The story surrounding KMD's Black Bastards is one full of tragedy. The New York hip-hop formation around the young Dumile brothers was very promising in the early nineties. The debut Mr. Hood (1991) was released on the big Elektra Records and a breakthrough seemed imminent. Just before the second record Black Bastards was finished, 19-year-old DJ Subroc was killed in a collision. After this, record
… company Elektra decided not to release the album. Black Bastards was filled with critical raps about the position of African Americans with a lot of tough language and wry humor. For example, the proposed artwork featured a hung black slave, which shot many people in the wrong direction. That KMD wanted to provoke and criticize clichéd images of African Americans, escaped the bosses at Elektra. The album did not reach the millions of listeners it deserved. Apart from all the fuss, Black Bastards was mainly an accessible and swinging album. The productions full of expertly woven samples of Zev Love X (later known as MF Doom) only found a modest audience in 2001. (JE)more
