In 1997, I would have checked this out just off the cover art alone. Back then, that meant buying CDs and tapes at stores full of them. I was always copping compilations and mixtapes because I wanted to be able to hear everybody. That was a daunting task in those days, but only a matter of budgeting time here in the future, almost 30 years later.
After a couple decades of trying to hear everybody, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that almost everybody is an average-ass rapper. Worse yet, most of them would rather be doing something else: acting, “curating,” running a lucrative non-profit with no clear goals & easily faked KPIs, or seeking success on the reality TV circuit like so many industry icons before them. It’s a mighty big horizon here in the fishbowl.
Vows Under Gold is filthy, in the best sense, a million miles away from industry politics & bullshit. This is an album full of darkly atmospheric boom bap production. The only weak link here? There’s a lot of average-ass rappers in the cypher. That cypher is raw, authentic, but too often kinda mid. When someone with some real juice steps up, like Al-Doe or Avenue or Eddie Kane, the difference is too sharp. Everyone is doing the best they can here, but the guest list should have been more selective.
That said, I’m wrong. At least one expert completely disagrees with that assessment, and his name is Spanish Ran. There is no question that he made the exact LP that he wanted to make, here. The production is too polished to pretend I can armchair A&R a professional with this much experience. Besides, this product is not for me. When I bought that Terror Squad album in ’99, I wasn’t feeling anyone but Big Pun. I’m a snob & a tourist, and this is the Bronx.
Spanish Ran has been on a finely-tailored run over the past half decade, turning out reliable, brand-name product for Copenhagen Crates and BarsOverBs faithful. Much of that run has been alongside The Church, his extended crew of frequent flyers & fam. Al-Doe’s 2023 masterpiece Holy City Zoo still stands among the best of the whole batch, but Ran himself has notably improved over the past two years and I believe there are more classics to come. Shortly, too.
A hip hop head from the Boogie Down who came into production from doing A&R work, few producers have a more thorough resume. Any student of the game should check out some of the interviews he’s done explaining his process and approach; he is eloquent and obsessed. He also has a veteran’s weary disdain for the industry, so if you want to learn how to build out independent infrastructure, Spanish Ran has a lot to teach.
Obviously, the beats are exceptional if a producer is dropping a whole album in their own name. This tracklist is nine wins, back to back. The pockets here have a lot of range, from uptempo to funeral march, but really impressed me was how cohesive his samples were. The feel is classic but not quite classical, heavy on vocals, strings and guitars. Ran finds ways to coax the grief out of all of them. Just like the best canvases from Havoc or Alchemist, these are blues songs as much as they are rap beats.
So: Vows Under Gold represents a master at work, a capstone celebrating his steady growth over the past decade. This is uncompromising NYC rap shit and I definitely recommend it. But I can’t get past the abundance of average-ass bars. Four Dickies.
