It amazes me that I was able to discover Hieroglyphics at such an early age. I got Del the Funky Homosapien's No Need For Alarm cassette from BMG Music Service when I was fourteen years old (1993). I'm sure I must have found them through BET because the internet had not yet become a thing.
This was a pretty great album, but, my favorite Hieroglyphics songs are:
Souls Of Mischief - "93 Til Infinity" 1993
Hieroglyphics - "You Never Knew" 1998
My favorite Hiero memory is when I saw Souls Of Mischief with my friend Celia circa 2000 at Tahoe Taps in Truckee, CA. Every city has its own type of Hip Hop crowd, Tahoe shows have an everybody's either on vacation or need to party because I work in the service industry kind of feel.
The Hieroglyphics crew has continued to make music since the nineties and have just released a new video for "It's Partly Me" off of their new album The Kitchen. The video itself is not available for Blogger but can be found here on YouTube.
They definitely went for it, but, it is lacking something that could have made it great. As bands like the Rolling Stones and U2 have shown us, the urge to continue making music is probably overwhelming; especially if it was the one thing that made them feel complete and successful. I urge everyone to pursue the thing that makes them feel whole, even if I don't like listening to it. While I have loved a few Hiero songs, in my opinion, they've never been great as a collective. That said, I will continue going to Hieroglyphics shows and listening to their music because that is how I roll.
Their website is here.
