If It's Too Loud...

It's no secret that I prefer classic hip hop over modern, so you know I'm going to be thrilled to get new music from Onyx. The group best known for "Slam" has been having a revival thanks to production from Snowgoons. For their upcoming album, they teamed with Ukrainian producer Stasevich. The first single off that album sounds like it could have been a track from Bacdafucup. "Bo! Bo! Bo!" has everything that made songs like "Slam" explode. It has all of that grime and stripped down production we loved in 1993. The way the music industry is these days, I doubt this will go gold like Bacdafucup did, but it certainly won't be due to lack of quality. "Bo! Bo! Bo!" is perfect for anyone who remembers classic Onyx with any kind of fondness. You can watch the video for "Bo! Bo! Bo!" below. 1993 is due out March 4 and can be pre-ordered here . For more on Onyx, check out their website .

It wasn't that long ago that Onyx had seemingly disappeared from the public eye. It's been nearly thirty years since the release of Bacdafucup , and while I know they've released music in that time, most of it has missed my attention. Onyx have been experiencing a Renaissance lately, at least here at If It's Too Loud. Fredo Starr and Sticky Fingaz have joined with Italian producer and rapper Sick Boy Simon on the new single "Bullshit." If you've loved Onyx in the past, you're going to love "Bullshit." It sounds like an updated version of Onyx. It's still hard and rough, but in a 2020 and more mature way. There's a certain RZA slickness to the production, which is never going to be a bad thing. You can watch the video for "Bullshit" below. For more on Sick Boy Simon, check him out on Facebook . 

While hip hop may use samples from previous songs, and even borrow entire choruses of a song to make a new song, an actual cover song is quite rare. That's what makes "Onyx" from Nate the Great so unique. While the song is just called "Onyx," it's a cover of Onyx's 1993 song "Throw Ya Guns." The Stacktown rapper attacks the song with the same ferocity that Onyx did nearly thirty years ago, and Fredo Starr even appears in the video to give it some more legitimacy. It's truly great to see a younger artist give such a tribute to ones that came before, and let's hope this helps spark a new trend of hip hop covers! You can watch the video for "Onyx" below. 

Forgotten Fridays is a weekly feature here at If It’s Too Loud... where we go back and find the lost records of our glory days. We played these on our college radio shows, put them on countless mix tapes, and then forgot they existed. Once a week we go back and remind you, and help decide if they were any good. I think the thing that annoyed me most about the whole rap metal movement of the late ‘90s was hearing report after report that this was the first generation of kids that were raised on both rock and rap. Apparently none of this “critics” ever heard of the Anthrax and Public Enemy team up for “Bring tha Noise” or Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 debut album. Hell, the first cassettes I ever bought with my very own money were Appetite for Destruction and He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper. The album that best personifies the early ‘90s rap/rock hybrid was 1993’s Judgment Night soundtrack.   This album – the soundtrack for the Emilio Estevez and Denis Leary action movie – wa...