Review: O.C. & A.G. - Oasis

Throughout the 90’s Hip-Hop heads were treated to the music of a largely Bronx bred collective of emcees and producers named D.I.T.C.. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that they are one of the genre’s all-time greatest group’s with a bevy of talent that came to be synonymous with the golden age and the NYC sound as a whole. Today, we examine he new LP from two of the legendary crew’s generals that just might be a Shangra La like retreat from your everyday heap of average MC’s and wack production.

Now as we all know the bigger the clan, the harder to keep things together. Time has definitely shown some struggles to the Diggin In The Crates Crew as some of that shining luster from albums like ‘Runaway Slave’, ‘D.I.T.C. (Worldwide)’, ‘Stunts, Blunts And Hip-Hop’ ‘, ‘Word… Life’, ”Lifestylez Ov Da poor And Dangerous’ and ‘Funky Technician‘ begins to wear off and give way to more muted offerings. In fact many of us longtime fans and followers of the Diggin’ crew were beginning to wonder just when we’d get something halfway decent to bump on the regular from them…

First and foremost lets cut the fellas a small break. The death of their best friend and perennial all-world lyricist Big L, The absence of Fat Joe to pursue a (pop) solo career and the recent death of affiliate member Party Arty all has had a profound effect on these bruthas, yet like always they’ve pushed forward and put out music. It just seemed like the music they did release suffered from some serious stagnation and procrastination. Something like apathy had crept into the crew and we started witnessing less and less memorable material from them.

Enter in two of D.I.T.C.’s longest and most consistently burning stars O.C. & A.G. Having always had pretty good chemistry it seemed like a no brainer to get together and do an album. Finally the men have been able to put their longtime ambition, ‘Oasis’, out and while it comes nowhere near the indisputable classic status of most of Diggin’s early catalog it’s a far cry from being just a slouch too…




Read the rest here:
http://abovegroundmagazine.com/archive/11/28/o-c-a-g-oasis/