Jamal
Last Chance, No Breaks

The music universe, as we know, is populated by numerous meteors, celestial bodies that have crossed the sky with a blazing light and have rapidly disappeared from circulation, extinguishing forever and dissolving into the cosmic void.

Leaving aside astronomy and focusing on more appropriate topics, we can say that the world of hip-hop is also chock-full of the aforementioned characters, artists awarded fleeting success who, following commercial flops or unidentified phenomena, have literally disappeared into thin air.

Among these, it is impossible not to remember Jamal Phillips, a young hopeful from Philadelphia, known to most as Mally G or simply Jamal.

Half of the duo Illegal, which in 1993 had released the good debut Untold Truth (the tracks were produced by the likes of Diamond D, Lord Finesse, Biz Markie, names well known to those familiar with the scene), Jamal later preferred to embark on a solo career.

Officially joining Erick Sermon's Def Squad, the young man dropped a bomb in October 1995, with the release of Last Chance, No Breaks, his first official effort.

Driven by the fine single "Keep It Real" and its related video, Last Chance, No Breaks is a no-frills album that perfectly reflects the sound of the Def Squad of the era and mid-nineties hip-hop in general, a time when things weren't overly complicated and where dirty drums, penetrating bass, and a couple of samples drawn from Afro-American funk were enough to craft a knock-out beat.

At the machines, we find heavyweights like Easy Moe Bee, Rockwilder, Redman, and Sermon himself, ready to provide the appropriate musical backdrops for Jamal's rhymes, sometimes more sunny and relaxed (such is the case with "Keep It Real"), other times more hypnotic or night-time ("Situation" or "Insane Creation"), but always stylish and at most pleasantly dated (a thought that came to mind while listening to some drum patterns, which today might sound a bit wooden).

And what about the rap? Jamal may not be the best MC on the face of the earth, but his raspy voice and some interesting wordplay reveal a credible, genuine attitude, in line with the best releases of the time.

A track like "Live Illegal", placed at the beginning of the lineup, immediately sets things straight: a powerful beat by Easy Moe Bee (stuff that drags you into the darker and more dilapidated underbelly of a US metropolis) and rhymes filled with ignorance, self-celebration, and the classic attack on "fake emcees", a real treat for genre enthusiasts ("Fuck these bitch ass niggas cause they all soft/Fakin' moves over hoes/Switch they dress code and mode/And now they wanna implore, up in the game/But I'm a blow they ass out the frame/And do it for my niggas, fuck the money and the fame").

"Insane Creation", featuring the crazy Redman, follows the same wavelength of goofiness and swagger, undoubtedly placing it among the tracklist's best moments (shots like: "Flow with no limits, fuck the mimics and the gimmicks/A lot of niggas wanna test my steez/I don't trip, I maintain then complain on CD's" will undoubtedly be appreciated).

However, Last Chance, No Breaks doesn't limit itself to mere self-indulgence: "Keep It Live" is the typical somewhat nostalgic "back in the day" where Mally G, over a splendid backdrop by P.M.E. (watch out for the vocal sample from "The Door to My Mind" by B.T. Express), reconstructs his criminal beginnings and tells us how hip-hop changed his life ("It all started on December 25th 1991, on the Illadelphiatic streets/That's when the son Jamal took a step up and gave his rep to some play/Prayin' that I make it to this day"); "Situation" describes an urban showdown complete with a tragic ending ("Shots rang out, bang bang out, slang slang out/Damn, so I pulled my thang out/Pow! I see blood hit my coat/I didn't feel hit, so I didn't choke/The girl dropped, she got shot/Two to the headpiece, B, and she died instantly").

If we add to all this the dreamy and damnably nineties atmosphere of "Keep It Real", Keith Murray perfectly embodying the psychopath in "Genetic for Terror" ("I'm talkin' to you niggas on the North, South, East and West/Fuck wit' Mally G and get a hole in your chest") and the tribute to funk father George Clinton in the closing "Unfuckwittable", we have a fairly clear picture of the situation.

All perfect, then? Unfortunately, no. Some recycled rhymes are acceptable, but "Da Come up" and "Don't Trust No", produced by Mike Dean, are two tracks ruined by horrible West Coast-flavored synthetic sounds we could have gladly done without.

Apart from these missteps, Last Chance, No Breaks remains a high-level debut. Jamal's only fault, if it can be defined as such, is having emerged in a period where quality releases were abundant, and if you didn't publish a masterpiece, you risked selling little, melting like snow in the sun. Which indeed happened (since then, only a few features, an appearance on the Def Squad album, and nothing more).

Despite this, his only LP remains a solid and convincing work, a snapshot of a perhaps unrepeatable season, when even an unknown meteor didn't cross the sky without leaving a trace but shone with an exceedingly dazzling light.

To be rediscovered.