Today in Hip-Hop — November 7: Liquid Swords and Soul Food Turn 31, the Tuesday Staten Island and Atlanta Both Dropped Classics

November 7, 1995. On the same Tuesday, Staten Island and Atlanta each put out a classic. GZA’s Liquid Swords came out on Geffen, and Goodie Mob’s Soul Food came out on LaFace. Both turn 31 today. The first jewel is on the sleeve. The Liquid Swords chessboard was drawn by Denys Cowan, a comic-book artist who had co-founded Milestone Media two years earlier. The Wu’s own DJ, Allah Mathematics, is credited with the “G” logo and the interior illustrations.

Staten Island: The Sharpest Sword

RZA produced Liquid Swords in his Staten Island basement, starting while Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was still being finished. He built the album’s mood out of dialogue from Shogun Assassin. GZA took the title from the kung fu film Legend of the Liquid Sword, where a blade is so sharp a head stays on its shoulders after the cut. That’s how he wanted his bars to land. All eight of the other Clan members turn up on the record, plus Killah Priest, whose “4th Chamber” verse is still one of the best guest spots in the catalog. Cowan’s cover turned that idea into an image: masked Wu soldiers cutting each other down on a chessboard. We took the whole album apart in our Liquid Swords deep dive.

Atlanta: What You Really Know About the Dirty South?

Three months earlier, at the Source Awards on August 3, 1995, a New York crowd booed OutKast for winning New Group of the Year, and André 3000 answered: “The South got something to say.” Soul Food said it. Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, Khujo and T-Mo rapped over Organized Noize production, with André on “Thought Process” and Big Boi on “Dirty South.” That track holds the receipt. Cool Breeze wrote “Dirty South” as a response to the critics who had written off OutKast’s 1994 debut, built around a hook that asked “What you really know about the Dirty South?” Gipp brought the song to Rico Wade, and it ended up on Goodie Mob’s album. The phrase went on to name a whole region’s sound. OutKast closed Aquemini three years later with a clip of André’s Source Awards speech.

Wear It

We made a Liquid Swords tee for the heads who still play “Cold World” when the first cold night of November hits. It’s the chessboard energy and the Shaolin chill, worn on your chest the way GZA wrote his bars: sharp, quiet, no wasted motion.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1995: Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise (31 years). The album came out the same Tuesday, months after the title track had already taken over radio through the Dangerous Minds soundtrack. Three classic albums hit the racks on one day.
• 2006: AZ’s The Format (20 years). DJ Premier produced the title track, and Phonte and Big Pooh of Little Brother appear on “Rise & Fall.” Brooklyn and Durham on one song, built from the same love of bars.
• 2006: Jim Jones’s Hustler’s P.O.M.E. (20 years). The Dipset capo’s album that carried “We Fly High.” The “Ballin’!” ad-lib traveled a lot further than Harlem.
• 2006: Tech N9ne’s Everready (The Religion) (20 years). Released on Strange Music, it’s the home of “Caribou Lou,” the Kansas City drink-recipe anthem that kept growing for years after release.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones