Authentic and unpolished: The DJ Quik album he thinks is underrated
When asked which of his albums in his catalogue has been unfairly overlooked, DJ Quik fires straight back with Balance & Options.
First released in 2000, it is clumsily placed in his discography, between his early onslaught on the West Coast and the leaner, tougher years to come. To Quik himself, it is precisely that clumsiness that sets the project apart, as the emergent sound reflects an artist knee-deep in the grind.
Balance & Options came at an awkward time in West Coast rap, where the dominant style was no longer all about G-funk that Quik had helped popularise, and polished Southern tones were slowly making their way to the mainstream. Although the album was released to a Billboard 200 chart position of 20, it did not come out with the same impact as his previous album. It was his first album not to receive an RIAA certification, a commercial failure according to his standards. Gradually, it became marginalised, obscured by his classics and seldom brought up as a point of entry into his music.
Quik later on stated in an interview that Balance & Options was the most “slept on” record that he ever produced. This was not due to quality, he argued, but simply a spate of bad timing, creative frustration and personal strain. Some of the bold concepts failed to even reach the last track list. Most painfully, a song built around a reimagined version of The Doors’ ‘Riders on the Storm’ was shelved after Ray Manzarek refused to clear the sample.
Quik had already spent a significant sum on live orchestration to capture the original’s atmosphere, so losing that track felt like more than a business decision. He took it as a personal rejection, a moment where a creative kinship he felt deeply was not returned.
This evident dissatisfaction leaked into the album itself. Quik has commented that his voice had worsened significantly when he was recording. He was overworked, tired and lacking sleep. The style which had characterised much of his earlier performance gave place to something more lumbering. He explained it as a rasp, a growl, an urgency which had been affected by striving through weariness instead of refining takes. There is fraying at the edges of this album, where the grooves still slide but there is discernible tension beneath them.
The album is unusual in his catalogue precisely because of that inexplicable tension. Balance & Options lies somewhere between the relaxed and calculated earlier records. It is fidgety, even thin, yet very much alive. Here, Quik is still working with full major label resources, consisting of live musicians, heavy arrangements, and painstaking studio work. It would be the final occasion he would be able to do so without concession. Arista dropped him following the poor performance of the album, which was followed by independence, austere budgets and less leisure to indulge his perfectionism.
Quik has not been reticent about the fact that he despised that shift. Making savings meant making compromises, which was contrary to his nature as a producer. Reflectively, Balance & Options is the last instant prior to that fall. It is the voice of a person putting everything into it and feeling the earth starting to shake below his feet. Those circumstances put the album in a new perspective. What used to be considered harsh or disproportionate now is authentic and unpolished.
When Quik, months later, commented on losing his voice and his ability to walk steadily on The Midnight Life, the difference only enhanced his emotions regarding Balance & Options. At this point, he was able to hear well what the previous record contained. Not only pieces of music, but a mood. The raspiness. The urgency. The strain of attempting to maintain control as the industry silently slid out from underneath him.
Balance & Options might never be an adequate introductory album into the world of DJ Quik, but as he says himself, it is among the most revealing. It is an album created during a storm, with the impressions of weariness, ambition, and frustration in every groove. That is the reason why Quik still promotes it. Not despite its rough edges, but because of them.