Nervous Breakdown (Fu-Schnickens album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
RapReviews	5.5/10[2]
The Village Voice	A−[3]

Nervous Breakdown peaked at eighty-one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached the nineteenth spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote:

You want an inkling of how grim things are for black kids right now, try and find another current rap record that manages to mean a damn thing without slipping into gangsta suicide or Afrocentric cryptoracism. Since this one sank faster than Public Enemy, maybe it doesn't mean much either, but to me the East Flatbush trio radiates the hope hip hop was full of not so long ago. There's deep pleasure in their vocal tradeoffs and hard, wryly textured tracks. There's wordwise grace in rhymes that balance B-movie fantasy against everyday brutality without denial or despair. And there's joy in the nonpareil skills of reformed backward rapper Chip Fu. He coughs, he hiccups, he snorts, he stutters; he whinnies, wheezes, wows, and flutters.[3]

Bret Love at AllMusic wrote in retrospect that Nervous Breakdown showcased "an improved lyrical maturity among all three members" on a record that was "a frenzied, fast-paced roller coaster ride of originality that doesn't let up until the last song ends."[1]

Sample credits

• Track 1 contains a sample of "Dance Floor" written by Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman and performed by Roger Troutman.
• Track 2 contains a sample of "The Show" written by Richard Walters and D. Smith and performed by Slick Rick.
• Track 3 contains a sample of "Crooklyn" written by Jonathan Davis, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Kenyatta Blake, Duval Clear and Edward Archer and performed by The Crooklyn Dodgers.
• Track 7 contains a sample of "Hittin' Switches" written and performed by Erick Sermon.
• Track 11 contains a sample of "(Not Just) Knee Deep" written by Geroge Clinton, Jr. and Philippé Wynne and performed by Funkadelic, and "360 Degrees" written and performed by Maxwell "Grand Puba" Dixon.

• Fu-Schnickens – Nervous Breakdown at Discogs (list of releases)