Rikers_Island_(song)

<i>Wanted: Dead or Alive</i> (Kool G Rap & DJ Polo album)

Wanted: Dead or Alive (Kool G Rap & DJ Polo album)

1990 studio album by Kool G Rap & DJ Polo

Wanted: Dead or Alive is the second album by the hip hop duo Kool G Rap & DJ Polo. The album was released a year after the duo's debut, Road to the Riches, and received greater acclaim from most music critics. The singles "Streets of New York" and "Erase Racism" received notable airplay on Yo! MTV Raps and the former is credited by Nas as being influential on his song "N.Y. State of Mind" from his critically acclaimed album Illmatic.

Quick Facts Wanted: Dead or Alive, Studio album by Kool G Rap & DJ Polo ...
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Lyrically, the album shows a greater variety of themes, from the battle rap braggadocio that dominated Road to the Riches, to topics of crime, poverty, racism ("Erase Racism"), and raunchy sex rap ("Talk Like Sex"). Perhaps most significantly, there is greater emphasis on vivid descriptions of crime and urban squalor ("Streets of New York") and references to organized crime, gang violence, contract killing, and Mafia films (the title track, "Money in the Bank", "Death Wish"), which helped cement Kool G Rap's reputation as the founder of mafioso rap.

Track listing

(*) denotes co-producer

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Charts

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Rikers Island (single)

Quick Facts "Rikers Island", Single by Kool G Rap & DJ Polo ...

"Rikers Island" is the second single from American hip hop duo Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, originally released as a non-album single with "Rhyme Time" as a B-side in 1987 and later re-released as the fourth single from the 1990 album Wanted: Dead or Alive. It was later also featured on the compilation albums Killer Kuts (1994) and The Best of Cold Chillin' (2000).[citation needed]

Background

Produced by Marley Marl, "Rikers Island" is a hardcore hip hop song that warns of the dangers of living a life of crime and ending up in the Rikers Island jail where violence is a daily occurrence and even the toughest street criminals can be broken down.[8][9]

Samples

"Rikers Island" was later sampled on[10]

  • "40 Island" by Noreaga featuring Kool G Rap and Mussolini

Track listing

A-side
  1. "Rikers Island" (5:37)
B-side
  1. "Rhyme Time" (6:29)

Videos (added to 2007 Traffic Entertainment reissue)

  1. Streets of New York
  2. Erase Racism

References

  1. [1]
    Kellman, Andy. "Wanted: Dead or Alive – Kool G Rap & DJ Polo". AllMusic. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
  2. [2]
    Ravissa, Louis (December 13, 1990). "Kool G. Rap & Polo: Wanted: Dead or Alive (Cold Chillin')". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  3. [3]
    Christgau, Robert (2000). "Kool G Rap & DJ Polo: Wanted: Dead or Alive". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-312-24560-2. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
  4. [4]
    Larkin, Colin (2011). "Kool G Rap & DJ Polo". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-85712-595-8.
  5. [5]
    Caramanica, Jon (2004). "Kool G Rap & DJ Polo". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 465–66. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  6. [6]
    Reef (September 1990). "Kool G Rap & DJ Polo: Wanted: Dead or Alive". The Source: 54–55.
  7. [7]
    "Kool G Rap Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  8. [8]
    Kool G Rap Breaks Down His 25 Most Essential Songs
  9. [9]
    The 25 Realest Rap Songs About Prison
  10. [10]
    Rikers Island at Who Sampled
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