Against the Grain is the fourth solo studio album by American rapper Kurupt. It was released on August 23, 2005, through Death Row Records, making it his first and, to date, only solo album for the label. Production was handled by Mark Sparks, Doug Mayhem, Sir Jinx, Baby-C-Style, Blaqthoven, Diverse, Joshua Andrews, Ric Rude, Screwface and Tha Row Hitters, with Suge Knight serving as executive producer. It features guest appearances from Eastwood, Tri Star, Young Tone, 2Pac, Dave Hollister, Domination, M.O.P., Potion, Roscoe, Spider Loc, The Dayton Family and Val C.
The album went almost unnoticed due to the lack of promotion by Koch Records, which distributes all of Tha Row's albums. It debuted at number 60 on the Billboard 200 albums and number 20 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in the United States. It also made it to number 146 on the French Albums chart. The cut tracks were later released on a 2007 bootleg compilation titled Against tha Grain E.P.. The album was reissued in February 2010, under the title Down and Dirty with a slightly altered tracklist. The song "Calico" previously appeared on the Dayton Family album Family Feud.
Background
Kurupt was signed with Death Row Records as one-half of Tha Dogg Pound together with Daz Dillinger. The duo released the only studio album for the label, Dogg Food in 1995, before Kurupt left the label in late 1997. In early 2002 he re-aligned with Death Row, which sparked the feud with his former labelmates, such as Daz, Snoop Dogg and Soopafly. The album was delay from its planned 2004 release and was released in August 2005, when Kurupt left Death Row for the second time. It was Death Row's first freshly recorded album in over four years. It was the final original album released by the label during its original run, before being revived with BODR by Snoop Dogg 17 years later.
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