Viper, DJ Viper, und Arrested Development

While hip-hop has been a socially conscious genre of music from the very beginning, by the late 1980's the angriest, most controversial and most shocking styles of hip-hop were getting the most critical and commercial attention thanks to the rise of Gangsta rap from the West Coast. This lead to some great music, no doubt about it, 1988 alone gave us both Public Enemy's “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” and N.W.A's “Straight Outta Compton”, but some grew tired of the constant venom and bile spat by the Gangsta rappers, not to mention their fascination with material wealth. Two of the artists sceptical of the movement as a whole were a rapper and a DJ from Atlanta, Georgia called Speech (Todd Thomas) and Headliner (Timothy Barnwell), respectively.#

Having both met while studying at the Art Institute of Atlanta, the duo first came together as Arrested Development in 1988 fuelled by the fundamental belief that the black community needed spiritual rebirth. Over the next four years, Speech and Headliner expanded the group to include everyone from other rappers, to a dancer/choreographer, to an elder spiritual adviser in the form of Baba Oje, and in 1992, the band signed to Chrysalis to release their first album “3 Years, 5 Months, & 2 Days in the Life Of...” which, weirdly enough for such an esoteric band, was an absolutely enormous hit.

The record went platinum four times over in the United States, contained three top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in the form of “Tennessee”, “People Everyday” and “Mr. Wendal”, and netted the band two Grammy awards in 1993 for Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance by a Group or Duo. Ever since then, the band have not continued to enjoy the commercial successful that their first album brought them, but the fact of the matter is that if they did, they would have probably compromised their vision in order to do so. Compromise has never been in either Speech's considerable vocabulary, so while Arrested Development might remain a cult concern to this day, they also remain one of the most vital and genuinely important rap acts of their generation. For that, they come highly recommended.