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Rating: The last decade of the last century opened with an artistically very fortunate explosion for the world of hip-hop, following the revolutionary and unexpected splendor of the eighties. On one side of America (New York), an attempt is made to turn hip-hop into music that continues to experiment without losing its immediacy, while on the other (Los Angeles), a standard is created made of heavy beats and themes revolving around women-money-guns, which soon becomes a cliché good only for brainless charts and sad news reports. Among this mix, perhaps few remember Mark Griffith, aka Mc 900 Ft Jesus, a classical musician from Dallas who ventured into hip-hop. But his is a unique and captivating sound, still appreciated today for its solidity and bold choices, capable of inspiring even diverse and distant scenes.
This "Welcome To My Dream" is his second album, dated 1991, and it is extraordinarily varied: capable of drawing inspiration from the godfathers of the genre as well as from certain cinematic jazz, funk, and more electronic and soft-focused sounds...
The beginning of the album is truly surprising: Falling Elevators with its pulsating bass and percussion laying the foundation for a fantastically R&B organ, a few scratches, and that wonderful mute-muted trumpet, finally the voice, which merges into this noir drape with delicate yet restless rhyming. A tutelary name not too distant could be Gil Scott-Heron, referenced in the metropolitan and almost esoteric atmosphere of this track and also in the more tribal feel of the beautiful Dali's Handgun. Killer Inside Me is the club-banger song that cannot be missing from a respectable hip-hop album, brisk and filled with funk horns and basslines, all sprinkled with colorful scratches. Adventure In Failure prefigures Beck almost three years earlier; while The City Sleeps is stunning in its loose and so restless gait that it becomes almost daunting, despite a sweetness that can be perceived among the flowing verses and the intertwining melody. The instrumental interlude O-Zone is astonishing, capable of soaring high and light between flavors of fusion and acid-jazz and a perfect demonstration that this album could appeal even to those who usually do not appreciate the genre.
The rest of the work moves on less eclectic but absolutely no less valid territories: the obsessive spoken-funk Hearing Voices In My Head and the danceable and chaotic Dancing Barefoot are exceptional pieces (perhaps the latter a bit dated), which many would sign up for immediately.
"Welcome To My Dream" is truly a remarkable album, compact as is rarely heard in the genre: direct, often raw, yet engaging and somehow hypnotic.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 The City Sleeps (05:32)
stealin' down an alley on a cold dark night
i see a halo in the rain 'round a street light
i stop and look and listen to the sound
as the raindrops penetrate the silence all around
alone, i gaze into the glistening street
the distant thunder echoing my hearbeat
urging me on to a secret goal
away from the light from this lamp on a pole
so i turn
slip away into the rain
drifting like a spirit through the shadows in the lane
clutching the tools of my trade in my hand
an old box of matches and a gasoline can
darkness envelops the scene like a shroud
a veil of emptiness hangs from the clouds
filling up the cracks in this desolate place
cradled by the night in an icy embrace
i move through the town like a ghost in the rain
a dim reflection in a dark windowpane
blackness beckons from every side
creeping all around like an incoming tide
a broken window in an empty house
i slip inside and begin to douse
the whole place with the fuel that will feed the fire
and push back the night, taking me higher
on out of the darkness
in a deafening roar
the match in my hand is the key to the door
a simple turn of the wrist will suffice
to open a passage to paradise
i pause
think about the past in the gloom
the smell of gasoline permeates the room
everyone has a little secret he keeps
i light the fires while the city sleeps
the match makes a graceful arc to the floor
time stands still as I turn for the door
which explodes in a fireball and throws me to the street
i hit the ground running with the flames at my feet
reaching for the night which recoils from the fire
the raindrops hiss like a devilish choir
dying in the flames with a terrible sound
calling all the names of sleepers all around
but then in the arms of the night they lay
their dreams sprout wings and fly away
out of their houses in a gathering flock
swarming overhead as I hurry down the block
i make my escape with the greatest of ease
and safe in the darkness, i drop to my knees
a light in this window, my hand on the latch
i reach in my pocket and pull out a match
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