The Main Ingredient

After the success of 2010's deluxe reissue of Pete Rock & CL Smooth Mecca and the Soul Brother, Traffic Entertainment is proud to announce the release of Pete Rock and CL Smooth's 1994 classic, The Main Ingredient in the same deluxe packaging and expanded content concept. The album never gained the traction as the pairings full length debut, which followed the 1991 EP All Souled Out and yielded the biggest hit of their conjoined career, "They Reminisce Over You." But The Main Ingredient is nonetheless Pete and CL's most critically applauded work, a definitive symbol of the tempered consciousness and roughneck rhythm that defined the era. Pete Rock laid these backdrops in Rockland County, where he moved and built a studio after leaving Mount Vernon in 1993 (the cover shot for The Main Ingredient was taken in his Rockland lab). Though the scenery changed, his tools of choice didn't, and this is yet another testament to the Chocolate Boy Wonder's magical knack with the SP-1200 drum machine and sampler. With no Pro Tools and little input from outside of their immediate camp, Pete and CL recorded their final sixteen as a team over the course of a year between 1993 and 1994.