Rodney O & Joe Cooley made some noteworthy contributions to L.A.'s rap scene in the 1980s, when they embraced hardcore rap as well as high-tech, dance-oriented sounds influenced by
Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock." When hardcore rappers on the West Coast starting selling millions of albums, the duo gave up "tech-rap" and went hardcore all the way. Recorded for Seattle's Nastymix label in 1991,
Get Ready to Roll was their hardest album up to that point. This CD wasn't the big commercial breakthrough they were hoping for, although most of the material is decent. "Of Funky Stories" provides some anecdotes about life in the inner city, while "Nutty Block" is a sobering commentary on gang violence in South Central L.A. (Nutty Block, in fact, was the name of an L.A. gang faction). After
Get Ready to Roll,
Rodney & Cooley continued to focus on hardcore rap, and commercial success continued to elude them. ~ Alex Henderson