Yo, check it: July 14, 1998-the long-awaited, eagerly anticipated, brand-new B-Boys' joint, Hello Nasty, was released. By the time you read this, there's gonna be mad amounts of album reviews written about it. They'll try to compare Hello Nasty to the mother of underrated hip-hop albums, Paul's Boutique-thereby inferring that its sound is so progressive and unique that most peeps won't even be able to hear it, right? ('Cause Paul's was way ahead of its time, yo. Most people only appreciate it in retrospect. Where were they when it came out? Listenin' to Vanilla Ice-that's what I'm sayin'.)

Pro music critics will drop science about all the bands/music styles the album kind of sounds like. But pro-guys always be missing the point. This album kind of sounds like a whole lot of crazy shit. There's these songs that don't even have any rapping on 'em. I played some for the music dudehams over at Warp magazine, but didn't say who it was they were listenin' to, and they were like, "Yo, is this the new Sean Lennon album? This sounds like Donovan, or Beck, or some shit." Then there's the rest of the album. When my homies here at TransWorld heard the "rap songs," they tried to step to 'ol P-Tex with some line about "is this even really 'hip-hop'?" So I had to break it down for 'em like this:

Pretend hip-hop in the late 90s is like metal was in the late 80s. There were your 'core metal bands like Metallica, your roots bands like Sabbath, but mostly, there were your glam metal bands like Poison and Bon Jovi. Now, check the state of hip-hop. You've got your 'core groups like De La Soul, roots like Run DMC, Africa Bambaata-or whateva', but then there's a whole lot of overproduced Puff Daddy glam-fluff crap floatin' around, too. Then you've got the Beastie Boys. Hello Nasty is to today's top-40 rap what, say, "grunge" was to glam metal. It's like garage hip-hop-the opposite of overproduced. There's all these super raw beats, messed-up keyboards, turntables hooked up to a wah-wah pedal, and one song has some crazy Carribean steel drums in the background that sound insane. Now, the B-Boys ain't a new thang, like "grunge" was-'cause they been around since back in the day. But since Paul's, they always been on the fringe-always pushing the envelope of rap off in some crazy direction, and isn't that the whole point of hip-hop? That's what I'm sayin'!

Yo, it's hard for a mad B-Boys fan to write an album review and be professional. P-Tex can't analyze love-try to break down a complex sound experience when all he wants to do is jump around the room, throw shit, and scream, "Dude! This album is sooo good! Did you hear that beat? Listen to that bass!" And the truth is, if you're down for the B-Boys, you're going to buy the album no matter what any review says. And you should. You'll listen to it, and you won't know what to think. You'll check yourself cold-starin' at your speakers, sayin', "What the hell? Are these guys smoking crack?" You'll bob your head, compare it to past albums, argue for days with opinionated mofos over whether it's genius or completely wack, press the rewind button for the thousandth time, and then realize you love it. Why? Because it's not a Paul's Boutique part two, or a Check Your Head part three; it's different-way different than most albums out there. And how much new music can you say that about these days? That's what I'm sayin'.