Customer Reviews

Straight From Da Streets, Vol. 1

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My friends and I used to DJ college parties and just put this CD in our system and let it play, allowing us to party without having to work. It is seamlessly mixed so that you don't know when one song ends and the next one begins. When the CD ended, we just played it over and no one even knew. The only lame part about this mix is that it is all clean lyrics.

The songs on this album were at their peak of popularity when released. The only downfall is that this album is all edited. The message here to begin with is "If you don't like rap music or any music of any genre or style that contains bad language?... Don't buy the album." Buy something else less offensive or an album of music you know does not contain offensive language. That is your right not to buy. Don't force those who don't mind the offensive language to be robbed of all of our 1st Amendment Rights in this country. Make 2 versions of this album. One being a Parental Advisory version & this one. There are 2 sides to every story. The edited version & the real version ... that being the explicit version. If the music from this album were truly "Straight From The Streets" , believe me , all the music contained in this album would not be edited at all. Nobody playing music "straight from the streets" plays edited music. Because regardless of the language anyone uses either on CD or in public , we are all entitled to our 1st Amendment Rights to free speech in this country.
Our paid cable channels we subscribe to & watch on Tv in our own homes like HBO are not edited at all & we pay HBO to have the freedom to watch an Rated R movie if we want to at our leisure & discretion is not compromised as of now. No pay channel on Tv has any edited movies except maybe the pay channel Stars Kids or Disney. I'm talking about the well known pay channels that we all know show a more percentage of adult related movies & satire films not deemed suitable for child viewing. I know there are pay channels for kids , but not the majority of pay channels that we all know are either all or the majority to be Rated PG , PG-13 or Rate R where we all know there are un-edited cuss words & adult situations in them as intended & expected to be viewed by a paying adult of these adult related channels. So why is it that a paid CD we purchase to review & listen to in the privacy of our own homes any different then having the same private right to listen to & watch a Rated R movie in the same exact confines of our privately owned homes any different than listening to any explicit un-edited album any different under the same circumstance(s)?
I know how the album versions of these songs on this album already are & the original versions of these songs whether explicit lyrics or not , should be all inclusive. I am personally not bothered by cuss words in music regardless of how unnecessary cuss words need to be or not in music. I mean , this album was created for private & personal home stereo play. Not the edited radio versions here in this compilation for which they are ready strictly for air play. Now , although I am not a huge fan of cuss words in music , I am an even more huge fan of & personally believe in our 1st Amendment U.S. Constitutional Rights to listen to albums we either buy in the store or here on amazon.com the way they were intended to be heard by the artists. Even if it meant that the original albums slapped a Parental Advisory sticker on it. I would have been fine with it. Being that this compilation was put together & released on behalf of & by a radio station in part , it would bring no surprise to me that it is an edited album. I should have expected that before purchasing it. I used to own this CD back in 1992 & never remembered it to be so edited. It is now 2010 when I re-purchased it & forgot how far we have come as a United states where it is no longer safe to have the personal choice & preferential right to listen to music the way we as paying full grown adults of this & thousands of other edited albums sold today. To take the rights away from the music artists to have their lyrics in their music remain in place without removal is a side to side head shaking in disbelief shame that we cannot even merely pay for the right to listen to an album that hasn't been edited to death or somehow kid gloved for whatever reason. This world is so concentrated on being concerned about what our kids say & hear on the radio that it protects & shields our youths from the realities of life once they live on their own. With the way kids are today where they are pretty much going to do what their going to do & say whatever they want to say anyways , it doesn't make any sense to have anything edited music or otherwise. Kids are rebellious & no edited album like this one is going to stop them from being the way they are as we see them on the news killing each other & cyber bullying them to suicide results. I mean , let's get real. With all the other mischievous things kids & teens get into these days regardless of how much we as parents try to stop them , does it really make a difference if they hear cuss words on a CD album? I'm pretty sure they have heard , used & or are using those very same curse words record labels like this one is trying to keep us from hearing. As long as we as America allow the government to control what we say & or hear , there is no telling what other control we may eventually may give to the government without permission simply because we don't stand & speak out for what our country is based on. Freedoms. I think all music albums regardless of the language should not be censored. It should be up to our own best judgement as adults to police & protect & teach our kids the rights & wrongs of society. Not to allow the recording industry such as the one that put this album out to make executive decisions for us. Today it's our first Amendment Right taken from us as evident as it has been since The 2 Live Crew's album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" in 1989-1990 , then later in 1994 just after the Snoop Doggy Dogg "Doggystyle" album release title caused so much scandal & havoc that is pressed the government to enforce a mandatory "Parental Advisory" sticker on any & all explicit music content related to compact discs. Enjoy your constitutional rights minus the 1st Amendment one for as long as you can because we may lose them all to the government if they keep having their way with us. Although we don't like how people talk or cuss or ridicule or cause us all to hurt one another , we all should be able to have the right to reserve the way we hear our music in the privacy & confines of our own homes. We don't pay good money to have the music industry shield grown adults from words we know are bad , but are mature enough to handle. Regardless of how much we try to protect our kids from the outside world , they will eventually do what they are going to do & speak the way they are going to as the age of out of control kids get younger & younger as we progress into the future. No matter how much we try to cover their ears from cuss words or anything verbally abusive , the cause will inevitably be all for not. I know there are lots of kids getting younger & younger that have foul mouths that don't otherwise listen to rap music or get their foul mouths from music. It's all attitude & upbringing. We don't spare the rod & control our kids without the kids having the upper hand with calling authorities on parents because the parents are trying to punish them for being bad. Nothing we as adults can say or do anything to keep the children from being the way they want to be regardless of what we try to instill in them or tell them. No amount of Parental Advisory stickers will stop a child from getting the real versions , the explicit versions of music from their friends. It's like no matter what the law says about people needing to be 21 years of age to drink. Under age drinkers don't care. They will drink under the age of 21 regardless. That is a proven fact. The same with anything illegal that kids want to do anyways regardless of the consequence(s). Kids don't care as much as the parents do.
So , in closing , I don't see the point of having any edited versions of music like the one's featured through out this album at all. It doesn't prevent kids from cussing anyways. An edited version will not make them change either way. You tell kids one thing & they do the opposite on purpose. So editing & having edited music really is a lost cause & is a waste of our energy & time to produce for the open public to purchase in our music stores to listen to in the privacy of our own homes to have the right to hear music however we want to. Good lyrics or bad. That is our right. Not the people who produce & put out the albums we buy as consumers.
The only thing that is beneficial about edited music that it is intended & only intended for public air play. But , when it comes to buying an album meant for the privacy of our own homes , albums like this one should come with a Parental Advisory sticker if the producers of the album wish to give us all a warning & it makes them superficially comfortable that it makes any difference for which it doesn't in the long run. A Parental Advisory sticker doesn't stop anyone from listening to anything negative. But in the end , the take away from it is that we have the right in return to listen to the music the way it was meant to be heard. Un-edited. There is a place & time for edited music in this world. Around our kids & on the radio & the general public is fine. I don't dispute that. But , when full grown adults who know the artists on this album have already noted curse words we are aware of are in the songs in the original versions of these tracks , we should have the right to listen to them in the privacy of our own homes if we want to as long as we aren't encouraging or promoting the use of cuss or curse words around others around us that would otherwise be offended by such language. For everyone else who is not offended , let the music remain un-edited. We as adults have just as much rights to listen to Parental Advisory related albums just as the kids of this world have every right to have their kid glover versions of the same album edited. There are 2 sides to every story & 2 sides to every song & lyric written in music by the intended author & music artist who writes the songs. We are slowly slipping back into being the same communist country that Berlin was before they brought down the wall. We are only going backwards in time & not forwards the more we allow the government to have their way with us & our freedoms in this country. I predict that slowly , but surely we will have no rights that should be protected by those in this country that have fought wars & have died for our country for us to have these rights in place & protected eternally. Let's not forget that. No amount of editing music or anything & everything deemed offensive or bad for us as humans will prevail any form of positive outcome if the message that really surfaces in reality comes in the form of a mask to our 1st Amendment Right(s) to allow the government to give license to the illusion(s) that we have the right to free speech when we really don't. Enjoy & embrace your rights for they will all go back into the same history books in time for which we were never entitled to prior to those who have fought & died for those rights to begin with. Today it's what we say. Tomorrow we will be banned on how we think & feel & express ourselves as individuals that may be compromised because a majority rules that it's offensive to be who we are as free thinkers. It will happen. It's just as matter of being patient & waiting for the time to come where we can't say or think anything without the government ruling to put a Parental Advisory or a permanent ban on anything we do as individuals as long as we allow others to control us simply because they think it's wrong while we believe as Americans something is right. All this that I have said ties into the tiny little principal of control that is weaved & co-mingled into the way this album was perfectly eclipsed & over shadowed with unnecessary editing that is moot & meaningless to the reckless kids of today. There are bigger & worse issues that kids are getting into illegally that are much worse than us worrying about what they hear in music. Kids are as smart as we are & are getting that way younger & younger as they come into this world. Hiding bad words in music is not going to stop them from saying the words or hearing them anyways & eventually from somewhere else. So Parental Advisory stickers & edited albums are not the answer & is pointless. You know it & I know it. The kids know it better than any of us adults do. They are hip to the edited music push & will not want to listen to them prefer the Parental Advisory version albums while deep sixing the edited versions that their parents buy them so fast it makes the unaware parents' heads spin. Kids will never want to own or listen to any of the available edited albums regardless of how much we the parents press & or instill the issues of edited & Parental Advisory guidelines & limits & alternative good values on these children & teens to do otherwise. Kids have their own mindset today & are their own boss & person & nothing we say or do as parents or observing adults not related to these kids can force any sense into them. The kids will have to want to choose for themselves not to buy an explicit or Parental Advisory related CD or download for the MP3 & no amount of edited music available in this world will force them to choose what we prefer them to listen to. By forcing them to conform makes them want to do the exact opposite. Even being nice to kids about listening to edited music or asking them to change for the better mistakes you for your kindness to them as a weakness of you in their minds. There is no getting through kids with this edited music theory imposed & forced onto kids. I know all this edited music is not for mature adults. We care too much for the kids of today that don't care about authority & discipline & no edited album will change them for the better in their listening pleasure of said edited albums. Go into any teenagers room who is into heavy explicit music of rock or rap or industrial or punk music & see how many edited albums they have in their preferential CD collection(s). You will find none. Good or bad or a curse , even as a blessing in disguise , we have a right to our 1st Amendment right regardless. If not , then why do we supposedly have a right to free speech if there are strings attached to the contrary? You & or we cannot have the right to our 1st Amendment if it is an unwritten rule to have your cake & eat it too on the issue. We made our bed on fighting for the right to free speech in this country & now we are all agreeing to fight to take it away because we cannot accept the inevitable. That is , that kids will cuss & talk back & be bad , aggressive & law breakers despite what is heard or portrayed in the music of yesterday & today that contains bad language or suggestive adult themes. it's all about how we parent our kids to do right from wrong. Blame the parents & not the music for what our kids listen to. The parents have the control to keep the children from listening to the music they disagree with. Don't blame the musicians or recording artists for the acts of children. bad parenting & lack of guidance is what keeps the music industry , the very industry that drives & engages these very kids to buy the explicit albums sold today. Keep the kids from buying these albums & maybe doing that will put all the explicit related music groups out of the business or the habit of producing & recording explicit lyric related music. As long as the musicians , bands or individual recording artists have an up close & personal & engaging audience to their music for explicit related music , nothing will change & the issue will never change. In the end , it's up to the parents to patrol & police what our kids listen to & not to visit & infringe upon any music group , individual recording artist(s) or musicians as a whole & any & all adults over 18 have the right to explicit & Parental Advisory related music. Again , if you don't like explicit cuss word related music & material, then you have just as much right to not listen to that very album that I or anyone would otherwise should & have the equal right to listen to it. What I do or listen to music or movie-wise in my home might not be what you choose or prefer to do in your home , but I would never stop you or anyone from doing what you or they want to in their home despite how much I don't like or disapprove of it. It's just as much yours or their right as it is my right to listen to or watch what I want as an adult. Don't blame the music or movies for the control as we the parents of these kids do not have over them. It starts & stops in the home when it comes to what our kids listen to. Then & only then will we hopefully slowly , but surely have un-edited music & kids who are kept from listening to those Parental Advisory related albums successfully. That would end any & all edited albums like this one from being produced & surfacing on the internet as a download or in our music stores today & tomorrow & in the future.