To the East, Blackwards
| To The East, Blackwards | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by X Clan | ||||
| Released | April 24, 1990 | |||
| Recorded | I.N.S. Recording Studios, New York City | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Length | 45:49 | |||
| Label | 4th & B'way, Island | |||
| Producer | X Clan | |||
| X Clan chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
  [1]
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| RapReviews | 9/10 [2] |
| Sputnik music |
 [3]
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To The East, Blackwards is the debut studio album by American hip hop group X Clan, released on April 24, 1990, by 4th & B'way Records and Island Records. It was produced entirely by the group and recorded at I.N.S. Recording Studios in New York City.
To the East, Blackwards charted at number 97 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums. "Raise the Flag", the album's lead single, peaked at number 12 on the Hot Rap Singles.
The album's production is characterized by witty scratching and funk beats, including samples of music by Parliament-Funkadelic, Zapp, and Roy Ayers. The group comprises producers Grand Architect Paradise and The Rhythem Provider Sugar Shaft, lead MC Brother J, and Professor X the Overseer, who punctuates Brother J's raps with certain keywords and phrases.
The group's lyrics heavily promote Afrocentrism, railing against racism and socioeconomic oppression of African-Americans, and feature references to African-American revolutionaries and Egyptian places and deities. Music journalist Jon Pareles writes that "they want to shift the cultural credit back to Africa, instilling pride in a younger black generation and revising the historical record (itself a matter of heated debate)".
In a contemporary review, Down Beat gave the album five stars and wrote that X Clan "offer food for thought with a backbeat ... Their mission is to educate, using hip-hop as the medium. And it's funky, too".Jon Pareles of The New York Times called it " for the converted ... rapped in the artificial-sounding tones of radio disk jockeys." In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave the album a "C" and facetiously cited its "hallmarks" as "obscure Egyptological insults and flowing funk beats." He viewed it as a product of the rise in "message rap" at the time and stated, "prophets and demagogues of every description join the myriad of hip hop wannabees, enabling lugs like these avowedly non-'humanist' Brooklynites to make their subcultural dent."
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