Kool G Rap & Dj Polo’s seminal debut album ‘Road to the Riches’ arrived in 1989. By that point G Rap had built a solid fan base after a run of successful singles for Marley Marl’s Juice Crew. With this release though G Rap took both his career and Mafioso rap to the next level.
‘Road to the Riches’ Showcased G Rap’s insane talent for spinning tales of life on the streets of NYC. His rhymes hit harder than anyone else in the game at this point, and to this day he’s most rappers favourite MC and in our eyes one of the greatest lyricists to ever do it.
Backed by the scratching skills of DJ Polo and fully produced by the legendary Marley Marl (who’s Cold Chillin' were behind the albums original release) ‘Road to the Riches’ marks the start of a now legendary career with tracks like ‘Men at Work’ - 5 minutes of relentlessly fire lyrical wordplay, with lines like: "I drop rhymes on paper and then build a sky- scraper/When I die scientists will preserve my brain/Donate it to science to answer the unexplained”. The album’s lead single and title track ‘Road to the Riches’ features hard-hitting lyrics about the life of a drug dealer, but its infectious piano beat saw the track hit heavy rotation on YoMTVraps and become the G Rap’s biggest hit to date. As well as boasting the unrivalled talent of G Rap, the album benefited from Marls forward thinking sampling, ‘Car’s samples Gary Numan’s hit of the same name & ‘Rhymes Express' samples Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans Europe Express.’
Omerta Inc. Will be reissuing one of the benchmark Hip Hop debut’s this October with two different vinyl pressings. The first pressing, limited to 300 copies will be on 180gm yellow vinyl with purple and blue splatter. Each copy will come individually hand numbered on the back cover in gold pen and housed in a high quality matte jacket with original art- work and insert; available exclusively through the Omerta Inc. store. The second pressing will be on 180gm split blue and yellow vinyl and will be available from record stores upon the album’s release on October 27th.