Consumer Guide Album

Pass the Mic: The Posse Album [Priority, 1996]
Thirteen multirapper competitions/collaborations, most circa 1988-1992, juiced not just by shifting styles but by the pleasure-driven, word-mad forays the freestyle cutting session was invented for. Hip hop specialists will be down with Marley Marl's "Symphony Vol. 1," Main Source's "Live at the Barbeque," and Showbiz & AG's "Bounce Ta This." For most of us such happy flukes spice the far-from-overexposed likes of "Ladies First" and "Knick Knack Paddy Whack" just right. A-