The Album (Mantronix album)

Did You Know?

• Some tracks from the album were sampled by artists such as Beck for "Where It's At" without acknowledgement of the source.
• Mantronik later stated that it bothered him when he was not acknowledged for samples, but noted that artists like DJ Shadow and the Chemical Brothers have spoken positively about him.

Background

Kurtis Khaleel, who went by Mantronik on the record, grew up in Canada and relocated to New York as a teenager. Although some people have said he was born in Jamaica, he never discussed where he was actually born, so that detail remains unclear. He started out more into rock music but later got into club music and found work at Downtown Records. Mantronik called himself a nerd who was really into technology, always using the newest gear, and he picked the Roland TR-808 drum machine for the album because he liked the bass it put out.

MC Tee came from the Bronx, with family ties to Haiti, and lived there from age ten to fifteen before coming back to New York. He sold equipment at Burns Telecommunications in Manhattan, which was close to Downtown Records where Mantronik worked. Before any recording happened, Tee had performed at spots like the Roxy. According to Tee, he came up with the name Mantronik for Kurtis, saying he was a man who is electronic.

Tee originally wanted to be a DJ but figured he could also work as an MC. Mantronik saved up eighty dollars for studio time and made a demo of the track "Fresh is the Word" with MC Tee. Tee remembered that Kurtis wanted to create a record similar to Davy DMX's "One for the Treble" when they first talked about teaming up. Tee could not recall exactly where "Fresh is the Word" was recorded, guessing it might have been at a fashion institute or art school.

That demo caught the ear of Will Socolov from Sleeping Bag Records. Socolov said Mantronik ran into him and Danceteria DJ Freddy Bastone on the street and started pleading to go to the studio with them. Later, Mantronik brought Socolov to Downtown Records, where Tee did a live version of "Fresh is the Word." Socolov noted that about twenty kids were there, all getting into it, and he signed the act right away.

The label put out the single in 1985. Mantronik claimed the demo version is the same one that appears on the album, but Tee said in interviews that the original demo was much rougher around the edges.

Reception

Contemporary reviews from American critics were lukewarm. J. D. Considine gave the album a three-star rating, describing its sound as "pretty run-of-the mill for hip-hop" with "vintage electronic percussion" and "standard-issue raps." He noted that Mantronix "definitely has a way with the music" and praised the track "Bassline" for assembling jams with funky finesse, while calling "Mega-Mix" "about as CONCRETE as this music gets." Ken Tucker also singled out "Bassline" as the most well-known cut, calling it "a slinky dance-music composition that employs rap-music cadences to achieve a choppy frenetic effect," but found the rest of the album less innovative except for "Mega-Mix," which he described as an "almost abstract collage of sound effects."

British press was more enthusiastic: Paul Mathur of Melody Maker wrote that the album went "for the paint stripper approach, burning away electro's lesser indulgences and leaving hard core hip hop of the highest order." The NME placed the album at number 10 on its year-end list of best albums of 1986. Retrospective reviews also focused on production. Nate Patrin of Pitchfork found the album to have "undergone a strangely accidental evolution," noting it was "beloved by veteran heads yet considered incredibly dated in the sample-artisan Dre/RZA/Pete Rock/Primo 90s" but had since started sounding like a prescient forebear of Southern bounce and hyphy.

Patrin also stated that the 2008 Deluxe edition was mostly strong for its original tracks, and that "Hardcore Hip-Hop" and "Needle to the Groove" boast some of the most intricately assembled syncopated beats heard in digital production to that point.