This may be redundant since the Source magazine long ago recognized this album as a classic. However, I was re-expereinceing it the other day and was just amazed at how beautifully angry -and vice versa- this disc is. In the wake of Cube "phonin it in"(Vibe) on his latest effort, War & Peace(War Disc)it is a must that everyone re-experience AMW. First of all, just listen to the way it begins. He starts off his album with his own execution! I mean, damn. Given the time it was releasd, when rap wasn't afraid to be political as it is now, this first song, coupled with the spelling of the title, was what it was all about. And the song that follows the execution? Explosive."I heard payback's a mf'in n***a/That's why I'm sick of bein treated like a mf'n stepchild/f a cop cuzz I aint him/he gotta deal with the nine double m". Put those words on top of a beat that was just mad and you have gangsta rap xtacy. He even allow his naysayers and haters to cuss him out on the hook(F U Ice Cube!!) What more can you ask for? And that's not even the best song. That honor goes to the last cut,"The Bomb." It is literally a riot on wax complete with Molatovs and the media. It has the best beak ever on wax- argue with me if you like but when More Bounce drops in for those few precious seconds you realize what a break really is suppose to do: heighten the tension of a lyric without disrupting it or distracting from it. It ends with Cube spittin more attitude in one line("So what dat Lench Mob Like") than alot of these supposed "keep it real" rappers today can do in a whole album. In the middle is comedy with him and Flava flav-this song also includes Cube's classically put credo of "the mic, the money and the p***y"; the boy has some classic lines in his canon-, anger at the white man, in an ignorant, but just as effective, ghetto way from Cube and an revolutionary intellectual way from Chuck D, on "Darkside", a dice game gone bad cause of playa hatin' on "What They Hittin Foe" that's simply accurate, a horror story about the Projects which shouts out the infamous Jordan Downs/Nickerson Gardens and way predates all of this Queensbridge yellin now goin on, and the unparalleled "Who's The Mack", with a Humpty Hump sample no less, in which Cube breaks down that a Mack is anybody who "get over on a fool and[does the]dirt like real smoothe." "You know it's drama, but it sound real good." This album is the be all to end all for Gangsta Rap. It, "Kill At Will" and "Death Certificate"-Cube's followups to it- show what gangsta rap was: real angry, jherri juice drippin, slices of life marinated in sex, drugs and 40 ounces of Old E and served in a dirty bowl to a world afraid of its own shadow. Hip hop now is so slick that its hard to believe an album like this exists. Buy it. Go to the swap meet and get it if you have to.(Pick me up some white t-shirts while you in there, alright.) Just own it for yourself. It is the quintiessential fusion of west coast anger with East Coast beats(though Cube's own producers did more of the tracks than many give them credit for and the Bomb Squad worked the majority of the tracks to fit Cube's definitive Western style) in a dynamic balance that is mesmerizing. It is a perfect rap album. Perfect. The Source may give mikes but I'm gonna say that this is better than classic. It is perfect.

Is 2pac still alive? Did Suge arrange the murder of B.I.G.? Before the Badboy-Deathrow beef, who could ever forget the N.W.A. feud. A beef that manifest itself to the point that the group dissolved completly after only five years and three albums. Fortunately, the beef produced no unsolved murders but classic records that are still the standard for west coast music. No other group was as groundbreaking as NWA. And when the groups chief lyricists, Ice Cube, decided to step away from the group's shady business practices and move to the east coast to launch his solo career, it turned out to be one of the most memorable moments in hip-hop history. Mixing the Bomb Squad's explosive producton with Cube's powerful lyrics made this album the best east-west collaboation ever. Along with the Kill at Will EP and Death Certificate, AMW helped make Cube the most influential MC of the early 90's.

I remember stumbling upon this album in my local record store when I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. I had no idea that Cube left N.W.A. and had gone solo so when I saw it I had to buy it. This album took Ice Cube and his music in a new direction. I had always felt like he was the most talented lyricist in the group (he wrote most of the groups rhymes) but this proved it. Cube was hungry and angry on this album and it shows. The sound both lyrically and musically is raw. This album really started it all. It launched Cube's solo career and after a few more N.W.A. albums foreshadowed there eventual break up as well. Cube had something to prove on this album and I think that his point was well made. I feel Cube was at his best on this album because the breakup of N.W.A. was less than smooth which gave him a lot of motivation. Listen for yourself and I guarantee you will agree that this is a ruffer, meaner Ice Cube which is not necessarily a bad thing.

...back when gangsta rap was a style of expression, before it became a division of some rap-mega-corporation...like b.e.t. being owned by time-warner...this album was as furious as it was fun to listen to. cube came full-tilt with all the negative aspects associated with rap music: sexism, drug references, violence, etc.,...okay, all'a that shtuff is played out now, but the difference is CUBE REELED US INTO HIS STORIES AND WE FELT LIKE WE WAS A PART OF THEM DESPITE THE RAGE BECAUSE UNDERNEATH IT ALL WE COULD HEAR THE HUMANITY(GOOD OR BAD) AND AN UNDERLYING SENSE OF HUMOR!...in "you cant fade me" the issue of paternity is raised, cube drops his beer(the best sound effect on any record!) and you can almost literally hear him lose his grip on sanity before contemplating a retaliating act of immorality...then he snaps back to reality. no matter how offended we became by some of the lyrics, cube's rhymes kept us entertained and involved. nowadays, rappers have lost that art of storytelling because 1)they're more worried about representing how hard they are and 2) it just aint that much art left in it now anyway...but there are a few exceptions-mos def, outkast, fieldmob, talib.... this is still a classic album from one of rap's better lyricists. check out his 'kill at will' ep and the first half of his 'death certificate' cd-pure artform!

When I first heard this album 10 years ago, my jaw dropped tothe floor! From the intro to the last note, Ice Cube let the world know he wasn't ( ) ! around. With hard hitting tracks like "Once Upon A Time In The Projects", "You Can't Fade Me" and the title track, Cube's first post NWA album ranks as one of the best rap albums ever made. Sharp production by The Bomb Squad(Public Enemy), and Sir Jinx perfectly matches the intensity of Ice Cube's sharp narrative lyrics. Still great after all these years.