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Zion I & The Grouch
Heroes in the City of Dope
Om, 2006
6.0/10, Good [scale]

Heroes in the City of Dope

Heroes in the City of Dope, the first collaboration between Oakland-based hip-hop artists the Grouch, of Living Legends fame, and DJ-emcee duo Zion I, is a collection of songs about the artists’ experiences growing up around drugs and violence in Oakland, Calif. Group DJ/producer Amplive, along with emcee Zion, delivers a performance that dares the listener to not bob their head to the beats. You could try, but within seconds of any of the tracks you will find yourself losing that dare.

After the intro, Amplive accents the group’s arrival with heavy, crunk-inspired horns on “Hit ‘Em”. He moves it along to the fourth track, “Trains and Planes”, which is about the artists’ travels as escapism from their experiences. This would be one of the album’s catchiest tracks, but the tone of the song doesn’t fit in with what the group is trying to do with the album. Most tracks on Heroes are songs about either what’s wrong with their lives or what could be wrong. “Trains” is all about what’s gone right. “Current Affairs”, about the paranoia and big brother syndrome that accompanies a life lived in drug-infested city, better fits the underlying theme of overcoming hardship.

“Too Much”, featuring Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, arrives with a heavenly chorus-like hook that makes the emcees sound as if they just descended out of the sky. The song speaks to the absurdity of blowing a paycheck on material things to impress people one doesn’t even know. Chali’s deep, silky smooth delivery contrasts his Bay-Area counterparts’ choppy early 90s rap style very well. On the most intimate track on the album, “Make U Fly,” Grouch and Zion thank their mothers, over a frank guitar loop and mellifluous female vocals, for helping them overcome the hardships of growing up in a tough neighborhood.

On “Trigger” the duo asks those in the drug game whether risking their lives for drug money is worth it or not. The track’s reggae feel really completes Heroes’ diverse library of beats. “10 Fingers, 10 Toes, 10 lbs, 10 oz” tackles the importance of being a good parent and implies a solution to the problem at the end of an album that is so festooned with the plight of poverty, violence and drugs.

Heroes’ last track, “Bad Lands,” sums the album up by using the title as a metaphor for the “City of Dope” and explaining that everything the listener has experienced throughout the album is what any typical Bay Area head would articulate as real life.

The album cover depicts another meaningful metaphor. It shows a blindfolded Amplive sitting between a headphone-clad Grouch and Zion with tape over his mouth representing the urban see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil principle they were raised on. While listening to the album, I realized The Grouch, Amp and Zion embodied this ideal in their music. They use their songs as a means of speaking of the evil, allowing the world to hear what is going on, and in turn allowing the blindfold that covers many eyes to the plight of places such as Oakland, to be unraveled.

by Kevin Lu