling grooves, here comes the pain, my style’s invisible knives, slicing to the root of your brain.”
All the way up to the album’s final track “Get on the Mic“, Smooth does not let up with his memorable slang and casanova wisecracks (“Cause I love my shorties like Jesus loved children”).
Call me delusional, but the catchy, almost cryptic vocabulary in the vernacular of future East Coast acts such as Camp Lo and even Jay-Z can be traced back to Smooth’s lyrical style.
Of course, where there’s an MC, a DJ will be pretty close behind. Only this “super producer” is mentioned in the same breath as other oracles of the sound.
I could spend all day and all night going over Rock’s fantastic sample choices, jazzy piano implementations and ability to effortlessly use his voice as a conduit for the instrumental.
However, his infatuation with maximizing the sounds a turntable can produce truly puts him in the upper echelon. It separates dime-a-dozen beatmakers from DJ Premier, Marley Marl and Jazzy Jeff.
Rock belongs with the latter, crafting production on tracks like “Sun Won’t Come Out” and “Check It Out” where you can feel the passion behind the push of every button on his SP-1200 sampler.
His work on this album is one of a kind, splicing together music from various genres to create a singular palette of delicious herbs and spices.
Never mind his reach either; he inspired a corny Hispanic suburbanite like myself 30 years later into believing he could chop up a video game sample on an Akai MPC with no proper training.
Oh yeah, and obviously, the current crop of needle movers who pay homage to him.
Breaking up is hard to do, yet it weirdly affects those on the outside even greater.
Signs point to a reunion between Rock and Smooth never materializing, so it’s best we take the time to appreciate the warm plate of soul food they left us with, “The Main Ingredient”.
I’d recommend playing the record while enjoying Thanksgiving with your loved ones. This is food for the mind, body and soul.
CLASSIC/10.
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