Day 0728 - The Predator

Ice Cube "The Predator" (1992)

Put "Are we there yet?" out of your mind, because this is the real Ice Cube.  Angry, confident, justifiably enraged.   Predator was released following the acquittal of police responsible for the on-camera beating of Rodney King, and the album certainly takes a look at racism and the police.

The production is bassy, beaty and interesting, with a number of collaborators (including Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs) involved.   A number of dialogue samples are mixed in, joining it all together and giving it a feeling like a whole 'album' as opposed to just a collection of songs.   All in all, another interesting early 90s rap album

Fun fact: this album is believed to be the origin of the phrase "it's on like donkey-kong".

Day 0657 - Nick of Time

Bonnie Raitt "Nick of Time" (1989)

To say that Bonnie had had a hard time of it, would be understating things slightly.  Her record company dropped her due to low sales, and (after a two year gap) released the album she'd been working on prior to being dropped, but under a completely different title.  This left Bonnie to promote an album of 2 year old material that she was no longer particularly connected to.
Her romantic relationship ended, she had to disband her backing band as she couldn't afford to pay them, and she fell into a slump of addiction and depression.

After a brief attempt to work with Prince (seems that everyone was doing that in the late 80s/early 90s) Bonnie was put together with Don Was from the group Was (Not Was) of "Walk the Dinosaur" fame.  It ended up being one of those fruitful artist/producer match-ups.  Was matched Raitt's bluesy rock and country-tinged balladry with a little pop sensibility and studio sparkle to create "Nick of Time" and its follow-up "Luck of the Draw", both of which successfully revived Bonnie's career.

Bonnie Raitt is another of those artists where I'd heard her name but had never heard any of her songs... unlike other artists on the list though, her music sounded pretty much exactly as I'd expected it would.