Customer Reviews

Road to the Riches: Wanted Dead Or Alive

5 star:		(8)
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The majority of the top selling east coast rappers of today, from Nas to Jadakiss to Raekwon to Beenie Siegal all owe a huge dept to the Kool Genius of Rap. If you don't know, Kool G. Rap was spitting criminology on wax back in the late '80s, easily 5 years before all five boroughs started popping guns and champaign corks. If you listen to today's MCs, there are two rappers from the golden years who's influence still hangs over the rap game like a mushroom cloud. The first of course is the one and only Rakim. The second, and sadly, too often ignored in conversations about the all time greats, is Kool G. Rap. This set leaves no doubts that this man was one of the illest ever to touch a mic piece. The first album in this set is the 1988 debut, Road to the Riches which featured the ground breaking title track, which seems to have served as a blueprint for so many street narratives of recent years. In addition, G. Rap flexes impeccable mic skills over Marly Marl's raw yet refined production on the classics "Poison", "Men at Work" and "Truly Yours". This album stands as one of the highlights of the Golden Era (1986-89) and would easily be worth the price of purchase, but wait, there's more! Wanted Dead or Alive, the 1990 follow up is also included! While some of the production on Wanted now sounds dated (Marly only did one cut), it also shows the evolution of G. Raps style, as he truly steps into his own as the father of murda muzik. The highlight is definetly "Streets of New York", one of the rawest and most compelling street naratives ever, and seemingly the inspiration of Nas's "New York State of Mind". Any old school head who doesn't own these two albums should definetly pick this up as a refresher course on how nice G. Rap was. Any new jack who regularly bumps any of the artists mentioned above needs to pick this up to learn the roots of what they are listening to. In other words, a must for all!

Simply put: If you are a hip-hop connoisseur, and you do not have this in your collection, you are a fool, and you need to step your game up real quick! Road to the Riches and Wanted and Dead or Alive in the same package? These classics are from hip-hop's golden era that introduces you to the Large Professor and Freddie Foxxx (Money in the Bank) and the slept-on Erase Racism (BDK and BizMarkie) to name a few. For all the WHBI heads out there, you know that Riker's Island was the jumpoff. Absolutely a MUSTH HAVE!

If you feelin' artists like Kane, Rakim, Nas, Jay-Z, Scarface,(some TuPac & Biggie), AZ, Common and Mos Def, you gotta have this LP to complete your collection.

Kool G. Rap is the OG in hip hop for all-time!

Highly recommended purchase!

simply the best you can get by Kool G Rap & Dj Polo and almost the best you can get from Hip-Hop.

ROAD TO THE RICHES (produced by Marley Marl)
Road to the riches: brilliant beat and lyrics that will suck you into their world (5 stars)
It's a demo: G Rap & Polo's first single, but this is not the original version, which unfortunately is far better (4 stars)
Men at work: true hardcore (5 stars)
Truly yours: mocking and a bit arrogant (5 stars)
Cars: brilliant sample and rap (5 stars)
Trilogy of terror: very good but a bit short maybe (4,5 stars)
She loves me, she loves me not: G rap demonstrates he's not afraid of speaking about his weaknesses, too. a very frank cut (5 stars)
Cold cuts: some room to let Polo display his great turn-table's skills (5 stars)
Rhymes I express: the only average cut (4 stars)
Poison: ferocious rhymes and great scratches on the hook (5 stars)
Butcher shop: incredible bass line!! (5 stars)

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE (produced by G Rap, Eric B, Dj Polo, Large Pro and Marl on the last cut)
Streets of new york: real and raw street narrative (5 stars)
Wanted dead or alive: ferocious rap once again (5 stars)
Money in the bank: ft\ Large pro, anton & freddie foxxx, but the hook is a bit repetitive (4 stars)
Bad to the bone: classic eric B's beat, the bassline is amazingly fat! (5 stars)
Talk like sex: funny, tough, noisy. (5 stars)
Play it again polo: not that something (3 stars)
Erase racism: ft\ Biz Markie & Big Daddy Kane nuff said (5 stars)
Kool is back: G rap's shows a superhuman breath-control and Polo scratches with fury(5 stars)
Play it kool: the same brilliant Kool G Rap's flow, but this time the hook is very weak (3 stars)
Death wish: g rap's voice turns raucous on this, which is cool, too bad the beat is not very original (3 stars)
Jive talk: g rap drops a freestyle (4 stars)
The polo club: the worst track of the album (2 stars)
Rikers island: a bit repetitive, and what happened to G rap's voice?

the last 3 tracks are not as good as the rest but this double album is indeed worth owning. you won't be disappointed

They are the dynamic duo of hip-hop period! I have been listening to them since day one. True masters of the art. It was just too bad there stuff was so hard that they never really got the air play they deserved. If your an O.G. then you gotta add this to your collection and if your new school then you should buy this to listen to what paved the way for hip-hop today. Go get this now!

Kool G Rap to me vocally is a mix of Big Daddy Kane and Erick Sermon's lisp. He had some good joints but at his best he was a B List rapper, when compared to Kane and Rakim.

Top Joints:
Road to Riches
Truly Yours
Streets of NY (Classic)
Talk Like Sex
Death Wish
Erase Racism
Play It Again Polo
Rikers Island

KOOL G. RAP displays one the greatest rhymes performances on record, only a close 2nd to RAKIM's Follow the Leader LP, on "WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE." On the "ROAD TO THE RICHES" LP "Men @ Work" may be the greatest 30 bar rhyme segment ever recorded. The only dude that was better was RAKIM. PEACE.

I write because I suffer, Inc.

Classic. As a white boy that doesn't listen to rap much anymore, mainly WP music, etc., I have to admit, this is onna the best albums I listened to when I had 4 15" in my trunk. Now I listen to AC/DC and Screwdriver and ROHAWA on 2 12" and 14 mids and tweets @1,000 watts, but Kool G rap and Polo are definately under-rated. I don't listen to much rap anymore, but I occasionally hear Puff Daddy and Snoop Dog(aka Dre), and they all got it from previous rappers. Now, one can semi-respect rappers that get their stuff from literally 'diggin in tha crates' aka Premier and Guru. But Dre(bless his heart, sometimes he goes way back) and Puff Daddy, they don't even bother to get original.

But, in the end, Kool G Rap and Polo(Marley?), never got the respect what they deserved.