On August 16, 1994, Organized Konfusion – the duo of Simply II Positive MCs Pharaohe Monch and Prince Po – released their sophomore album Stress: The Extinction Agenda to critical acclaim. Four years removed from their self-tilted debut, Stress would go on to define who Organized Konfusion was as a collective. In contrast to their debut, Stress was much more bound to the streets of New York, and more specifically, South Jamaica, Queens.
The album chipped away at the many issues that sprang up in the mid 90s and seemed to spiral out of control. Pressing matters like gun violence became the catalyst for conceptual songs like "Stray Bullet." Sound wise, the album was a well organized (no pun) amalgamation of hard rock, jazz and gospel.
Stress exemplified what it meant to have an entirely cohesive album that knew no boundaries. Twenty years later, it has permanently woven itself into the fabric of Hip-Hop history - a certified classic.
To celebrate twenty years of Stress, I reached out to Pharoahe Monch and Prince Po, as well as a few other legends (who had a hand in creating the classic album) on the phone, including Buckwild, Large Professor, O.C., artist Matt Doo's brother Garnet Reid and DJ Premier.
• ON SELECTING OUTSIDE PRODUCERS:
"[Compared to our debut] we wanted to grow and expand. We had an ear for what we were looking for. These guys [producers on Stress] were in our circle. O.C. had branched out into D.I.T.C. and Lord Finesse had already been touring with Big L and Showbiz & A.G. There was just a lot of love.
Buckwild came through with that "Stress" song and I was like "This is what we are! This is who Organized Konfusion is! This is the colors, this is the attitude." It's hard, it's apocalyptic and weird. Not weird in a bad way, but just hardcore. So we jumped on that and was like we need to show the other sides of this group as well.
On [Organized Konfusion] - we jumped into the production thing because we had some dope shyt that we wanted to do too. We were kind of thrusted into doing as much as we did on the first album because Paul C had been murdered."
• FAVORITE SONG OFF THE ALBUM?
"Aww man! Whooo! That's tough. I'm probably gonna have to go with 'The Extinction Agenda' if we're talking lyrics. Production wise, probably 'Stress.'"
• ON THE ALBUM ARTWORK AND ARTIST MATT DOO:
"Matt was an artist doing work for print magazines at the time. He did work for Company Flow and was working with other Rawkus artists. He approached me; he was a huge fan and was from Queens. He was like this big character who spoke with his hands. Boisterous. Very passionate about Hip-Hop conversations. You could tell the wheels were always spinning in his head all the time. I probably never met a more passionate person about Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop culture. We would talk for hours about Rakim & KRS-One.
When I started letting him hear new music from Stress, he was like "You have to let me do this cover! You guys haven't been represented properly." I was like "Let's do it!" He asked for photographs of us, props, all types of shyt. He would just be like "Yo! You're walking through the ghetto and there's lava and there's magma and the projects are burning." I was like "Alright, just let me see it."
I went over to his crib and he revealed the cover to me and I was like "Oh shyt!" It was an actual 24x36 painting. This dude was genius. And I mean that in every sense of the word. It wasn't some shyt that he drew. His brother Garnet still has that original painting."
• WHAT INFLUENCED THE CREATION OF THE ALBUM?
"I'd say comic books. Definitely Marvel. Also whatever films were out at the time, but the influence [in comics] was more imaginative than what they were doing in films. And then the streets - our environment in South Jamaica, Queens."
