Big Shots

Bay Area MC Charizma and his crate-diggin' pal Peanut Butter Wolf entered the game in rap's blissful Golden Age. Due to label drama and Charizma's tragic 1993 passing, most of their work was vaulted - until now. Big Shots unveils classic one-two sonic jabs from a duo whose affinity for hip-hop should make Common proud. The tracks are unearthed in time-capsule fashion (nothing much altered) with 15 first-class jams serving as an ideal early-'90s hip-hop snapshot. Most of the innocent-sounding tunes like "Devotion" and "Fair Weathered Friend" boast Wolf's static-stamped production and Charizma's lighthearted vocab. Sure, joints like the simplistic love letter "Talk About a Girl" and it's familiar drum-machine thumps and piano loops might not make a peep if they were freshly recorded songs, but as reminiscing material goes, Big Shots is a golden ticket to when it was all so simple. Craig Smith - From URB Magazine.