DB, or not to be

DB Tha General - Murda (2010)



I've remained tangled in Murda's web ever since I first heard it in the dusk of 2010, and 3 weeks after copping the Young O.G II 'tape it's taken from, I'm still struggling to digest the whole thing since it's a whopping twenty six tracks deep and there are so many uses of early 80s rap and r&b and late seventies disco classics to process that I've only just decided that B Aware is the second best joint on there :

DB Tha General - B Aware (2011)



Random Husalah shout-outs apropos of no particular reason other than he's Husalah are always welcome 'round these parts, and, although it appeals to the Rap nerd in me when these new Oakland rappers get busy over mid eighties joints, it's always preferable when they use the influence of that era to create something a little more contemporary and carve out a niche for themselves instead, with those icy synths on this being archetypal Livewire. I love that DB is so brazen in his adulation of one Torrance Hatch esquire that he just comes straight out and refers to himself as "The Bay Area Boosie", and I'm imaginging the Blu-ray release of Menace II Society in late 2009 accounts for why a new generation of rappers have been so eager to namecheck it over the last year or so; never a bad thing since that's the one of the few nineties 'hood flicks which still holds up today, and the Pocket Full Of Stones remix is probably my favourite soundtrack-only cut ever as well as the most crucial southern rap song of the nineties.

... or, at the very least, the one which is closest in importance to Face Down, Ass Up by 2 Live Crew :

2 Live Crew - Face Down, Ass Up (live on Donahue, 1990)



I bet Piers Morgan wouldn't have Uncle Luke 'n' the lads on, unless he could guarantee that Brother Marquis would start blubbing after admitting that he regrets how 2 Live Crew stereotyped all AZN hoes as prostitutes who can only communicate in broken English via samples from overrated Kubrick movies.