Diamond D [click to read] may have been the Kanye West of Hip Hop before there was a Kanye West – “the best producer on the mic.” He was a deejay, a producer and an emcee, who in 1992 dropped his stellar debut album, Stunts, Blunts and Hip-Hop. Five years later, he released the cameo-filled, dark, charismatic enigma, Hatred, Passions and Infidelity. Two cubic zirconia mixtapes and over a decade later comes The Huge Hefner Chronicles, a life, love and sex symposium via music.
While in the creative lab, Diamond manages to cook up the perfect mad scientist mixture of the best elements of the old and the new, in other words timeless Hip-Hop. The best way to describe this album is Hip-Hop “al dente.” It’s firm, but not hard and with heat throughout. Utilizing his Hip-Hop Rolodex, Diamond D called on a host of beat legends and notables the likes of, Sadat X, Jesse West, DJ Scratch, Def-Jef and Nottz to aide in his bringing of the heat. “When Ur Hot Ur Hot” is a Diamond D produced track featuring the aforementioned Brand Nubian emcee. It’s a full and festive joint with a swinging beat filled with hits, snares, cymbals, claps and whistles. Sadat X‘s identifiable cadence flows flawlessly over the beat while Diamond gets to flex his skills on both ends as he rides the beat and flows in the pocket. With the song, “D-I-A-M-O-N-D,” Nottz supplied the beat and Diamond supplies the lyrical boasting. The song is skillfully broken down for the lyrically inept. It’s beats and rhymes for the electric company set, simplistic and complex all at the same time. Diamond says what he means and doesn’t linger.
The Jesse West-produced, “Get Up” is a classical Hip Hop track haunted by the spirit of Mozart or Beethoven. Not only does it reign musically with violins, but Diamond‘s fluid rapid-fire delivery and flow is a melodic symphony as well. The only other emcee that could possibly attempt this flow and nail it is KRS-One. The symposium continues with, “I Wanna Leave” a slick and smooth tale of good love gone bad. While, “Good Tyme” with its strategically placed piano keys and it’s sexy beat, is an exquisite make out, blue light bulb in the basement lets grind hips and crotches Hip Hop joint, and, “Bad/Good” hits you with some raw, funky ’70s Al Green smoothness tasered with cutting and scratching.
The Huge Hefner Chronicles is chock-full of joints. There is no need to fast forward or to skip. If gimmicks, non-lyrics, non-stories and non-flows is the type of Hip Hop that you need to quench your thirst then this is not the album for you, but if you enjoy a smooth satisfying libation, then Diamond gives it to you with no chaser.
