"Dr. Octagon" by Dr. Octagon
The first project from Kool Keith's alter ego Dr. Octagon features fire contributions from Dan the Automator and turntablist DJ Qbert
Dr. Octagon
Dr. Octagon (1996)
Bulk Recordings
If you can get past the immature “pornocore” skits and lyrics, this is one of the Bay’s best hip hop albums from the 1990s.
The concept: Dr. Octagon is an extraterrestrial time-traveling gynecologist and surgeon from the planet Jupiter. (Whether he ever met Sun Ra, who was from Saturn, I can’t say for sure, but clearly that part of the solar system had something going for it.)
Reissued as Dr. Octagonecologyst in 1997, Dr. Octagon is one of the Bay’s best—even though Kool Keith is from the Bronx—because the album features back-to-back-to-back fire productions by SF producer Daniel M. Nakamura (aka Dan the Automator). Every beat is different, but they all owe something to “The Funky Drummer,” dressed up and dripping with colorful synths and sampled sounds. Nakamura:
Hip hop was always inventive. Then the '90s hit and everyone wants to be Dr. Dre. No one wants to be their own thing anymore. Everyone now wants to have the Lexus and deal pounds of drugs. We don't do that. That's not our lifestyle. You don't see us coming out with the fur coat. There's more to music than that.
Add in masterful scratching from turntablist DJ Qbert (also from SF) and buttery-smooth flows from Kool Keith, and you’ve got an hour of fine hip hop—again, if you don’t mind all the horny. Plus, it ends with a mix by DJ Shadow, another Bay favorite.