Ego Trip (Kurtis Blow album) explained

Ego Trip
Type:Album
Artist:Kurtis Blow
Cover:Ego Trip Kurtis Blow.jpg
Released:1984
Genre:Hip hop
Length:42:48
Label:Mercury/Polydor
822 420
Producer:J.B. Moore
Robert Ford Jr.
Prev Title:The Best Rapper on the Scene
Prev Year:1983
Next Title:America
Next Year:1985

Ego Trip is the fifth album by the rapper Kurtis Blow, released in 1984 on Mercury Records.[1] [2] The only charting singles were "8 Million Stories", which peaked at 45 on the Hot Black Singles chart, and "Basketball", which peaked at 71 on the Hot 100.

Critical reception

Trouser Press dubbed Ego Trip one of Blow's "state-of-the-art in an almost mainstream vein" early albums, noting that the inclusion of Run-D.M.C. was a "concerted effort to get hipper."[3] The Washington Post wrote that Blow "knows how to mix plain talk with his rhymes, so that his records carry an extra bit of street feel, but his most impressive moments come when he exploits the studio, as he does on the intoxicatingly sinuous 'AJ Scratch'."[4] The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that "the hit single 'Eight Million Stories' suggests that other people are worthier subjects of his songwriting than Kurtis Blow."

In a tribute to "Basketball" and its legacy, Slam wrote that "none of the NBA/hip-hop empire building happens—or at the very least none of it happens the way we remember it happening—without the skills of Kurtis Blow."[5]

Track listing

  1. "8 Million Stories" – 8:00 (featuring Run-D.M.C.)
  2. "AJ Scratch" – 5:48
  3. "Basketball" – 6:30
  4. "Under Fire" – 7:23
  5. "I Can't Take it No More" – 4:14
  6. "Ego Trip" – 5:34
  7. "Fallin Back in Love Again" – 5:23

Charts

Year-end charts

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kurtis Blow | Biography & History. AllMusic.
  2. Book: Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists. Sacha. Jenkins. Elliott. Wilson. Jeff. Mao. Gabe. Alvarez. Brent. Rollins. March 25, 2014. St. Martin's Publishing Group. 9781466866973 . Google Books.
  3. Web site: Kurtis Blow . Trouser Press . 13 March 2021.
  4. Web site: Hip-Hop to Freshness. J. D.. Considine. November 29, 1984. www.washingtonpost.com.
  5. Web site: How Kurtis Blow and the Exploding Popularity of the NBA Turned a Generation On To Hip-Hop. March 14, 2017. SLAM.
  6. Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums – Year-End 1985. Billboard. December 31, 2020.