InI - Center Of Attention (1995)

InI was an American hip hop group composed of Rob-O, Grap Luva, Ras G a.k.a. I Love H.I.M., Marco Polo (now known as Jolomite), and DJ Boodakhan. The group started working on their debut album together with producer Pete Rock in the mid-1990's, and signed a deal with Rock's newfound imprint Soul Brother Records through Elektra. In 1996 'Fakin' Jax' was issued as the lead lead single from their album and it became an underground hit, although that appeared to be the last bit of good luck that the band experienced. Management shifts at the label were blamed firstly for the album changing title from 'The Life I Live' to 'Center Of Attention', and then ultimately to it's complete cancellation. Rock had a particular issue with Sylvia Rhone's vision for the label, and so his relationship with Elektra Records quickly turned sour, which led to his distribution deal with them ending, along with the demise of Soul Brother Records. As a result, the two releases Rock was working on at the time, InI's 'Center Of Attention' and Deda's 'The Original Baby Pa', never came out due to legal complications surrounding the ownership of the masters. Despite the initial lack of an official release, the album eventually became one of the most bootlegged albums in hip-hop's history, and in 2003 it finally saw an official release after being included on 'Lost & Found: Hip Hop Underground Soul Classics', a double LP of Pete Rock's mid-1990's production work. Although Pete Rock is not an official member of the group, it became synonymous with his name, as he produced almost every track on the album, and his younger brother Grap Luva formed a crucial part of the band. After 'Center Of Attention' was shelved the group members went their separate ways, with only two of them staying on the music scene to pursue solo careers. Grap Luva released a few limited 12" singles in the new millennium and aspired toward achieving his true interest in being a beat boy and producer, while Rob-O released numerous singles and an 8-track album named 'Superspectacular' through the St. Nick Entertainment imprint. Although the album did eventually secure a semi-official release, that's not the end of the story, as it emerged that here was a vinyl test pressing made at the time of recording which included short interludes between nearly all the tracks, and when the CD came out in 2003 these were all removed, along with two of the actual songs, and the whole track-listing was re-ordered. The removal of the 'interludes' was particularly galling to Rock, as a lot of them were his only appearances on the album, supplying 'Vocal Skit' and 'Vocal Outro' on his own. Other differences in the two releases are that the test pressing includes 'Mind Over Matter' and 'Center Of Attention', which weren't on the 1995 bootleg, while the bootleg did include 'No More Words', which was not on the test pressing. Lastly, the 2002 CD re-issue omitted 'Keep On', but added in two otherwise unavailable songs, which means that to own all the tracks you need all the different pressings of the album, and so to save you the trouble of hunting them all out, here is the definitive version of 'Center Of Attention', with every track and interlude included in one place, and you can now hear just why it's so highly regarded. 

Track listing

01 Intro

02 The Life I Live
03 No More Words
04 Interlude
05 Square One
06 Freestyle Interlude
07 Fakin' Jax
08 Step Up
09 Interlude
10 Kross Roads
11 Interlude
12 Vocal Skit
13 Center Of Attention / Interlude
14 Mind Over Matter
15 Freestyle Interlude
16 Midtro
17 Grown Man Sport (feat. Meccalicious)
18 Interlude
19 Think Twice
20 Interlude
21 To Each His Own (feat. Large Professor & Q-Tip)
22 Interlude
23 Props
24 Keep On
25 Freestyle Interlude
26 What You Say
27 Don't You Love It
28 Microphonist Wanderlust
29 Vocal Outro