Road to the Riches: Best Of The Purple City Mixtapes

Purple City (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 22, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Babygrande Records
• ASIN: B0007KIG9A
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,182 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

THE BEST OF MIXTAPE CD FROM PURPLE CITY Album features guest appearances by : juelz santana, jim jones & jr writer. Includes 10 blazing unreleased joints!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What can I say, March 22, 2005

By 

napalm (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Road to the Riches: Best Of The Purple City Mixtapes (Audio CD)

I gave this album 4 stars because the beats are great. the lyrics on the other hand suck. I have followed PCP since their first mixtape. Another thing about this album is that there is nothing really new. I think Un Kasa should be the only one spitting and Agallah shold stick to the beats and Shiest just hype it up. If not for the beats, this album would be trash. I'm disapointed in the lyrics.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 Stars on Beats and That's It, June 26, 2005

By 

Mishima Triad (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Road to the Riches: Best Of The Purple City Mixtapes (Audio CD)

If your sole objective for buying an album is to listen to some great beats, then this album is for you. If your objective is to hear great beats and lyrics/flows (or just great lyrics/flows), then this album is definitely not for you. I decided to check this album out because I heard a couple of songs on XM Radio and the beats were tight so I figured there might be some lyrical potential on other songs on the album as well as good beats -- WRONG! There is virtually no lyrical skill displayed on this album. It's like listening to a Beatnuts album except at least these guys don't shout their sh!#y lyrcis over the track so you can't hear the good beats (like the Beatnuts do). If you've been smokin some piff as they call it and just want to chill out to some tight beats, then this is your album. If you want to hear some nice lyrics, go listen to Canibus or Common; don't waste your time on this album. Like I said in the title, this album gets 3 stars strictly on beats. Some of the hottest tracks include "A Part of History", "Will Not Lose", & "Piff Iz Da Answer".

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good collection of different mixtape hits, March 23, 2005

By 

Piffster - See all my reviews

This review is from: Road to the Riches: Best Of The Purple City Mixtapes (Audio CD)

It's true some of the songs on this cd I first heard years ago, but this 'Best Of' collection is a good group of Purple City/Diplomats songs.

If someone has not heard of Purple City they should understand that it refers to upper Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan. The neighborhoods act as a cocaine & marijuana mecca for the tri-state area. In particular New Jersey which is seperated from Wasington Heights by the 1 mile 'George Washington Bridge', which carries New England to the rest of the country via I-95. The George Washington Bridge is pictured on the cover of the record and it should be noted that so much traffic crosses the bridge (and upper Manhattan) that it remains a top terrorist target due to the damage it could do to our economy. That's how many trucks/cars cross through that neighborhood, some who stop and create supply for narcotics.

The lyrics are up to par with many other rappers, with the added chronicles of the described New York street life. These are stories of "Piff" (marijuana), cocaine, parties, women, and luxuries that were grown from the bottom up.

For fans who have the the mixtapes already, this is probably not going to do much more than give you the satisfaction of supporting them. But for newcomers the songs offer a look into the self-made crew that with the help of Cam'ron, Juelz Santana & Jim Jones have sold something like 80,000 mixtapes.

I reccomend this PCP 'Best Of' collection to people who like rap and can enjoy the drug & gun talk without getting all bent up about it. It may also help to not take it so seriously as crime has dropped a lot in Harlem/Washington Heights in the past 10 years. If you are someone who likes both the introspective side of hip hop and the gangsta' side then you will like this album, It has both + the beats to back it up.

Look out for "Purple City Byrdgang", which is like a street anthem, "Piff Iz Da Way", a song which talks specifics when it comes to Purple Haze (Piff) in Washington Heights, "Gun Go" is a catchy gangsta' record while "It Ain't Easy" samples a rock song which gets flipped into a nice beat.

"Copz Iz Coming" may have benefitted by fleshing out some of the lyrics, however the repetitive rhymes by Juelz Santana manage to get stuck in my head anyway. Even if you feel like they were put in there to extend the song by 8 bars his delivery is very catchy. I don't like Me & U.

If you know these neighborhoods well then you realize that this is the one of two big rap crews coming directly out of Manhattan Island, home of the Knicks, MTV and Sesame Street, that is repping Manhattan. No longer is "Harlem" the 5th borough to rap, now it is joined by Washington Heights. Inwood & Washington Heights are more uptown than "uptown". These records were made from riders of the 1, 9 and A trains, those present in Manhattan on 9/11, and those who have turned a life of crime down for a life of prosperity.