The Immersion: Trusting La Coka Nostra Posted by Dharmic X on 03/28/13 | Filed under Opinion, The Immersion

When I first learned La Coka Nostra was coming out with a full-length album in the summer of 2009, it immediately became a must-purchase item upon hitting stores July 14. Not only was I a big Ill Bill fan by this point, sold by "The Hour of Reprisal," I was increasingly curious to hear Slaine, the son of my crazy ninth grade Latin teacher.



My first introduction to the whole collective came with one of the first singles, “I’m An American.” It was the type of conceptual work I gravitated to, with each emcee playing a character in order to accurately define the American experience from all angles. The characters meshed well together, aided by the naturally distinct voices of each of the emcees—the three La Coka rappers (Slaine, Bill, and Everlast) and Cypress Hill’s B-Real, who powerfully capped off the record.

The rest of the group’s debut LP, "A Brand You Can Trust," matches the aesthetic of this first song: gritty, conceptual, and violent. There is a strong West Coast laced influence apparent in the features on this record, because the entire album was recorded in Los Angeles with the whole group meeting up in one location. Sick Jacken of Psycho Realm and B-Real are recurring characters in the plotline, and even Snoop Dogg is featured on the hook for “Bang Bang," a song that retains a hardcore feel despite the current commercial leanings of Snoop.



The album’s standout track was definitely “Choose Your Side,” the Alchemist produced track. To call the song a “banger” would be a severe understatement. Rocking over the haunting instrumental are Bill, Everlast, and Houston’s Bun B, showcasing his extreme versatility by nailing the song’s concept of death on an individual, national, and global level. The ending of Bun’s verse is an automatic quotable: “Bad case of tunnel vision, one-track minded, blurred by the bullshit and criminally blinded. Feeling like a refugee fighting for his dinner, my life is on the line and the line’s getting thinner. I know Hell is waiting for me and there’s nowhere to run, so I just flick the switch and it’s done.”



Meanwhile, one of my favorite songs off "A Brand You Can Trust" is “Nuclear Medicinemen,” which features Q-Unique and Immortal Technique. The song features a menacing beat produced by Q, with apocalyptic verses from Slaine, Everlast, Tech, and Q. Each man brings vivid imagery and stellar wordplay to the table on this lyrical feast. Slaine opens it off by saying, “I watch the wolves lead the wolf’s leash in a nation of sheep.” Perhaps the most aggressive on the track, Everlast sends a final message with his ending bars, “Run, get your gun, shoot George and his sons, we're taking fortunes from all the fortunate ones, straight Robin Hood screaming, 'Fuck the law!' And they planned 9/11, fuck what you saw.” My favorite rapper, Technique, dropped numerous quotables on his verse, with the most notable coming near the beginning: “This is the beginning of theocratic civil war, carving out the country's stomach to eat the liver raw.” Finally, Q-Unique’s frenetic closing verse ends the song emphatically, saying “The President's nothing but a figurehead while the fallen angel gathers an army of the living dead; your life's doomed to tornadoes, typhoons, and volcanoes, consume the whole fable and soon will prove fatal.”

"A Brand You Can Trust" became one of my favorite albums of 2009, and is widely regarded as a cult classic amongst fans of the hardcore underground hip-hop lane. But it was more than just an album built for bashing in brains. The material covered in the album was highly sophisticated and conceptually dense, making it a very intelligent and thought-inspiring listen.

See Also:  The Immersion: Putting in a “Day’s Work” With Saigon