Welcome to Week 3 of our Book (Album) Club! This weeks album is Poverty’s Paradise by Naughty By Nature. Please give the album a fresh listen and give us your thoughts, opinions and possibly hot takes.
Doesn’t matter if this is your 100th time listening to the album or you listen to the album the first time right before posting!
Upcoming Calendar
October 10th: Invasion of Privacy by Cardi B
October 17th: R.A.P. Music by Killer Mike
October 24th: AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted by Ice Cube
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I am currently traveling and will have to update this later to be more thorough. Short version though, this is one of the albums that I used to listen to on repeat when I was in my “old school” phase. I ended up liking Naughty By Nature and 19 Naughty III better as albums, but this was my first Naughty By Nature album so I probably heard it more than those two combined. I mention this because I know I have some bias towards loving this album. That said, probably hadn’t listened to this in 10 years when I checked it out during my drive this weekend to prep for this week. I was pleased with how well it holds up, despite sounding very much of the mid 90s. I don’t know how something can sound so solidly “90s” and still not sound dated in 2023 but I feel that way about this album personally.
My favorite song is probably Craziest, though my wife hates it with a passion. Second favorite would be Klickow-Klickow. Least favorite song is probably Slang Bang, though I still like it. Something just has to be the worst, even if it is still good overall… Special shout out to the skits on this album. They were pretty standard in this era and I skip them on a lot of albums but not here. Special “why does this exist” to the track Shout Out because it sucks. I listened to this album 3 times this weekend and I didn’t want to skip tracks on principle, but this shit does not need to be here. I don’t call it my least favorite song because it barely qualifies as a song. I specifically remember leaving this track off when I burned myself a CD of this album as a teenager.
Unrelated to this weeks album, who has suggestions for our October 31st thread? I wanted something horror-core to fit with Halloween, but I’ve never been in to that sub-genre of Hip Hop really. Or if anybody has a Halloween theme album that is legitimately good. Let me know. I don’t want to just look up “best horror-core rap albums” though I can do that too if nobody has any suggestions.
I really like clipping.'s There Existed an Addiction to Blood (2019) or Visions of Bodies Being Burned (2020). They definitely fit the horror theme however both include elements of noise and industrial music and they can be more challenging listens at times.
I’ll check out both of those, thank you for the suggestion! The two weeks before Halloween are pretty traditional rap albums so maybe something kind of off the rails could be fun.
Halloween Havoc mixtape series by Lloyd Banks is dope.
But I imagine with this place, you’ll get more traction doing some older classics like Bone Thugs or Three6 tapes
I’ll check out the Halloween Havoc tapes! Thanks for the suggestion. I can go with a classic if nothing else jumps out cause you are probably right about the general audience of this sub.
That said, the 2 albums before Halloween are both certified classics imo so we will see haha
I love those Halloween Havoc tapes, and I hope another one comes out this year… but it’s Lloyd Banks. If you like him, you probably like everything by him cause its consistent ha.
If you are trying to come up with something a little more modern, I remember Without Warning - 21/Metro dropped on Halloween.
Or another classic… Big L was a talented horrorcore GOAT.
Appreciate you keeping this sub alive, cause I know I’m not doing shit ha
Before giving this a listen the only song I had heard from Naughty by Nature was O.P.P. I’m really glad I gave this a listen. This is right up my alley when it comes to old school hip hop. I love the constant onslaught of rhymes over the old school funky beats.
A lot of good songs here but I’ll highlight City of Ci-Lo and Klickow-Klickow specifically for the beats. Both have a more dissonant sound which I really like.
I wasn’t a fan of a few of the cheesier choruses. Especially Slang Bang. That one got a little annoying. But I get that their just trying to grab people’s attention with some of those.
Shout Out felt like it didn’t belong but I appreciate what they were trying to do there. I can’t complain too much about it since they still put out nearly an hour of rapping if you skip that one.
Overall a great album and I plan to check out more of their work now.