Six years is perhaps not long enough in a record label's life to start releasing retrospective compilations, but Grapetree have been so prolific in such a short time, they've probably already got enough material for a couple of box sets.
Grapetree Greatest Hits Volume 1 pulls together 28 tracks from 16 of the many acts the label has introduced us to in the past six years. These include husband and wife team True II Society, former Vanilla Ice sidekick E-Roc, God's Original Gangstaz, and the man responsible for all this - label boss Knolly 'Rubadub' Williams. Proving that hip hop isn't the preserve of black guys with gold chains, there's Faze and Latino rapper Geno V. Gina Brown brings the female quotient to the table - or maybe not, as she doesn't actually rap.
One criticism that could be made, not only of this album, but of Grapetree albums in general, is that they're so busy trying to sell you stuff, they neglect to tell you much about the music. A lot of the space on the CD inlay which could have been given over to bios of the artists - or just to general credits - is taken up with ads for other Grapetree products. We do get a sentence or two on 12 of the 16 featured artists, but we're no wiser as to who wrote or produced any of the tracks.
