Northern State: Dying In Stereo : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

All you record-label executives looking for the female Eminem: The three white, college-educated Long Island girls in Northern State are probably not what you have in mind. They don't have strong commercial prospects, and they aren't a novelty act. But Guinea Love, DJ Sprout and the awesomely in-your-face Hesta Prynn are both old-school and totally original, both literate and full of unpretentious New Yawk sass, both deeply catchy and underground in spirit. With a major-label album in the works, Dying in Stereo is the trio's follow-up to last year's demo turned debut Hip Hop You Haven't Heard. Suffused with understated, hook-y production, these eight tracks are a testament to how much fun vintage boom-bap can be. Northern State have been compared to the Beastie Boys because of their shared nasal rhyming styles, but the similarities are really more conceptual -- like the Beasties, these ladies combine cleverness and spunk, and their left-field references (Snoopy, Chekhov, The Bell Jar) are both funny and politically aware.

CHRISTIAN HOARD
(From RS 924, June 12, 2003)