Cold Gettin’ Dumb

Before there was Jutice, there was Just-ice.

“A former bouncer at punk clubs, Joseph Williams, Jr. was the first of the New York rappers to embrace gangsta rap, and when he burst out of Ft. Greene, Brooklyn as Just-Ice, he gained instant notoriety. Muscle-bound, tattooed, aggressive — he resembled Mike Tyson in more than just looks — and with a mouthful of gold teeth, he certainly stood out.”

In 1986 He released the ground breaking album, “Back To The Old School”

“It’s impossible to describe how fresh this album sounded when first released — producer Kurtis Mantronik utilizes the Roland 606 drum machine more potently than any producer before and as its huge beats kick holes beneath Just-Ice’s gold-toothed mumble of rhymes, curses, boasts, and yelps, the party gets underway. Back in 1986, this album burned eardrums and if now it sounds less revolutionary it remains a classic early hip-hop album, one that appeared as radical back then as the RZA’s production of Wu-Tang Clan did in the late ’90s. Neither Mantronik nor Just-Ice were to match it in their subsequent and separate solo work.”

Courtesy of AMG

A highly recommended interview here.

Just-Ice – Cold Gettin’ Dumb