Audiopile Review: There’s an argument to be made that 1994 was the best year in hip-hop. Alongside Illmatic, Ready To Die, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, Hard To Earn, Blowout Comb, 6 Feet Deep, Between A Rock and a Hard Place, and Tical, Organized Konfusion’s sophomore LP, Stress: The Extinction Agenda, is in the conversation for one of the best rap records released in a year overflowing with end-to-end classics. Following up their underground debut, the self-titled 1991 LP, the duo of Prince Po and Pharoah Monch re-emerged with this inventive, fiery and wildly addictive album that’s reached a revered status among aficionados—an original goes well into the $200+ price range. This a first-time reissue of the album proper (we had a 2018 instrumentals edition, and the album has been bootlegged for years) and is now mercifully spread out across three sides of vinyl (the original was a groove-crammed single LP), coupled with remixes and the instrumentals on an additional three sides. Outside of a few tracks produced by the legendary Buckwild of DITC fame, the album is largely produced by the duo, who employ a heavy use of jazz samples and hard hitting drums that plant this firmly on the darker end of boombap,  thee definitive sound of NYC hip-hop during the mid ‘90s. The dense production, loaded with familiar samples (ESG, James Brown, Bob James, Eugene McDaniels and loads of Blue Note classics all make appearances) is rendered into harder hitting sound that had far more depth than most of their contemporaries. Monch and Po match the intensity with their duelling rapid-fire rhymes, moving beyond storytelling tropes with their compassionate examination of inequality and racism, poking at their rotted roots rather than regurgitating street stories. While the pair would go on to make one more full length, 1997’s decent but flawed The Equinox, they would both go on to respectable solo careers, with Monch even charting an underground hit with “Simon Says” in 1999. But Extinction Agenda would be their high-water mark, and it still hits so damn hard.

Deluxe triple-vinyl includes full album instrumentals, non-album bonus tracks, plus a stunning trifold gatefold jacket featuring contemporaneous liner notes by Jeff Chang (originally published in 1994) and newly unearthed archival photos from B+.

In an era where flexing original styles was mandatory to gain respect, few Hip Hop groups were more respected than Organized Konfusion. The Queens-based duo of Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po shined brightest on their 1994 sophomore LP “Stress: The Extinction Agenda,” which is receiving a reissue to mark its 30th Anniversary. Backed by dark, bass-heavy, and jazzy production, “Stress” showcased Pharoahe and Po’s dynamic and ever-shifting rhyme styles and electric chemistry from start to finish, creating an album that is an undisputed classic among hardcore Hip Hop fans.