Foxy Brown’s ‘Broken Silence’ Gets 25th Anniversary Color Vinyl Reissue

Twenty-five years later, Foxy Brown’s Broken Silence is ready to make noise again in a new format. A color vinyl reissue of the rapper’s 2001 album is available now for its 25th anniversary, a 2LP set pressed on marble blue vinyl.

After achieving mainstream success with 1999’s Chyna Doll, Brown sought to re-establish her street-rap bona fides with Broken Silence, a grimy yet also confessional release. To that end, she recruited an array of collaborators including the Neptunes, DJ Clue, Dave Kelly, Dru Hill’s Tamir “Nokio” Ruffin, and more, coming up with a hard-hitting dancehall-infused collection. The album yielded the singles “Oh Yeah,” “B.K. Anthem,” and “Candy” and earned her a Grammy nomination for “Na Na Be Like.”

Broken Silence was well-received by fans and critics alike. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Gold by the RIAA. At least one of those copies found its way to Nicki Minaj, who claims Brown as a major influence. In Spin, Jon Caramanica praised Brown’s wordplay and “keen sense of cold-stare flow,” noting that “her writing can be both clever and kind of touching.” Meanwhile, the NME raved, “Foxy Brown comes back snarling, all but blasting at all and sundry with her verbals, and takes time to be reflective as well,” and Billboard proclaimed, “Foxy Brown has grown up a lot since her 1996 debut, Ill Na Na, and that maturity shows on her new set.”

The acclaim continues to the present day. Pitchfork recently included Broken Silence on its list of the 100 greatest rap albums of all time, with critic Alphonse Pierre writing, “Broken Silence, her third album, dropped when she was 22, and Foxy was in full creative control, meshing together her pain, street-rap attitude, and West Indian roots like nobody else could.”

Order Foxy Brown’s Broken Silence 25th anniversary vinyl here.