Young Boobie (no John McCririck's wife)

Even though Huslin' Since Da 80's is a compilation of Husalah songs assembled by a label/management team when he was doin' porridge, it feels like one of those great Mob Figaz solo albums such as The Jack Artist or Headshotz by AP.9. His Dope, Guns, And Religion album, meanwhile, is pretty much your archetypal patched-together-and-patchy ragbag of songs from a rapper who happened to be in prison but it has 3 trump cards in Through The Night and Frozen Heart (2 of his finest moments), and a real historical curiosity in the old demo song he and Jacka recorded when they were 13 and 15 and went by the monikers of Young Boobie James and Ouiny Mac :

Young Boobie James & Ouiny Mac - Shock The Place



It transpires this was recorded at some point in 1995 (a good 3 years before Hus' and Jacka made their debut on C-Bo's Till My Casket Drops) and it's just a bizarre song to emerge at the apogee of G-Funk because it's a tinny 808 electro stomper (the closest reference point of the era would be N.O Bounce, I suppose) which hints at Rick Rock's robo-funk, the Hyphy sound, later Hus' songs like B.I.T.C.H, and that recent NhT Boyz track with Hus' from their Power Triangle mixtape which I've been looking for an oppurtunity to post since everyone else has just mentioned the Jacka cameo tracks from it :

NhT Boyz ft. Husalah - Dope Boy



Shock The Place is even a peculiar how'd-you-do lyrically because two teenage gangsta-rappers from the Bay Area interpolating T-La Rock and BDP lines sometime in 1995 is some Bizarro World Jurrassic-5 level of oddness which I can't comprehend, even for a group whose deep affection for New York rap has always bled through into their music since their official debut .

Nowadays gangsta-rappers from the Bay rapping over old electro/beats by people like Newcleus, Whodini and Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde, and Bay producers making music borne of a mid 80s influence of keyboard alchemists like Larry Smith, Davy DMX, and Mantronix is commonplace, but it's still mighty, mighty weird because that's an era generally neglected by New Yorkers and most internet rap-nerds. Does every Bay rapper and producer have an uncle with an encylopedic knowledge of 1981 to 1986 rap 12"s, or does that old stuff get the most play on the radio in the Bay during old-school hours? Whatever the answer, can E-40 and Turf Talk rap over the instrumental to Space Is The Place by Jonzun Crew on 1 of his upcoming Revunue Retrievin' follow-up albums in the place of the inevitable J. Valentine sex jam where '40 goes into far too much detail about his cock for my liking, plz?

Jonzun Crew - Space Is The Place



Props to this ever-so-zany wench here for keeping her 14 cats out of the room when she was dancing and being the only person to upload the full version of Space Is The Place to Youtube. So, this is my 2nd favourite electro song ever after Scorpio by The Furious Five, the Brim scene it soundtracks in the 1984 BBC documentary Beat This! A Hip Hop History is classic, and Michael Jonzun and his brother Maurice Starr went on to clock that Euro-Millions lottery fetti managing/writing for New Edition and discovering/producing New Kids On The Block, which would explain why I always thought Hangin' Tough was such a banger.