Diamond D - The Huge Hefner Chronicles

For the majority of my teenage years D.I.T.C. and it's member's dominated a great deal of my listening time. They were the epitome of the perfect hardcore Hip-Hop group to me. I admired their lyricism and I sought out their productions on other artist's credit listing's. At first I was pretty alien to most of the members other than Finesse, L and Joe, but gradually I would discover the other's. Show and AG really resonated well with me. I liked Show's production more than anyone else in the group's and AG was a dope, slept-on lyricist that frequently I would find myself reciting quotes from. Buckwild was too insane for most people behind the boards and when O.C. joined up I accepted him with open arms due to his high competence as an emcee. Their cohesiveness and rawness as a group was just too perfect man.

Then I found an album called "Stunts Blunts and Hip-Hop". LOL, ya'll know it was over after that. Diamond D was a strong producer but he also was just as ill when he put his rappin' hat on. He was dually talented and quickly became one of my favorite artist's in a group that was filled with legitimate skills.

From there on I followed his career closely.....ended up copping "Hatred, Passions And Infidelity" in 97' and was pleased to see that for the most part Diamond was sticking to the same formula as his classic debut. It boasted a lot of dope loops when it came to the production tip and his signature smooth flow was present as well. Although I received the album as about a 3 1/2 outta 5 star effort, other critic's at the time marked it much lower, citing an "un-inspired" flow and an "un-imaginative" approach to his production as what drug his sophomore release down. I didn't see it that way and continued to bang HP&I as well as check for Diamond as his production and vocals assisted some of Hip-Hop's all-time classic album's throughout the 90's.

As many of us hardcore D.I.T.C. heads know, the 2K has seen a much different output from many if not all of the members. Diamond fell off the scene for a bit and while I heard he had been working on a group project with Sadat X and a random female artist, nothing ever surfaced retail-wise.

So here we are, it's 2008 and the brand of hardcore, boom-bap hip-hop that Diamond specialized in about 11 to 13 years ago is all but fading into obscurity. Sadly many artist's from his generation are slowly but surely converting to the dark side and taking up a stake in the new sound that seems to emphasize more about needless excess and shitty dance themed production than anything else....

Lemme start at the very beginning; that cover....lol,....just horrid man....and in all likelihood probably more deserving of being on a mixtape release, than adorning a full fledged LP. I was put off by that immediately, but nevertheless I pushed onward and delved into the music. At first my hopes were high, the first track is pretty decent, not spectacular. The DJ Scratch produced "You Can't Be me" immediately steals the show and sent my anticipation for the rest of the album soaring. In fact the music that would ensue would go on to be pretty, if not colossally disappointing. Diamond muddles through tired themes that at times sound a bit forced for the aging hip-hopper. There's a presence of more than a few R&B tinged cuts on here that totally throw off any diversity that Diamond could have been looking for. All are clumsily executed and didn't provide anything that a regular Diamond D fan would be interested in. I think the bullshit R&B atrocities committed on here culminate with "Good Tyme", which is perhaps the lamest attempt ever at a crooner anthem courtesy of Blake Carrington and some wack ass dude that goes by K-Terror. Diamond is guilty of coming utterly wack too however; at one point rhyming "..girl I'm so complete, Prada's on my feet, Teek's on my ass, Magnum's on my meat..". SMH...and that pretty much sums up the level of verbal incompetence that Diamond delivers time and again throughout "The Huge Hefner Chronicles". I could go in on that title too, but I really don't think it's necessary to say much other than like the bulk of garbage ass quasi-modern R&B cuts contained on this it blowed as well...

This album should of never happened. It has permanently scarred an otherwise unquestionably dope and credible catalog. It sounds rushed and it doesn't reflect Diamond D's true music. He didn't even handle much of the production this time around and that's another bad mis-step that the majority of real hip-hop journalist's and writer's will add to the laundry list of things that went so wrong. This is a perfect example of yet another aging star abandoning his roots and true fans to create a really flaky LP, woefully influenced by the bullshit climate of today's pop chart scene. "The Huge Hefner Chronicles" contains few to no joints on it that are memorable or worth revisiting. I'd advise people to grab "You Can't Be Me" and maybe "When Ur Hot Ur Hot", but sadly other then those, I'm not sure that this isn't the biggest flop of the entire year. Fortunately D.I.T.C. is dropping a new album in November and redemption might be well within reach for Diamond, who I for one, hopes that he'll take that opportunity to return to his true form.

-BIG D O






01 - Intro (Feat. Fat Joe)
02 - U Can't Be Me
03 - D-I-A-M-O-N-D
04 - Don't Beg
05 - Baby (Feat. Jawz Of Life)
06 - Good Tyme (Feat. Blake Carrington & K-Terror)
07 - I Getz In
08 - Get Up
09 - I'll Be Alright (Feat. Novel)
10 - When Ur Hot Ur Hot (Feat. Sadat X & Stacy Epps)
11 - I Wanna Leave (Feat. Crawfish)
12 - Bad/Good

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