- Hip-hop is still often classed as a relatively new art form but looking back and listening back to this record, you realise just how far it’s come.
This is from the daisy age, when Del La Soul were kings, and Arrested Development mighty young pretenders. And the Fugees were but twinkles in their mothers’ eyes. But they were all in the USA. What was going on in the UK?
Honky, for starters. Originally released in 1994, The Ego Has Landed was hailed as “wonderful” by NME. This 2006 Deluxe Edition adds 10 extra tracks across a second CD, pretty much completing the story of the bands early years.
The band revolved around two central members, instrumentalist and producer Matt Ellis and rapper and vocalist Kye Wright - “like Jay Kaye with the chip removed from his shoulder,” as the NME once described him. Their breakthrough single, K.K.K. (Boom Boom Tra La La La) was an original cross between urban poetry and beats & breaks, like the Black Eyed Peas but ten years early.
I thought most people had forgotten about Honky but this re-release has stirred memories for many. Some of which had mentally filed them with the Stereo MCs. Others in odder places, like mashup artist DJ Riko who slapped Honky’s The Whistler right between Air and The Lovin' Spoonful for a Superchunk session on X-FM!
Best tracks on the Deluxe Edition are the Funky Junkie and Extended Mixes of Love Thy Neighbour, the rare 7” Edit and Old Fat F……! versions of The Whistler and the B-sides, Private Idaho and Chains