Backspin: Arrested Development — 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of… (1992)
Arrested Development celebrated life. Hip-hop left the party early. (86/100)
Was Arrested Development the right group at the wrong time?
In 1992, hip-hop’s collective consciousness was beginning to wane. After more than four years of intensive revolutionary anthems and cerebral meditations dedicated to uplift and edification, we were ready for a pause from the cause. We were still down to fight the power, but we were also down with O.P.P. Conscious icons like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions saw their dominance teeter. Burgeoning avant-garde artists like A Tribe Called Quest hardened their sounds, moving the messages to the subtext. Brand Nubian was in the process of transitioning from “Wake Up” to “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down”. Our third eye wasn’t closed, but it was growing heavy.
Arrested Development committed a cardinal sin of popular culture. They went all in on a fading trend. 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of… is a celebration of Black life. It was released into a culture in the embryonic stages of a profound and complicated reckoning with the omnipresence of death that had cast a pall over the childhood of a generation of urban youth.
