I Can't Call It: D.I.T.C. Studio - D.I.T.C.

The first time I heard the phrase “diggin in the crates” was when I was peeping the liner notes of Diamond’s debut album “Stunts, Blunts & Hip Hop” back in ’91. All of the songs said “produced by Diamond D for Diggin In The Crates” production and my first thought was that’s a DOPE ass name for your production company. Fast forward 4 years and D.I.T.C. grew from Diamond’s production company to becoming one of hip hop’s dopest squads EVER! Boasting a line up of Lord Finesse, Big L, Fat Joe, OC, Showbiz and AG, Buckwild, Diamond D and Primo there’s absolutely no way that you could go wrong with this crew if you wanted dope hip hop. Now, I won’t hold you the album they dropped back in ’99 "Worldwide" was cool and had some gems here & there with “Day One”, “Da Enemy” and “Thick” but it was far from what I thought the long awaited D.I.T.C. crew album would be. I always felt like DITC’s hey days were those ’93-’96 years so by the time “Worldwide” dropped in ’99 I felt like their dopest days were behind them. To me it felt like when you were a kid and you wanted to see Hulk Hogan rumble Ric Flair but by the time it finally happens…you could care less. And if I felt that way in ’99 when “Worldwide” dropped, you could only imagine what my excitement level was for a new D.I.T.C. album damn near 20 year past their prime right?

An old Big L sound byte sets the album off the right way and goes right into the DJ Manipulator produced banger “Not For Nuthin” that has OC sounding like it’s ’93 again & “Times Up” just premiered on Stretch & Bob’s show. “We still have the game in a noose, forever training in great shape/attached to my crew like a caboose/evil I rebuke, despite B.S. you see in my eyes longing for happiness I'm in pursuit/the following is cult/I master baton Penn Relays, sprint tracks like Usain Bolt/micromanage flows convert em into song form/a few of my peers are dead or just long gone.” The Super Ugly produced “Rock Shyt” featuring Fat Joe, Lord Finesse and Diamond is flat out BONKKERS and has them all sounding like it’s ’94 all over again. “Night Ryders” featuring OC & Pharoahe Monce has OC still in rare form "there's nothing about me that's high sprung/nor do I look forward to being on Unsung/or being shot down in the streets by a pig's gun." “New Wave” featuring Fat Joe, AG & OC has so many dope quotables from Joe “got 2 Emenim 4’s, Bibby 8’s man/got the space jams Mike wore in Space Jam/Joe been the truth let’s get that straight man/cause ya’ll be turnin’ pussy like Bruce to Caitlin” and AG “my pen electric, my hand hold lightning/I’m from an era where there’s no ghostwriting.” “Make ‘Em So Proud” featuring Fat Joe, AG & Diamond, “Diggin Numbers” featuring AG, OC and Fat Joe “Brolic” featuring AG, OC & Diamond and “Gotta Be Classic” featuring AG, OC and David Bars are all bangers. Did ya'll peep that? I said they're ALL BANGERS!

The Primo produced “Connect 3” featuring Diamond, AG & OC takes you back to those “I’m The Man” and “Speak Your Clout” GangStarr days with each MC’s getting a different tracks, and “It’s Cold Outside” featuring Fat Joe, OC and AG has the crew chopping it up all of the nonsense going on in the world, “if 40’s the new 30, Caitlin the new cool/police body slamming our daughters in school/out in Chiraq they just murdering youth/DA’s giving life with no burden of proof/and you singing Change Gonna Come/while the words of Malcolm X remain unsung/and what we gonna do with Trump huh/what the fuck we gonna do with Trump?” OC’s dolo cut “Caviar Dreams” and AG dolo cut “Worldwide” both have both of these MC’s sounding the best I’ve heard them sound in years. The Lord Finesse produced “Read The Book” featuring AG & OC has both MC’s flowing over an old school 70’s blaxploitation sounding track that’s dope and “Wake Up” has AG breaking down his daily battles “got a demon on my left side, an angel on my right/and I feel like a referee cause all they do is fight .“ The albums ends with a remix of “Diggin’ Numbers” which is dope but my fave banger on this album is the Buckwild produced “We Started Everything” featuring AG & A Bless namely cause it’s dropping jewels on how New York City used to run EVERYTHING back in the 90’s! “Raised in a planet where my city never sleeps/if you ever bit the apple then you know about these streets/Queens, Manhattan, Staten and Brooklyn/they watch our every move cause the world is always looking/Bronx niggaz, we were birthed in the birthplace/it’s where you got your whole style from in the first place/originators acting like they don’t imitate us/yeah they copy us like truckers/home of the hustlers, balling on the street top/down on the jeep we at the Rucker motherfuckers/linx and rope chains, masters of the dope game/studio 54 mixed fame with cocaine/steady bangin my city niggaz please/with those funny ass ways corny niggaz can’t breath/you ask me I say that ain’t right/how you gonna fill the shoes of the late great Frank White/Timbs in the summer, yeah we did/Dapper Dan in the winter, yeah we did that/now who invented the scratch, yeah we did that/these niggaz know what’s up on this New York side we started everything.”

Welp, let me be the first to say that I was 100% wrong about what a D.I.T.C. album would sound like in 2016 cause this album is EASILY the dopest pure NYC boom bap hip hop I’ve heard in YEARS! The dopest thing about this album could very well be the nod factor cause there’s no way you’re not nodding you head throughout the whole album. Me and my dude were chopping it up about this album and he made a dope point. He said that “they all sound great together…like tight friends spitting in the basement.” And that’s probably the best way to explain this album. I told him, they probably are still friends hanging out in the Bronx cause it’s not like any of them blew to astronomical levels and left NYC (‘cept Joe) to go star in the new Morgan Freeman movie or are part of a late night show’s house band. So if you mix them still hanging out (which is SO key in making dope music IMO) with Show coppin’ the D.I.T.C. studio in the Bronx (cause you GOTTA be serious about making music if you cop a studio in 2016) then that’s exactly why we’re finally getting that D.I.T.C. album we all wanted back in ‘95. I got nuthin' but love and respect for this crew putting together an album THIS dope in 2016…for real!

4 outta 5 mics