Masta Ace

Longevity in hip-hop is something that seems to be very hard to obtain. It seems that every day there is a new artist with a hit single that become famous for a few months and then is never heard from again. That's why I wanted to focus on someone that has been around since the late 80s and is still releasing consistently dope music. Enter, Masta Ace.




Back in the late 80s, Ace was a member of the legendary Juice Crew with artists like Craig G, Kool G Rap, and Big Daddy Kane. He made his recording debut on what is now considered a classic posse cut, "The Symphony."



Afterwards he was able to release his first album called "Take A Look Around"


and while I feel the album sounds a bit dated these days, there's still some classic jams on there like the single "Me & The Biz."



Funny thing about this track is that people thought Biz was on the track when in actually Masta Ace is impersonating Biz Markie throughout the track because Biz couldn't make it to the studio.

After that album, Ace moved over to Delicious Vinyl to release his 2nd album, "Slaughtahouse."



This time with a crew called Masta Ace Inc (Ace, Lord Digga, Paula P, Eyecurokk, & Leschea). Even with this crew, this was still Masta Ace's show and he made sure to drop a great album with a more harder edge to his sound. Check out the track "Slaughterhouse" where he parodies the ridiculously over the top gangsta raps that were being released at the time.



Also check out "Saturday Nite Live"



2 years later he released one of my favorite albums, "Sittin On Chrome."


Check out "The INC Ride"



"Born To Roll" is another classic jam off the album. It was originally a bonus track that was featured on SlaughtaHouse as a remix to the track "Jeep Ass Niguh"



and one more classic jam "Sittin On Chrome"



After a 5-6 year hiatus where Ace was only randomly releasing singles, he came back on sounding like a mature, seasoned veteran on his concept album "Disposable Arts."

There's too many dope tracks on this album (like all of his albums) for me to list them all. But heres a few choice cuts that I fuck with.







3 years later, he released yet another dope concept album called "A Long Hot Summer."

More dope cuts below







Since this album, Ace has only released group projects like eMC (Ace, Punchline, Wordsworth, & Strick), a collabo album with Edo G, and random appearances on other artists albums like producer Marco Polo's "Port Authority" album on a song titled "Nostalgia"



Thats just a brief look at Ace's career. Obviously if you want to get a full view of it, do some of your own research and listen to his albums.

The reason I posted this was to pay respect and to show what an artist with a long successful career sounds like. People may say Ace is wack fom changing his style from his first album to his 2nd one, but I honestly believe that was how his mindset was at the time. If you listen to his albums in order, it's almost like growing up with the guy. It also proves that to stay relevant in hip-hop, not only do you need to consistantly release dope material, you need to allow yourself to grow. Keeping yourself in a box sounding the exact same as when you came out will only lead you to failure.