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As any of you who've been with me for a while surely knows, I'm on a perpetual Outsidaz watch. So just because it's been almost exactly twelve years to the day since I've written about it, it should be obvious that I haven't put down the torch for Yah Yah's lost "Collaboration" album from 2005. Well, except I sort of am, just now, because I'm pretty sure I just got my grubby little hands on it. In case you've forgotten, Yah is Young Zee's younger brother who had some killer moments on the Outsidaz' albums before moving from NJ to Florida where he had a brief excursion with a little known label called 5th Lmnt. Back in 2008, I posted a quote from their now long departed website that talked about it. "Through a series of events, THE 5TH met up with Yahyah, formerly of the Outsidaz and recorded two albums... Sage [one of their in-house producers] and Yah got together on a collaboration effort and after crankin out some of the hottest tracks you'll ever hear, started bumping heads in the production process. This creative control issue is what eventually lead to Yah's departure." I was excited at the time because I uncovered a CD single from an album that I was beginning to wonder if it had ever truly existed. I've found another official little 5th Lmnt write-up online that adds a little bit more: "For all you hardcore Yahyah Fans you can get your copy Here of the 10 track Album Featuring Yahyah and Sage Lee." No, you don't seem to be able to get your copy there anymore, but it does give us a couple clues about this album... which again, may be in my grubby little hands right now.
I won't try to draw out any undue suspense, since you can see it in the photo at the top of this post anyway. I've scored an 11-track Yah Yah CD from 2005 called Appetizers, which I'm at least 90% certain is the album I've been referring to as The Collaboration. Worst case scenario, I'm wrong, and I've just uncovered an entirely separate, third Yah Yah full-length CD from the same label and time period, which would be just as rewarding, so I'm happy no matter what.
So, that quote refers to two Yah Yah albums from his time with 5th Lmnt, the label he hooked up with when he moved to Florida. We already know the first one is Lord Of the Underground. It's only natural that this is the second of the two, supported by the fact that it tells us it's entirely produced by Sage Lee, the named collaborator, except for one song, which he still gets name checked on. Further more, they specify that it's a ten track album, and Appetizers is eleven tracks, one being just a twenty-some second intro. Plus it's dated 2005, and the MasterLab manufacturing credit matches the other 5th Lmnt CDs. All the pieces fit; a perfectly solved puzzle! Except a few details do make me 10% unsure.
The Lion Clan Music Works is Yah's own little label that he used for some later mixtapes. So this being some kind of joint release with 5th Lmnt doesn't throw me, especially since 5th L is name-checked on the album. But the "E.P. Give Away" bit does. And the intro tells us specifically, "we the good people here at Lion Clan Music Works, we just want to get y'all ready for the plates. So y'all, don't worry, don't worry, you ain't gonna be charged for this. This is gonna go along with your order. We like to call this the hors d'oeuvres, The Appetizers." That naturally had me thinking this was a different, distinct promo disc.
But thinking about it, it doesn't seem like there's likely to be two complete Sage Lee collaborative albums that would both been ten songs long in 2005, especially when both songs from the CD single are featured on this but no songs from Lord Of the Underground are. Also, that quote makes it sound like Yah recorded two 5th Lmnt albums before he did the one with Sage Lee, which actually suggests a whole third or fourth album is floating out there and makes me question the veracity of all their details. At the end of the day, I can't be sure, and I'm still keeping an eye out for more, but I think this is the whole rest of the story.
And how is it? Pretty great! Just about everything I wrote about the CD single can be extrapolated to the whole LP. Sage Lee has a very studio-bound, sample-light sound that I ordinarily wouldn't gravitate towards, and doesn't sync at all with the kind of music The Outsidaz made otherwise (except maybe for some of Rah Digga's worst singles), but somehow the extreme contrast between Yah's gritty style and the Southern pop beats really clicks. Also, that guy who sung the hooks on those two songs? He's all over this album; singing on more than half the tracks. Again, not the sort of thing I'd want to hear Yah have on his album on paper, but the guy's good and it all strangely gels. And listening to the album, I now know his name is Mister C (albeit guessing on the spelling).
Not that all of the songs here are just like the two on the single. Clearly one thing they're aiming for is variety. Some songs are clearly made for Yah to just flex his skills, while others slow things down to get more serious. But most of it works. It really is a weird hybrid of a NJ and FL album. Guests aren't credited, but "Das How You Like It" is a bit of a posse cut with Jus One and Critical Madness, and "Without Struggle" is a sociopolitical duet with an MC I can't place[I almost want to guess Ill Bill, but nah... right?!]; and yes, both of those also feature hooks by Mister C. Oh, and speaking of Mister C, he even gets his chance to rap with Yah on "We Ride," which is probably the worst song on here, trying to push Yah into a more west coast: the only experiment that doesn't really work. But it's not C's fault.
The only song not produced by Sage is that "Without Struggle" track, which is produced by someone named 1 Spade for Beatwave. This song and "What's It All About" slather on the R&B elements, but because they can do it so well, and Yah and still make it entirely his own, they wind up being some of the best tracks on here. Yah shifts his subject matter up just as much as the instrumentals, gliding smoothly between punchline-laden battle raps, surprisingly earnest messages, and the Outz' unique take on street life, "niggas think they tough 'cause they got out of jail; take some shells, let's see if you can get out of Hell." Yeah, this is that real Outsidaz shit we love!
I'm also happy to report that the glitch from the CD single is gone, so the end of "All I Need Is Some Love" (here simply titled "Some Love") doesn't futz out at the end of the song. So complete, undamaged versions of this song do exist. But I really wish more people had ordered directly from 5th Lmnt back in the day when we had the chance, so we'd actually know how much music there even is out there... and maybe even enough fan interest to get those guys to put it back out on the market.
