Young Jeezy ft. Yo Gotti - All White Everything remix (From the internetz; 2010)
Thinking of investing in some more white clobber beyond plain t-shirts and the odd Polo beanie, so this requires a trawl through the wheat and the chaff of alabaster menswear in search of sartorial inspiration beyond Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Don Johnson in Miami Vice, the Manic Street Preachers pre-1994 and Jeezy & Gotti in the All White Everything video :
With this post comes the realisation of what Jeezy needs to do to ensure that Thug Motivation : 103 doesn't do all bronze everything numbers : record a remake of Trap N*ggaz with White replacing Jody Breeze as the cocky young hustler Jeezy imparts his vast street knowledge upon a la Yoda and Luke, innit :
Boyz N Da Hood - Trap N*ggaz (From Boyz N Da Hood; 2005)
You're probably thinking that sounds more akin to Eminem and Dre's Guilty Conscience than it does an ebony and ivory version of Trap N*ggaz, but pump ya brakes, slow ya roll, dook, because this one has the potential to transcend rap and shoot off into the pop stratosphere as the new Easy Lover by Phil 'n' Phil.
Treal Lee & Prince Rick having a brand new single out and yet another remix of Throwed Off (Fuck Everybody) - the biggest song at SXSW this year alongside Old School Nikes by Dorrough according to the homie Rob Breezy - that I was hitherto unaware of has reminded me that I never got around to posting about that 501 Levi's jam of theirs; a no-brainer for inclusion on the Emo-stripper themed mix Breezy and I have planned :
Treal Lee & Prince Rick - 501 Levi's (From Throwed Off mixtape; 2011)
I wanna call this one of my favourite singles of 2011 to date, but there's this little obstacle in the form of a broad called Sharlie Brown with her half-rapped/half-sung quick 16 slap bang in the middle of the video preventing me since it totally besmirches the song's nucleus. I'm not even tryna be an anti-female rapper sexist pig here (I swear! I have a post about a Lil' Kim joint coming and I wholeheartedly echo Ray's sentiment that Gucci Gucci is the best rap song by a white female since Debbie Harry went in hard on Rapture, although Murder She Wrote by Tarrie B was an undeniable synth banger of the Lethal Weapon by Ice-T calibre), but a song about the sexual magnetism of classic menswear - and possibly not even LVC 501s but just regular $60 versions - isn't supposed to feature a chick getting her Cher Lloyd on about being "a t-shirt and jeans kinda girl", especially when her appearance gives the song an awkward aroma of that Victoria Beckham and M.O.P debacle. Thankfully, the mixtape version up there dispenses with Sharlie's services so if it isn't gonna make my year end singles countdown, then it'll at least feature in the regular mixtape/album cuts list. Hooray for small victories!
I'm diggin' the way these guys are building their whole oeuvre and mythology around phrases from their own earlysongs like Mystikal did. If the world is never going to be yours, then the next best option is building your own island where you can be king, right?
And speaking of Rapture by Blondie, Debbie Harry really doesn't get enough credit for her bravura next-level performance on that as it's still capable of leaving the greatest minds on Earth all "huh, what?" when attempting to decipher its cryptic poppycock lyrics 30 years on from 1981. Is the man from Mars eating a guitar as the last line in the song a subliminal zing aimed at the Disco Sucks! movement and their rockist former CBGBs peers or just an excuse for a bitchin' guitar-solo, and what on earth can "Francois sez fas, Flashe' no do" possibly even mean? Jimmy Spicer may have pipped her to the post, but ol' girl predated Rammellzee as far as stream-of-consciousness abtract-rap on wax goes, and I'd much rather watch Chris Stein and, um, whatever the names of the other dudes in Blondie were doing their dad-dancing in the Rapture video than watch a bunch of gurning fellas breakdancing in the Step Into A World clip.
Also from The Source's 15th year anniversary issue comes this advert for P Miller Clothing as modelled by the grand imperial Percy Miller and prince Percy Romeo Miller Jr. What a pity their feet aren't visible because they were probably resplendent in the infamous Master P sneaker range forever immortalised in rhyme by Lloyd Banks. P's the Master - he won't let you forget, hoe; stompin' hard in silver plastic spaceshoes while your boyfriend tip-toe :
Remember that time I said how I'd hoped the new No Limit era had yielded at least one official song which features the talents of both C-Murder and Curren$y? Found this recently, although Mac has the best verse on it. I love the way $pitta says "whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, man - I got $2 million cash!" with such conviction during his introduction almost as much as I love how C-Murder tells the C.O to "fuck the world, bitch!" during his :
C-Murder ft. Mac & Curren$y - Camouflage & Murder (From Truest S*** I Ever Said; 2005)
I'm up for another Pilot Talk with Ski to round off the series as a trilogy and that proposed Curren$y & Fiend tape over Menahan Street Band samples would be a-okay with me, but I'm not too interested in ever hearing Convert Coup because where's the synergy in mixing Curren$y's rapping with Alchemist's beats? What's next - Big Noyd does a mixtape over Big K.R.I.T production with Big Syke playing the J-Love/DJ Drama role? What I need is some new $pitta music which bears traces of New Orleans in its DNA again, so it's time to sever all ties with Wiz Khalifa, burn the Billionaire Boys Club gear, give your big bro' a call and dig out the bandana, B :
I only stumbled upon the 24 carat nugget of rap-nerd trivia that Curren$y is Mr Marcelo's lil' brother recently but it makes total sense because I always thought Marcelo was such a randomly odd choice of former No Limit roster members to pop up on $pitta'smixtapecuts given that he was only involved with the label for one album and a notable verse on Whodi from the first 504 Boyz album a couple of years before Curren$y even signed on the dotted line with Percy in 2002. Whatcha gonna do?? Whatcha gonna do when the older Franklin brother, Magic, Mystikal, DJ Wild Wayne and the Miller brothers run wild on you, BROTHER??!!??
Ayo, you might see us in designer underwear, bloggin' in a recliner leather chair with minders everywhere, and when we postin' shit up the minors stop and stare, but we just spotted this Canadian TV performance of Horse & Carriage in the Youtube Suggestions bar of the Ma$e live medley on Teen Summit video that's currently everywhere :
Oh, jou don' know that Fat Cam and Jimmy doing some synchronized pattycaking is a matter for much discussion, but here at The Martorialist offices the most pertinent talking point has been Jim's 3/4+½ nu-metal cuffed jean shorts which can finally set the scene for an epic Martorial Elegance showdown at noon we've been waiting to take place for over 5 years now; Michael Buffer's currently recovering from throat cancer and swimming in the $400 million he's made from licencing, so we had to rope in Mystikal for this one instead. Our shorts tinted out, yours see-through - we see you :
Mystikal - Ready To Rumble (2000)
In the left corner we have Capo representing Harlem in the Fieldy from KoRN cuffed jhorts that are bigger than a Sumo; in the right corner we have V.I.Prodigy from the Outta Control remix video representing th-th-th-the 'Bridge in some eastern European builder during the summer months cuffed jhorts which won't let ya mouth getcha in shit ya legs can't run from :
This time, issue # 2. The Beastie Boys haven't prospered this long without knowing exactly who their audience consists of, and so every issue of Grand Royal was filled accordingly with adverts for skate brands such as Vans, Droors and Supreme, punk-related labels like Dischord, Touch & Go, Revelation and Sub Pop, and your token middlebrow rap releases by The Pharcyde and pretty much everyone who ever put an album out via Mo' Wax.
But amongst them all there was this "WTF is some rap for actual black ppl doing in here?" moment with a full page advert for releases on Khayree's Young Black Brotha Records imprint by Ray Luv and Young Lay :
And this brings us to a question that's been troubling me for donkey's years now : What was best item of outerwear in a Young Black Brotha Records video? Here at The Martorialist we're torn between Ray Luv's sheepskin coat in the All About My Fetti promo and Ant Dog's tan duffle coat in the Definition Of A Hustla clip because, well, who the hell expects to see mid-nineties Bay Area gangsta-rappers looking like John Motson and Paddington Bear :
BONUS BEATS :
Mac Dre - I'm N Motion (1993)
That Grand Royal advert actually wasn't the first time that seemingly disparate worlds of Khayree and the Beastie Boys had collided because a couple of years earlier Khayree sampled Slow And Low on this, the greatest rap song recorded over the phone from prison (well, from Fresno County Jail) ever. Having said that, I wish Dre & Khayree had re-recorded this when he got released in 1997 because he rips it for nearly 6 minutes straight but most rap fans won't listen to it because they're pseudo-audiophiles who want proper vocals recorded through microphones in, like, real studios. This ain't Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield or Emerson, Lake & Palmer spending months multitracking kazoo solos through the Alpha 60 computer from Alphaville, cuzz.
I refer not to his verse on The Watcher 2 or the Ayatollah produced banger A Cold Feeling from 2001, but the viral commercial he did for the now sadly defunct GoldTeethUSA.com site back in 2004 where his mouth joined his third eye in shining like jewellery. The video split hip hop purists into 2 distinct camps of precious souls, consisting of those who couldn't watch it "out of respect for the God M.C" and those who watched it through their fingers before comparing it to a hostage video where middle eastern terrorists had a spotlight shining into the R's face and a glock pointed against the temple of his wifey offscreen, but here at The Martorialist we interpreted the clip in an entirely different light altogether with Rakim Allah just helping a fellow Godbody out by getting in front of the camera for his mate Dave's grillz website after they'd spent a night down the pub relaxing with Pep together and making himself a little much-needed loot after his Aftermath deal went belly up :
"Tell 'em Rakim sent you, man. They ain't gonna give you no discount, but what they gonna do, they gonna give you the right joints, you heard me?"
Cheap gold-fronts have been known to cause dangerous dental problems requiring surgery and gingivitis so mean you'll be bleeding burgundy, so it's a pity there was no recreated, reincarnated, updated Grillz for Dummies follow-up video where the R explained 'fronts hygeine/etiquette for GoldTeethUSA's tens of customers. Brothers tried and others died to get the formula, but don't sweat the technique because Baby came through to teach the chil'ren last year :
"You gotta get that shit cleaned, dog, if you don't, you fucked. All them n*ggas....man. Ask them n*ggas in Texas how they mouths all fucked up, fuckin' with that Johnny's shit got them n*ggas mouths all fucked up. If you playin' with yo' mouth, you gotta go to the proper dentist, you gotta go where that shit sanitized right, you gotta just do that shit right, dog.."
BONUS BEATS :
Eric B. & Rakim - Hypnotic (1990?)
There's a reason why this and Everything's Cool are by far the best of all Rakim's unreleased tracks, and it's because they both hail from the Eric B. & Rakim era. The latter was snipped from Don't Sweat The Technique due to sample clearance, and the story goes that Hypnotic was recorded for Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em by Large Professor but ended up on Eric B's cutting room floor along with the fabled bars from the title track due to the "I don't sniff no 'caine/Kane to get raw" line since Rakim and Big Daddy Kane had squashed their lingering beef after sending subliminals at each other on Set It Off and Microphone Fiend previously. It all seems so quaint when you consider this was around the same period when LL & Kool Moe Dee and Ice Cube & N.W.A were trading fairly explicit dis tracks, and it's a pity their petty squabbling didn't carry over to 1992 because Rakim could've got some major zings in at Kane's expense for keeping his leopard-skin undies on when he was romping with Madonna and Naomi Campbell in Madonna's SEX book. Bet he's the only goon nucca in them tiny pants.
MC Serch attempting The Crane in the video for that Kurious Benetton joint he was on with DOOM a couple of years back; his only worthwhile contribution to the song.
Back in the late nineties the gentlemen's fashion magazine Draper's Records proposed that the reason men's denim sales in the U.K had slumped to an all-time low was because of "the Jeremy Clarkson effect". It's an immensely plausible hypothesis, but it doesn't explain why the effect didn't spread to the 2 countries where denim is king when Top Gear is the highest rated show on the BBC's flagship channels in America and Japan, or why the equally atrocious Richard Hammond & James May visage of bootcut jeans with a brown leather jacket then became the default casual look of 97% of men over the age of 35 throughout the last decade.
Here at The Martorialist we spend at least 3 minutes per waking hour formulating theories about the effect celebrities in appalling jeans have on the tastes of the general public, and today we've come to a conclusion on the origins of sagged pants and it has nothing to do with 2 Live Crew album covers, street looks derived from the lack of belts in prison, or skaters buying their pants two or three sizes up to act as protection against injuries; the act of wearing one's slacks drooped below one's waistline, we proffer, was actually borne out of the universal horror teenagers experienced in 1989 when they flocked to see The Karate Kid 3 and laid their eyes on the then slightly portly Ralph Macchio making his jeans look all Jeremy Clarksoned out and thought "Christ on a pogo-stick, let's try to look as far from that as is sartorially possible" :
And there, in a pair of ill-fitting denim, is a lesson for you on how cruel, fickle, and ironic the worlds of both fashion and cinema are, given that Ralph had outswagged the rest of the male cast in The Outsiders as Johnny Cade by pulling off what's arguably the greatest Canadian Tuxedo in celluloid history back in 1983, yet still found himself as a proto-Kenny Powers figure for denim dystopia a mere 6 years later. Damn, Daniel son. To his credit, Karate Kid 3 saw Ralph still posessing aspirations of James Dean with his red Harrington jacket ala Jim Stark, but fate was conspiring against him on multiple levels by this point and the movie's wardrobe department could only come up with a cheap replica rather than a real Baracuta G9. Save for My Cousin Vinny, Ralph's movie career never recovered from such indignity and it shadowed the downfall of Sensei John Kreese and the Cobra Kai until regular tv parts acted as a sort've televisual Terry Silver.
BONUS BEATS :
Let's cast our minds back to the days when Serch was a tad more athletic :
3rd Bass - Wordz Of Wisdom (1989)
Yo, you know who's to blame for Serch's achingly solemn delivery on that aforementioned Kurious & DOOM joint? You dudes who've been calling him thee most exalted potentate of whiggatry on the internet for the last 15 years or so, that's who. Even if you've never been partial to Serch's brand of pre-Rappaport whiteness, you have to admit that the enthusiastic Serch of yore is far preferable to the earnest Serch on that song, and I'm sure you'd also concur that in 2011 it's about time someone leaked that original version of Serch's Back To The Grill Again with Akinyele on it which was mentioned in the Ego Trip book back in 1999.
Seeing Yelawolf cavorting around in the You Ain't No D.J video looking like every hackneyed tumblr account dedicated to waifish white ppl with ol' Martin Skrtel lookin' ass tattoos distilled into a single saltine rapper nearly kiboshed the song for me entirely, but catching The Fifth Element on TV last week for the first time since 1997 brought forth the revelation that the trick to not letting 'wolf's look (the result of DJ Kno from The CunninLynguists colliding with Nu-Metal one hit wonders Crazy Town) in full motion prevent me from enjoying his music is if I hoodwink myself that he's actually going for that whole intergalatic evil scoundrel swag instead by using Gary Oldman's Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg character as his chief style catalyst :
But Yelawolf signing with Shady Records was the worst artistic move he could've possibly made since it'll result in a bloated major label debut album which is bound to be full of sterile Eminem production instead of Burn One's whoozy Country-Rap beats, and it also means he'll follow Eminem's commercial blueprint and chase the whole downhick dollar with music that's less like this :
Bubba Sparxxx - Lovely (2001)
(I dunno why Bubba berated rappers for "spittin' that booty chatter" on Ugly when the songs on Dark Days, Bright Nights that featured his most intricately crafted rapping and which remain the acme of his career to this day - Lovely, Betty-Betty, Twerk A Little, All The Same, and Open Wide - were all primarily about women.)
with music that's, unfortunately, more like this :
Bubba Sparxxx - Back In The Mud (Travis Barker Remix) (2003)
The phrase ‘Travis Barker remix’ is an even more dread-inspiring triumvirate of words than ‘CJ Mackintosh remix’ once was, and you've every right to shudder because the days when Fieldy from KoRN was a mainstay on Rap records and in Rap videos are seemingly nigh again, signalling that the official Nu-Metal revival will burst asunder in december 2011 when Joe Budden announces that he's collaborating with his spiritual forefathers of gaylord navel-gazing, Papa Roach, on a cover version of their teen-angst sulkfest Last Resort.
Blatantly swaggerjacked from RealN*ggaTumblr (again), but these FREE BOOSIE beanies are even better than those Waka Flocka Flame Halloween masks because you can actually wear this when you're out picking up your sunday shopping in M&S without security guards thinking you're trying to rob the place :
Now that's Streetwear and they've apparently used a specially treated blend of Biella Yarn Merino wool which'll turn whatever hairstyle you sport into Boosie's hallmark fade within minutes everytime you wear it. Available to pre-order now from IMNOTATOY.
On the subject of Boosie Bad Azz, is there any other song which displays the confusing contradictions of rap music in all their glory quite like Fuck The Police does :
"Wonder why I look at your ass undereye I get a billion I'ma hit you bitches from the sky.."
Lil' Boosie ft. Webbie - Fuck The Police (2009)
Complaining about police harrassment while bragging about having guns in high school, running various illegal contrabands, and keeping hundreds of thousands of dollars of untaxed money in your crib is some real which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg? type shit, huh? This is one of the best songs of Boosie's apogee as a solo rapper, though, because the menacing tone of his voice gives me the chills like the creepy gypsy 'yatch in the opening segment of At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul does, and the combination of that harpsichord melody with those mushroom clouds of squelchy bass is just too immaculate. If we can't free Boosie on the grounds of him releasing tons of great music or allow him recording equipment in his jailcell, can't we just try and get him off by framing some tedious hack like Freddie Gibbs for killing that Nu$$ie dude instead?
Ayo Fiend : either Percy Miller needs to explain to you that basketball and tennis are entirely seperate sports, or you need to fire your current graphic designer and hit up Pen N' Pixel again (the gawd Shawn Brauch would've never let such a blatant faux-pas slip past) because a Jordan Spizike doesn't count as a "tenniShoe", bruv :
Okay, so the Luvin' Life track with Curren$y off this new Fiend 'tape continues their so-far stellar partnership (though Fiend needs to stop allowing $pitta's weedcarriers like Trademark Da Skydiver on his releases, because that guy is a plague on Curren$y songs let alone anywhere else), James Bond Benz lives up to its title even though it doesn't feature enough rapping for my liking, and Absolutely makes him sound like he's in the process of assimilating into a cyborg like Quik did on Jupiter's Critic And The Mind Of Mars (hoes on our dicks 'cause we feel like Maria in Metropolis?), but I remain stuck on the previously leaked Cross The Atlantic because it has that grandiose feel of the J.U.S.T.I.C.E League productions for Rawse which are instantly vitiated for me the moment he starts rhyming on them, and because I enjoy when people rap over full songs a la the 2 Curren$y & Fiend Menahan Street Band songs from last year, Ice-T's Soul On Ice, or Holla and No, No, No by Ghostface :
Fiend - Cross The Atlantic
Speaking of Curren$y, a few words on his Frost freestyle over Young Dro's Freeze Me from the otherwise relatively mediocre Return To The Winner's Circle mixtape :
Curren$y - Frost freestyle
As someone whose entry-point for $pitta was Reagan Era in 2008 (I thought he sounded like Kweli-ized Lupe-lite sap on most of the Ca$h Money-era material I'd heard) who then became a firm believer with Scared Of Monstas in 2009, I'd like him to rap onsome more southern sounding synth production again in 2011. Partially because it's on beats like this where he can have the most fun with his flow by letting his intricate rhyme-patterns do the Dougie, the Harlem-Shake, and the Peewee Herman, but mainly because it might finally stop some of these twerps out here calling him a weed-rapper and comparing him to Devin when Big Boi, Fiend, Young Bleed, Posdnuos, Q. Tip, and Camp Lo are all better reference points. Really not sure about that "listenin' to Dizzee Rascal" line in this, though. Ayo Curren$y - FYI, black ppl abandoned Dizzee Rascal entirely when he dropped this
So Jay-Z & KanYe's H.A.M finds karma restoring equilibrium to the rap-cosmos after that mismatched Next Up song where UGK invited Marley Marl, Big Daddy Kane and Kool G. Rap aboard their ship in 2007, because this is the exact antipode of the forced "hey guys, we're down with the east coast o.g's!!" disparity of that cut with both KanYe and Jay now sounding as utterly out of place on Lex Luger's H.A.M beat as Pimp and Bun did on the dry Marley production of Next Up, and them using the word ham is more cringeworthy than once hearing my uncle Harold describe a Dubai hotel he stayed in as having toilets which were "very bling". The only discernable differences I can hear between the two songs are that the Luger backdrop would be a banger with the right rapper(s) over it, whereas Marley's sounded like a track from his generic 2001 BBE compilation Re-Entry which would've had Troy S.L.U.G.S rapping on it, and Kane and G. Rap somehow sounded less decrepit than Jay does now, which, technically, isn't that suprising since Jay is probably older than Kurtis Blow.
H.A.M is a pivotal song, though, and that's why I've dedicated a post to it because it finally confirms my long-held suspicions that Memphis Bleek was the man-behind-the-curtain pulling the strings as a ghostwriter during Jay-Z's glory years and the evidence for this accusation is now damning : Jay only rapped well on the 5 albums Bleek appeared on; Bleek dubiously remains Jay's touring hypeman when everyone else initially connected with the Roc (Jaz, Sauce Money, Amil, Dame, Big, Beanie & State Prop') has long-since been cast aside; Jay is probably the most awkward interviewee in rap after Dr. Dre, yet Bleek can hold his own tossing out the zings to Dipset next to Tru-Life on 'hood dvds; and it's inconceivable that a man who can make his own extrodinary opulence sound as boring as Jay-Z does in his music nowadays could've ever penned the likes of Imaginary Player and the extended remix of A Million And One Questions.
But such declarations need audio evidence to back them up, so I ask you to compare how maladroit and humdrum Hov' sounds next to T.I, Wayne, and a fucking M.I.A vocal sample on Swagger Like Us to how effortless and comfortable Bleek sounded next to T.I and Trick Daddy on the now classic bi-regional posse jam Round Here :
Memphis Bleek ft. T.I & Trick Daddy - Round Here (2003)
I rest my case, and the only possible explanation I can come up with for Jay's admitedly swell appearances on Big Pimpin' and Get Throwed is that Bun wrote the former and Z-Ro was the author of the latter, which would explain the fishy reason why 'Ro didn't get to actually rap on the song.
BONUS MARTORIAL ELEGANCE BEATS :
Jay-Z - Streets Is Watching (1998)
Man, how did anyone ever buy the mythology of Jay as this cool trend-setter whose swag was off the yeltzebub when he wore a white tee tucked into some bellybutton-high JNCO-a-likes in the Streets Is Watching video? Ol' excess denim bellowing around his navel like a pair of Jeff Hardy's jeans lookin' ass motherfucker.
Reasons why I happen to prefer Suga Free to post-Ultramagnetic Kool Keith : Street Gospel is a marginally better 1997 album than Sex Style, and what Keith could only achieve via the aid of a plastic wig that year in the Plastic World video, Sug' managed au naturel in the On My Way promo.
"Wait, ‘what do you see?’ said the blind man who heard the deaf man say he saw Suga Free drop the bomb and it went BOOYAH!"
Suga Free - On My Way
Always wondered if there was any truth to the rumour that DJ Quik didn't receive any production royalties from Street Gospel because Suga Free brokered a deal with him beforehand which would allow Quik to swagger-jack Sug's lavish blue shirt steez for the cover of Rhythm-Al-Ism a year later in 1998 without flaunting the ‘Thou Shalt Not Buy A Shirt Similar To One Your Boy Has’ rule all bros deep must observe?
So, as we dip-da to the '010 and we tip-toe to the '011, I guarantee any song I'm likely to hear tonight out on NYE won't make me wanna get my Ralph Macchio at 0:40 - 0:43 of the scene in the Okinawa fifties rock 'n' roll club in The Karate Kid 2 on like Robert Bacon's geetar-work on Quik's We Still Party from Rhythm-Al-Ism does, nor will anything I'm sure to hear tonight get me as open as the "BURN!"s on its hook do. Happy new year anyway, godbodies.
Oi Curren$y - how's the ‘Jets’ motif of your rap persona gonna half-rest on your supposed flyness when your black-socks-with-shorts look in the Michael Knight video is more Wayne from Bootle than Lil' Wayne?
I know rave songs which were big at scouse superclub Cream from 1995 - 2002 are the new Ultimate Breaks And Beats as far as sampling goes, but do we really want rappers dressing like the every-volume-of-CreamClubClassics-owning white trash population of Merseyside during summertime too?
Curren$y - Michael Knight
So, Michael Knight, 4 Hours And 20 Minutes with Killa Kyleon, and a supposed cameo appearance from Camp Lo (love their song on the Ski Beatz album) have got me anticipating Pilot Talk 2 even though the first one ended up being little more than good background music album for me which begins to grate whenever I concentrate on Curren$y's rambling delivery on it, no matter how deliberate and nuanced the rambling delivery may actually be. I also really wish Spitta would quit trying to work with Mos Def and record a grip of songs with his ex Ca$h Money labelmate All $tar/$tarlito instead since they both share the same hazy southern aesthetic and any reference to gay rappers they'd make would be tinged with speculation whether they were talking about Baby and Wayne sharing beds on the Ca$h Money tour bus. Ayo, those aren't pillows...
Bonus Gay Dudes beats :
I hear KanYe sampled a piano from an Aphex Twin song or sumfink? Zzzzzzzzz. Someone let me know when he finally embraces his Chicago-house roots and raps about pumping Amber Rose 'til the early morn' over the effervescent piano intro to Move Your Body :
Marshall Jefferson - Move Your Body (The House-Music Anthem)
Well, you'd presume it was about Amber Rose but it'd be a Baby Rides For Love by Frankie Knuckles & Jamie Principle type rope-a-dope where you'd be initially lulled in by the provocativeness, then enveloped by the music and all tapping into your inner-Frank Booth only for the penny to drop that it's actually about S&M with a trannie about 3 minutes in, leaving you to quickly make like Shaggy :
Suede-front cardigans were almost as ubiqitous as Puma clydes and John Motson sheepskin coats in them old Jamal Shabazz and Martha Cooper photographs of Bronx dudes from the late seventies/early eighties, but, aside from a recent dabbling by Yo Gotti, the only rapper to treat the cardigan as a wardrobe staple is the always dapper Slick Rick. Jay-Z was spotted wearing one in Europe once (a man's gotta have something non-threatening to wear for those evenings parlaying with Chris & Gwynie in the backstage area at a Killers show), but since he took a good year or so of ruthless zings from Dipset for wearing open-toed sandals that time, you imagine he daren't be seen sitting courtside at MSG in a Norse Projects effort or Supreme's classic Chico suede-front lest Capo unleashes a slew of Val Doonican/Mr Rogers photoshops on him; and while both POLO and RRL make some nifty cardigans which range from simple zip-ups to more ostentatious David Starsky type shawl collared affairs, even a more *cough* adventurous dresser like KanYe has only experimented with the cardi' a couple of times, most notably when he wore that hot-salmon Jeremy Scott one with the poodle motif on the back which had fellow Chi-Town knitwear enthusiast stepping his game up by getting his Ronnie Corbett on :
So, we should praise Dru Down for not only sporting a cardigan back in the Can You Feel Me? video in 1994 when west coast rappers were usually decked out in Pendleton flannels, Dickies shirts, and POLO or Carhartt jackets, but for also managing to wear a v-necked, button-up one and not look maaaaad Talib Kweli shopping for jasmine scented candles and Dr Stuarts peppermint-tea in it. We got ourselves a top five rap video outfit of all time right here :
Dru Down - Can You Feel Me?
Will all y'all Bay mavens start wishing I get robbed and stomped in the supermarket like Yukmouth if I say that I prefer Dru's outfit here to Can You Feel Me itself? I'm more of a Explicit Game-era Dru Down kinda guy, personally :
I suppose you could make a proper fist of a Martorial Elegance post about Boosie since he did that Adidas Crazy song with some jumped-up promoter/DJ called Young Sleep who's decided he needs to add rapping to his arsenal of activities he isn't exactly excelling at (they also did this song together), and because he's responsible for snatching the Adidas tracksuit back from the clutches of nu-metallers and German heep hop producers of das embarrassing breakdancing music :
NAY :
YAY :
But today's edition is about liberating Boosie's verse from the remix to 6 Tre G's Fresh. I can't be the only one who finds it hilarious that the only song to emerge from the Huntsville clique which has made any sort of impact outside their local scene/the internet/Norway's answer to Shea Stadium to date is a song by their token Latino weed carrier 6 Tre G, right? G-Side must be pretty darned pissed that Codie G didn't get this beat to them because Fresh began life as an elementary but brilliant beat with a handy Slick Rick sample for the hook, which was then ruined by three verses about terrible clothes for fresh-off-the-boat Polish G-Unit fans who've just bumrushed the Warrington branches of TK Maxx and Madhouse, but the song was thankfully redeemed when Boosie was recruited for a quick verse on the remix where he lapses into that staccato Pimp C on Wood Wheel-ish flow of his a couple of times and mentions POLO, linen suits, Levi's, white Nikes, wearing pink, and how he spends 35 hundred on a fifty to go sit in a movie. Song saved.
Since I've been on a Boosie listening spree the past week or so, I got Step to chop all traces of 6 Tre G's rapping out of the song in return for a compilation of Bay slaps from the past five years. I can tolerate Young Sleep's contribution to Adidas Crazy because he's a minimal presence on his own song and he gives Jam-Master Jay an R.I.P shout-out, but listening to 6 Tre G brag about wearing Ed Hardy for two verses just ain't happenin', man, so here's an exclusive chopped-up Fresh remix which is little more than Boosie's verse with a hook on either side of it. Why didn't he just get this beat in the first place anyway?
Lil' Boosie - Fresh remix verse
Okay, no more Boosie posts for the rest of 2010 unless some unreleased Pimp C produced recordings from Ghetto Stories turn up or Victoria Coren asks a question about him on the new series of Only Connect to explain some seemingly inexplicable link between him, Merv Hughes and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Three reasons why I'm posting the I Got It Made video this morning :
Special Ed - I Got It Made
1. It's a top three favourite Special Ed song alongside Taxing and the Primo remix of Freaky Flow, though the order varies according to mood. I Got It Made is a weird song because came out in 1989 amidst singles like Fight The Power, Straight Out Of Compton, Portrait Of A Masterpiece, Me, Myself, And I, and Shadrach which were all collages of multiple samples and scratches, and it sounds so basic and lo-fi in comparison with drums like an ice cream tub being flicked by an index finger and nothing more that that du-du-du-du, du-du from I Don't Know What It Is But It Sure Is Funky by Ripple for adornment, but it still, as they say, goes hard.
2. Although Zhigge may have officially repped for the 'LO Lifes on record before anybody else and Grand Puba helped popularize it, POLO was a fascination for Brooklyn before any other bourough of NYC caught onto it and this was the first rap video to feature a heap of classic 'LO gear, with some absolutely orgasmic jackets on show. Not sure that Ed's proud "never boostin', never shopliftin'" claim and the 'LO Life ethos were quite coalescing at this point, though.
3. There was a Mannie Fresh piece in The Source a few years back (one of the things I miss most about the closure of Borders in the UK is the sitting down with magazines I'd never want to spend money on but still like to have a good rummage through) where he talked about his favourite rap songs and this was one of them. An initially suprising choice, perhaps, but Ed's ostentatious boasts about having 74 Honda scooters, procuring land in the West Indies plus an island of his own, and owning a dog with a solid gold bone here were the missing link between Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde and Big Tymers as far as flossed out Ted Dibiase-rap goes.
Ayo Jimi - you died 40 years ago this week, you made some pretty amazing music including a Bob Dylan cover which made the original superfluous (always a good thing because nobody really enjoys listening to Bob Dylan, do they?), you were sampled on classics by Tribe, the Beasties, and one of the few old UK rap joints I liked (I know I'm supposed to pretend that I love Blade, Hard Noise, and Gunshot, but gimme I'm Ready and 20 Seconds To Comply by Silver Bullet anyday), and, most importantly of all, a song of yours became Hulk Hogan's entrance music during the n.W.o era in WCW when he turned heel and couldn't really come out to Real American by Rick Derringer anymore. The fella who does the nWoClassics channel on Youtube is a deity walking amongst us stinking apes for upping the very first time Hogan came out to Voodoo Child (Slight Return) on the 1997 WCW Nitro episode in Chicago when the n.W.o unveiled Dennis Rodman as their newest member :
When wrestling buddies up with other sports it usually ends up having to take one for the team, with wrestlers either having to job to "proper atheletes" or being the victims of unfortunate name-mangling faux pas like the time Mike Tyson accidently called Stone Cold Steve Austin "Cold Stone Steve Austin" live on tv at least twice (Rodman calls Lux Lugor "Lex Luthor" here on two seperate occassions), but this clip features one of the very few instances where wrestling emerged victorious via an epic pwn by Hogan, as Rodman was supposed to lead the n.W.o out to the ring through the entrance but at the very last second Hogan barges past him and gets a larger pop than Dennis in his own backyard. Man, this is such a bittersweet clip because they were all on top o' the world, ma' here but so much tragedy has followed in the thirteen years that've followed : Bischoff ran WCW into the ground and went grey, Miss Elizabeth died; Hogan ended up broke due to divorce and subsidising Paul Wall & Beenie Man guest verses/Scott Storch production for Brooke's ill fated music career; Hall is virtually unemployable due to his drinking and has blown all of his oppurtunities with the WWE and TNA, Syxx came back from the indignity of shagging Chyna and news of his failed suicide attempt going public only to be diagnosed with Hepatitis C this year; and Rodman ended up playing second fiddle to Pete Burns in the crossdressing stakes and getting blue balled by Chantelle on Celebrity Big Brother.
But back to Jimi; always a flamboyant dresser during his brief career, it'd have been interesting to see which sartorial path he would've taken into middle age, especially in comparison to two of his peers : would he be a fashion god in Japan with a wardrobe to die for like Eric or would he be a street walkin' cheetah with feet full of Crocs and a body covered by Raoul Moat's orange muscle shirt like Iggy?
Yup, it's yet another "look at what video I've just found on Youtube" post :
DJ Jimi - Where They At?
1. I can't really figure out whether this or Where Dey At? by DJ T.T Tucker and DJ Irv was the Bass Rock Express-style song you can pinpoint as being the inception of New Orleans Bounce because opinion seems to be divided on which was the original and which was the rip-off; Wikipedia and that Amoeblog post about the history of Ca$h Money Records seem sure that Where Dey At? beget the sub-genre since it appeared on a release called The Red Tape in 1991, while other pretty credible sources contend that both songs were released in 1992 but Where They At? came first and DJ Jimi then successfully sued DJ T.T Tucker & DJ Irv. Contrary to belief, I'm not a black dude from the 5th Ward who was all up in the clubs of Naw'leans shouting "LET ME HIT IT FROM THE BACK 'CUZ I GOT A JIMMY HAT!" and "RIDE THAT DICK A LIL' HARDER AND A N*GGA MIGHT BUY YOU A STARTER!" to either choon back in the early nineties so I can't shed any further light on the matter, but most of the thematic concerns running throughout Bounce can be traced back to both songs and the pair of them are composed around samples from Drag Rap by The Show Boys AKA the "Triggerman" break AKA the song 8 out of 10 Bounce songs sampled so let's not sweat the argument over which was the O.G here unless anyone has any concrete evidence. If you could construct a scale for "Triggerman" inspired songs with Drag ´Em "N" Tha River or Like A Pimp being a 10 and We Ready (live) being a 1, then the clean video version of Where They At? ranks around a 7, with the explicit version you'll find at the end of the post being a definite 8.5.
3. Why wasn't Juvenile in the video when Jimi put the other featured rappers from his album in it? I suppose The Juvenile as he was known then would've been about 13 at the time, but if video cameos are good enough for Lil' Romeo, then they're good enough for Juve, and perhaps it's karmic retribution that Bounce For The Juvenile went on to become the song from Jimi's album which he's now primarily remembered for, at least outside of New Orleans.
DJ Jimi ft. The Juvenile - Bounce For The Juvenile
4. So, there's some decent pum in the video with the lycra short wearing back-up dancers, but Jimi's female protege (I always thought she was M.C.E but here she's billed as Devious, who I thought was one of Jimi's producers?) really is as busted as her rapping on Bitches Reply (notable for being the song where the "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT" over the "Triggerman" beat sampled on Project Pat's Chickenhead comes from) and the vile Lick The Cat would suggest. Was Jimi firing cheeky subliminal shots at her with the "IT MUST THE PUSSY, 'CAUSE IT AIN'T YO' FACE!" chant? It seems plausible :
5. Where They At? strikes me as being the sort of song that your average miserable nineties boom-bap purist would wag their finger and kiss their teeth at, but the difference between this and an NY party-jam like Showbiz & AG's Party Groove is what, exactly? Other than Where You At? getting played at clubs/parties which WEREN'T wall-to-wall sausagefests of scowling dudes in hoodies, I mean. Anyway, Here's the mp3 of the dirty version of it so you too can introduce the phrase "OOPS, IT'S YOUR HAIR - PICK IT UP, HOE!" into your lexicon :
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