Formerly known as Kool Fashion, before converting to Islam to become Al Tariq, was a member of the legendary trio The Beatnuts with JuJu & Psycho Les, before they parted ways. He was the proclaimed “third of the trio” on the groups first 2 studio releases, Intoxicated Demons: The EP (1993) & The Beatnuts: Street Level (1994). Like most hip-hop heads, I’ve always had love for The Beatnuts. Why the split? I’ve heard a couple different versions of the story but regardless Tariq & The Beatnuts continued to work together after the dust had settled.

I was at one of those used CD shops, killing time way back in the day, and stumbled upon this track on a compilation.

Al Tariq – Think Not (don lower)

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Shortly after hearing “Think Not”, I found somebody that had the album “God Connection” and had them dub me a copy… on tape, I know old school. It wasn’t a very good copy, but I bumped it none-the-less.

Al Tariq – Do Your Thang (don Lower)

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Somewhere in the middle of all this I found the 12 inch of “Think Not”. The B-side joint is “Peace Akki”, which is now & forever will be one of my favorite tracks with these guys.

Al Tariq & The Beatnuts – Peace Akki (don lower)

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In 1996 Tariq dropped “God Connection” followed up in 1997 with “Kool Fresh”.
In 1998 Tariq joined up with Problemz & Black Attack to form the group “Missin Linx”.
More recently (as in last year) he reunited with Psycho Les & Problemz to form “Big City”.

I still liked The Beatnuts after Al Tariq left, they’re always good, but it always felt like something was missing. Les was crazy, JuJu was hard to the core and Tariq balanced everything out by being… the Kool Ass Fashion.

Love, Peace & Beatnut Grease!