Steve 'Flash' JuonAs best as I can tell the patrons of RapReviews support our mission to leave no stone of rap music unturned. With their generous pledges to keep RR up and running, I continue to dig deeper for albums that would otherwise become urban legends or lost media. With Hyenas in the Desert and “Die Laughing” I feel we’re damn close to that status. Discogs only recorded one sale of the album in 2024, but despite that it commands paltry sums ranging from $1-$11, which suggests to me that most people are not even aware that it EXISTS. To my own astonishment though one lone single from this album actually got the music video treatment.
I have no objection to famed Bomb Squad member Gary G-Wiz handling the production duties on this album, but “Concubinez” was not one of his better efforts. Frankly ANY song other than this would have been a better choice to showcase lead rapper Kenneth Walker a/k/a Kendo’s rap skills. The music (I’m being generous to call it that) sounds like farting car horns running backward. The percussion is crispy enough but without any bass or melody to support it those hi-hats and snares are completely wasted. A much better choice to showcase the Hyenas would have been “Wild Dogs,” featuring the same “The Creator Has a Master Plan” sample DJ Premier used on “Real Hip Hop” for Das EFX.
At this point my research hit a brick wall. Multiple sources will tell you that Hyenas in the Desert was the first group signed to Chuck D’s Slam Jamz imprint, but it’s the GROUP part that I find strange. Even in this altrap interview Kendo never mentions any other Hyenas by name. The closest we come to that is him mentioning that the name Hyenas came from his cousin, who was in jail but was a close enough friend to regularly exchange letters with. While this unnamed relative was a “bad dude” he had mad love for Kendo and told him to take the name of his click and run with it. Maybe if his cousin got out of jail he would have been part of the crew too.
Another thing that repeatedly turns up when turning stones over is that Hyenas is a “horrorcore” rap group. Frankly I’m not hearing it. “Why Me” is not an example of the gothic, macabre, violent and dark sounds that pushed acts like Gravediggaz to commercial success. If anything it sounds more like a Public Enemy track with rappers other than Chuck D, but with his same intelligence and ability to vividly narrate scenarios and bring them to life. While Kendo may have gotten the Hyenas name from someone who chose the wrong path, “Why Me” shows a crew who feel the oppression of their circumstances and seek to escape that darkness by any means necessary.
Without a physical copy of this album I can’t tell you who else is a Hyena, because even the Discogs page for “Die Laughing” only mentions Kendo and G-Wiz. Not one single person in the last 30 years bothered to write down the names of the other people involved online. Maybe that was inevitable given that only Kendo and G-Wiz went on to do anything else after the group dissolved. G-Wiz continued producing as usual while Kendo (by his own account) went on to produce music for WWE. Once again I hit a dead end though because none of the songs he did are credited in his bio, but it’s hardly surprising that WWE would use him as a ghost writer/producer and NOT credit him, so I take him at his word on that account. Despite a terrible lead single (which Kendo is extremely fond of so we can agree to disagree) this album is “aight.” It’s no hidden gem but it was still worth uncovering.