Following the mass success of Lesson to Be Learned, RBL Posse took their West Coast gangsta rap to a slower, more psychotic place with 1994’s Ruthless by Law. That the woozy, tilted “Blue Bird” was the album’s hit single says a lot about the times. Gangsta rap was in, and the music got deeper as it got darker. RBL were defined by their deliberate pacing. “Funkdafied,” “M.N.O.H.P.,” and “Livin That Life” stare down the listener with dead-eyed commitment. In this atmosphere, rage is transformed from a stimulant to a narcotic; as the tension escalates, everything seems to slow down.