Happy 30th Anniversary to Above The Law’s debut album Livin’ Like Hustlers, originally released February 20, 1990.
In early 1990, I was going through a mini-crisis as a hip-hop listener, as my two favorite groups at the time were in the midst of turmoil. Public Enemy had been continuously breaking up and getting back together since the summer of 1989. Meanwhile, Ice Cube, my favorite rapper at the time, had recently left N.W.A, in what appeared to be, from the outside, an acrimonious split.
Of course, I had no way of knowing that both Public Enemy and Ice Cube were months away from releasing two of the best albums of their careers. I just knew that two crews that represented my love of this music seemed to be on the precipice of collapse, and, still being a young hip-hop head, I was beginning to despair.
So, Above The Law came along at exactly the right time. Released 30 years ago, Livin’ Like Hustlers, the group’s debut album, sounded like the next evolutionary step in gangsta rap. The Pomona-based crew had the presence and attitude of N.W.A, and often shared sonic similarities with Public Enemy. The interesting and innovative production stylings meshed perfectly with the brash lyrical tendencies of the group, resulting in one of the strongest albums of 1990.
Above The Law was comprised of rappers Gregory “Cold 187um” Hutchison and Kevin “KMG” Gulley (R.I.P.), along with DJs Anthony “DJ K-Oss” Stewart and Arthur “Go Mack” Goodman. The crew went to high school together, and ended up distributing controlled substances together on the block, while still being serious about recording and releasing music.
Cold 187um is the product of a strong musical lineage: his father, Richard Hutch, was a writer for Motown Records, while his uncle was the famed recording artist Willie Hutch. Cold 187um said he studied music since the age of seven, and eventually transitioned over to hip-hop.
Above The Law was mentored by Larry “Laylaw” Goodman, a longtime West Coast O.G., hustler, and producer. Laylaw was an early collaborator with Dr. Dre; Dre had produced a pair of singles Laylaw had recorded during the mid-1980s. He had known Eazy-E as well and had linked up with Ruthless Records in the late 1980s; he helped write lyrics for Michel’e’s debut album on the label.
After connecting to the group through Go Mack, Laylaw brought Above The Law into the Ruthless Records fold, and they signed with the label shortly after N.W.A finished their Straight Outta Compton tour. In doing so, they became the second gangsta rap group to release a project on the label.
Livin’ Like Hustlers was produced by Dre, Laylaw, and Cold 187um. The latter has said in subsequent interviews that the album was about 80% done by the time that they signed with Ruthless; he, Go Mack, and K-Oss had put together the initial framework for many of the tracks in his own home studio. They would then give them to Dre, who would refine them through his 24-track studio set-up, often re-sampling the tracks and adding extra flourishes to the compositions.
Musically, the album is an in-depth look at many facets of the gangsta rap sound circa the late ’80s/early ’90s. Some tracks are dense and chaotic, others are rough and rugged, and others are smooth and laid back, providing the earliest inklings of the G-Funk sound.
The album-opening first single “Murder Rap” sounds indeed like the spawn of N.W.A and Public Enemy. Dr. Dre’s work on Straight Outta Compton was often strikingly similar in approach to that of the Bomb Squad production team, in that it often features a collage of samples and breaks sewn together into a wall of sound. “Murder Rap” takes things a step further, channeling the Bomb Squad at their most chaotic.
On “Murder Rap,” Dre takes the intro synths from Quincy Jones’ “Theme From Ironside” and transforms them into a constant siren-like wail, laying them over a drum track that plays backwards, then forwards again. Filling out the sound are keyboard runs and flourishes added by Cold 187um himself, as well as vocal samples lifted from a pair of Public Enemy tracks.
Dre incorporates Bomb Squad-esque production throughout Livin’ Like Hustlers, and it works each time. “Menace To Society” is a similarly busy production, as Dre meshes samples of three different songs by BT Express, building them around Dyke and the Blazers’ “Let A Woman Be A Woman, Let a Man Be a Man” drum and percussion break.
Cold 187um and KMG function as a tag team throughout the song. The two emcees were a sharp contrast in terms of vocal pitch and delivery, with Cold 187um delivering raps in a breathless vocal tone, while KMG utilized a deadpan and slower flow. Though occasionally Cold 187um would handle all of the rapping duties himself, often the two trade rhymes, lines, and syllables on Livin’ Like Hustlers. On “Menace To Society,” Cold 187um does most of the rapping, with KMG finishing off nearly each bar.
It should surprise no one that Dre and Cold 187um are incredibly good at creating music that plays well in the car. The album’s title track is slow-rolling masterpiece of production, as they rearrange and repurpose Quincy Jones’ “Hikky Burr,” somehow making it more funky than the source material. The album version of “Untouchable,” the album’s second single, is practically peppy, sounding like the type of thing that you’d play while doing 90 down the Pacific Coast Highway. Later, Dre would remix the track for the album’s second single, transforming it into another aural assault in the vein of “Murder Rap.”
The crew gets even smoother on “Ballin’,” where they celebrate their player lifestyle. The pair rap over a keyboard heavy, slightly sped-up sample of Cameo’s “Why Have I Lost You.” You can hear some of the trappings of what would become the g-funk sound in the beat, but it’s so unbelievably catchy that it stands on its own outside of the context of what it would herald.
“Just Kickin’ Lyrics” is my personal favorite track on Livin’, a grim and gritty lyric-fest, with Cold 187um dropping vicious bars over a sample of Isaac Hayes’ “Hyperbolicsyllablecsesquedalymistic.” The beat is complex, incorporating many distinct portions of the source material and reformatting them into a dark and foreboding arrangement. On the mic, Cold 187um delivers the goods, rapping, “I think your status is weak, you’ll never compete / But I don’t have to sweat it, cause my posse’s just too deep / Yeah, we kick ass and take names and remain the same / We live large while you sit and complain.”
“Flow On” is the album’s other rhyme-focused entry, where both Cold 187 and KMG are focused on delivering a proper lyrical clinic. The track is the strongest showcase of the pair’s ability to work in tandem, as they trade lines over a string and horn sample from Love Unlimited’s “Move Me No Mountain.” Here they cover everything, from bragging about their rhyming skills, to bragging about their prowess with the opposite sex, to dispersing street knowledge.
Like many of the best gangsta rap crews of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Above The Law could also create politically charged music. Los Angeles based gangsta rap artists were receiving a good deal of unwanted scrutiny during this period, from the FBI’s warning letter to Priority Records over N.W.A’s “Fuck The Police,” to Ice-T’s mutually antagonistic relationship with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC).
Above The Law display their political awareness on “Freedom Of Speech.” Cold 187um drops jewels over a sample of Vicki Anderson’s “Message to the Soul Sisters,” decrying censorship and preaching parental responsibility, all while explaining what it takes to survive life in the ghettos of Los Angeles.
Livin’ Like Hustlers ends, appropriately, with “The Last Song.” The song is a sequel of sorts to The D.O.C.’s “Grand Finale” from No One Can Do It Better, the previous N.W.A offshoot project. Much like “Grand Finale,” “The Last Song” is a posse cut featuring the post-Ice Cube lineup of N.W.A.
Musically, the song directly evokes “Grand Finale,” as the spine of the song is also a replay of Parliament’s “Chocolate City,” but with a decidedly gloomier feel. As Dre, MC Ren, and Eazy-E contribute their guest verses, the band incorporates the music from some of their most notable N.W.A related moments, replaying portions of “Express Yourself,” “If It Ain’t Ruff,” and “Eazy Duz It” respectively. As a whole, the song isn’t quite as good as the first installment, as it’s tough to make up for the absence of Ice Cube and The D.O.C..
Decades later, Jerry Heller, the disgraced (and deceased) former manager of N.W.A and Ruthless Records, championed Above The Law in his autobiography, noting that they “would have been N.W.A if N.W.A never existed.” Above The Law might not have had the overall impact of a group like N.W.A, but their discography is extremely thorough. Though the group has been acknowledged for coining the term “G-Funk” and was instrumental in the creation of the style of music, this footnote should not be their only legacy. From Livin’ Like Hustlers on, they pushed the limits of what gangsta rap could sound like, and became under-acknowledged trendsetters in rap music.
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