Grove St. Party

2 great songs featuring 2 southern rap titans from the otherwise unremarkable Black Grove 401 Records compilation which abounded with excellently monikered no-names like Freddy Fukyu and Swamp & The Swamp Life Gators :



Pimp C ft. Sir T - It's Under My Rug
(From Black Grove 401 Records Compilation Vol. 1; 2004)



This one is a tasty broth for every gentleman partial to dining on Country-Rap Tunes from the sub-genre's very own Raymond Blanc : start with the sort of Pimp C production, rapping and hook which would've been right at home on Boosie & Webbie's Ghetto Stories, add a H-Town weed carrier who doesn't appear to have been ever heard from again, and then flavour the dish with a couple of minutes of ad libbing where Pimp brags about transcending Space Age Pimpin' with activities he describes as "star ship enterprise."


C-Nile ft. Juvenile & Skip - U Know Me remix
(From Black Grove 401 Records Compilation Vol. 1; 2004)



In which a decent joint by Mobile, Alabama rapper C-Nile from 2003 is given wings to sour its way to the New Orleans rap Elysium via the appendage of verses by Juvenile & U.T.P weed carrier Skip and production that reconfigures the original beat into something sufficiently more sinewy which is best jammed as an accompaniment to Juve's own Nolia Clap remix with Wacko & Skip from U.T.P from the same year, rather than a remix of the earlier C-Nile song.

J-Prince would probably track me down and have me tarred and feathered if I were to ever dare entertain the thought that Bun B accidentally strangling himself whilst taking off a The Hundreds t-shirt would've been much less a loss to rap than Pimp C carking it, but I wonder if he ever realises that everyone is secretly seething that the multi-talented auteur behind UGK ascended to the crossroads, while he's lived on to willingly record songs with Termanology, Drake and J. Cole?

Eff you, Rawse!

Not only have you made it a socially acceptable practice for tubby trap-rappers to bare their potbellies every time there's a camera in their vicinity, thus making us all paranoid about our own stubborn post-winter paunches, but it's been brought to my attention recently that you also flagrantly swaggerjacked the paraplegic one from Da Southern Boyz when masquerading that you were rolling like Davros from Doctor Who in Wayne's video for John :

Da Southern Boyz - Thug Kracka
(From Youtube; 2008)



(Not to be confused with the other Southern Boyz or the Durty South Boyz of Watch Me Throw It AKA the Mike Vick song fame.)

It's not like the newfangled batch of southern-saltines like Yelawolf, White and Rittz don't each have their respective merits but, ultimately, they're all lacking in the BacoFoil jewellery 'n' Southpole jhorts moonshine-rap rowdiness of Thug Kracka which was pioneered back in 2000 on T-Bo & Mike Da Hustla's Baton Rogue underground classic Who Dem Boys? album, with Bad Ass White Boyz being rap's 2nd grandest Drag 'Em In The River homage after Juve's Set It Off :

T-Bo & Mike Da Hustla ft. S.C.C - Bad Ass White Boyz
(From Who Dem Boys?; 2000)



Streetz is still waitin' on a remastered 10th anniversary reissue of Who Dem Boys? with liner notes by Dave Tompkins and Percy Miller, plus a CD-ROM of the content from Mike Da Hustla's now-extinct Geocities page.

Wanted dead or alive # 7 : the O.G version of Dark Days, Bright Nights

O Bubba, Bubba, wherefore art thou original independent Newtown Records version of your debut with the racially ambiguous picture on the cover (you might be Hispanic!) before you were scooped up by Timbaland and your album was re-released on his Beat Club imprint with a bunch of new joints produced by him and Organized Noize?

I tried copping this off Amazon once but the mook who sold it me just sent the Timbaland version and I've never come across it to download. The majority of the songs from the indie release actually made it to the major label version and Handle Of Beam was a bonus track on the European CD, but there's 6 lost joints in Hungry, Truth Of The Matter, Wigged Out, Run'n Wit Bubba, Godfather and Kuntry Folks on the original, with the latter being the only I've ever been able to find online :

Bubba Sparxxx ft. Duddy Ken - Kuntry Folks
(From Dark Days, Bright Nights O.G version; 2000)



As far as country-rap tunes by Bubba & Duddy Ken from the indie version go, this is way better than Takem' To The Water which did make the Timbo release's tracklist, and, as mentioned previously, rap is the only genre of music which can rehabilitate an instrument which embodies everything terrible about white ppl musik such as the acoustic guitar. I might try and compile a great rap songs which use acoustic-guitar mix CD-R with this and Deliverance by Bubba, I Got A Story To Tell by Biggie, Ayo For Yayo by Andre Nickatina, Sickness by Concentration Camp, The Payback and Vendetta Memphis Sessions mix by AZ, All Falls Down by KanYe, In Da Wind by Trick Daddy et al, Ride Down The Highway by Yelawolf, Fa My N*ggaz and Dreganomics by Mac Dre, Leather So Soft by Baby & Wayne, Right Now by Devin, Barney by Jacka and, um, that's all I can think of at the moment.

Anybody got a copy of the O.G Bubba jawn then? I'm particularly interested in hearing the track by the name of Wigged Out.

Salmon and Spag' Bol'

Skimming through some old copies of XXL, I came across the issue when G. Dep's "shit, I was born ready, and I was already on fish and spaghetti" line from Let's Get It received the Step Your Rhyme Game Up award of the month and was reminded of that recent Bounce Squad and Black Rob joint where B.R homaged it during the intro :

The Bounce Squad ft. Black Rob - Live At The State Building
(From It's Always Sunny In New York; 2011)



So necessary since there's always been a burning void deep within my soul just waiting for a song where Snaggapuss references 2 Girls & 1 cup over J. Beez Comin' Through (Bonus Beats) to seal it with some audio asphault.

I have a really bad feeling that No Fear, Up North and this are going to be leap years better than anything on Rob's imminent Game Tested, Street Approved album because every Duck Down album since 2005 other than the underated Heltah Skeltah LP has been cursed by the death of tepid, tinpot production. But, then, that's probably a smidgen unfair since J. Beez Comin' Through (Bonus Beats) is only the best stand-alone instrumental in the history of recorded rap musik to date and after you've rapped over that then it can only downhill from there on in, no matter how much great music you make thereafter, right?

Jungle Brothers - J. Beez Comin' Through (Bonus Beats)
(From What "U" Waitin' "4"? 12"; 1989)

The magic number : Baton Rogue edition

A 3 song epilogue to the Concentration Camp compilation on some ‘..and here's what they did next!’ type shiznit.

Max Minelli ft. Mystikal - Thug Thang remix
(From I'm All I Got; 2003)



AKA the proto-Lugerian galumpher with the "I'm so cool I walk slanted like fat people's shoes" line from Max's Me And My Hustle debut which was then enhanced by a Mystikal guest verse on the remix from his I'm All I Got sophomore effort. Rap songs with baronial synthesized tuba operating as a tank looking for a battlefield to roll on are always welcome in this here kingdom, but the Thug Thang remix is only that album's second best track after Martorialist favourite My First Verse.

Lava House & Lil' Boosie - Bow Ya Head (Real Shit)
(From United We Stand, Divided We Fall; 2006)



Before the national success of Zoom and the Wipe Me Down remix, Boosie would spend the downtime between his masterpieces with Webbie recording co-billed projects alongside local Baton Rogue groups like the South Coast Coalition album that featured the Ecko headbands 'n' moonshine whigga-rap classic Murder Man Dance, and the compilation with the Lava House collective which this cut is taken from. The single Do The Ratchet is the go-to joint off this album, but Bow Ya Head (Real Shit) is its sad-rap classic and since Boosie never rapped over any Isaac Hayes, the ersatz computerized Do Your Thing horns on this will have to suffice as the next best thing.

C-Loc ft. Max Minelli & Young Ready - Drop Your Nuts
(From Tha Camp.. Break It Off; 2007)



Consistency is the key word with this one : it picks up right where the last Concentration Camp album Thuggin' From The Inside left off, Boosie may have long since departed for pastures Trill Fam but his spirit still lingers since the song is named after one of his favourite aphorisms and, much like the most illuminating 'net discussion of the Concentration Camp albums is found in old Amazon reviews, the Break It Off album Drop Your Nuts comes from is best documented online with a MySpace review by an autistic gentleman called FrankieThaLuckyDog who charged $15 per post. I'd try and procure his services for some guest posts, but a quick Google search reveals that Frankie has now moved on to the more prestigous world of vlogging.

Sick 'em, Earl

Double page spread of Phunk Phat Graph-X designed Sick Wid' It album adverts from The Source's 100th issue in 1997 :



That Southwest Riders album doesn't quite live up to its cover despite the fact that it's a trans-coastal double CD compilation which features 1997 regional gangsta-rap royalty like E-40, Celly Cel, 3X Krazy, WC, Twista, Tela, Mystikal, Master P & Silkk, Brotha Lynch Hung, Three 6 Mafia etc because, well, how can any music possibly rival a stagecoach rollin' on solid gold wheels the size of Droop-E and D-Shot? That's a vehicle which manages to juxtapose classic American utilitarianism with ancient Egyptian ostentatiousness, dah-ling. The album's most known songs would be the two singles, Yay Deep by E-40 & B-Legit with Richie Rich and Represent by A-1, but its choicest cuts were found elsewhere on the two discs in amongst the joints by SWI weed carriers like The Mossie and Mr Malik :

Luniz - Capable
(From Southwest Riders; 1997)



San Quinn & Messy Marv - Playa Haters
(From Southwest Riders; 1997)



UGK - Hiside
(From Southwest Riders; 1997)



8Ball & MJG - N*ggas Talk Shit
(From Southwest Riders; 1997)



The Luniz and 8Ball & MJG joints are both particularly great as I'm sure you'll agree, but the highlight of that batch would have to be Bun's "'cause a pussy ain't nothin' but my hand with a face" line on the UGK cut; a lyric so magnanimously misogynistic it could even make Suga Free pull the "yo, I wish I'd written that one" face. By my reckoning E-40 and Suga Free have only recorded together twice and '40 has rapped over DJ Quik production just the once on the Quarterbackin' remix so Sug' & Quik's rumoured Street Gospel II reunion album would be the perfect opportunity to right both wrongs and '40 is their most obvious spiritual soulmate since he's another one of west coast gangsta-rap's great eccentrics, as well as the owner of the most risqué rap song of 2011 thus far on some Biggie - 1, E-40 - 2 type shit :

E-40 - Me And My Bitch
(From Revunue Retrievin' : Overtime Shift; 2011)



TheSinglesJukebox.com's double-whammy of blanking Me And My Bitch and then not utilising Tray in the team who reviewed Beat Of My Drum by Nicola Roberts forced me to forever remove that site from my bookmarks. Fuck y'all.

Hoes down, shoes up

In short, Treal Lee & Prince Rick's more aggressive addendum to JR Writer's Grill 'Em, the logical conclusion to the ethos espoused on their own Throwed Off (Fuck Everybody), and one of the handful of hitherto-unfilmed joints left on their mixtape with DJ Fletch (my 2nd favourite 'tape of 2011 to date after The Young O.G II by DB Tha General) that should've been added to its already vast arsenal of viral-video singles before they began the inevitable process of releasing new material which just isn't half as good :

Treal Lee & Prince Rick - Shoes Up
(From Throwed Off mixtape; 2011)



The way the song deviates from the topic of picking fights with clumsy club-goers to talk of Lee and Rick being "motherfuckin' killers" who'll "leave a n*gga body on the side of the highway" on the way home is somewhat reminiscent of how The Next Karate Kid with Hilary Swank suddenly broke sinister-but-ultimately-harmless-alpha-male-villains Karate Kid movie protocol when Michael Ironside's Colonel Dugan character insists that his Alpha Elite fraternity soljas start catching bodies at the docks. Here at The Martorialist we don't advocate club violence until the point when some juiced-up, shaven ape of a bouncer is attempting to drag you out for star-jumping off the bar and landing on a table of people when the DJ plays Just Like Paradise by David Lee Roth, but if some ham-hoofed oaf happens to smear the toebox of your shoe with their footprint earlier in the evening then we're firm believers that you should always respond with a move we've dubbed ‘The Carlito’; You know what you won, G? The wet t-shirt contest, mawfucker :



Undoubtedly the finest moment of the Primark Razor Ramon's WWF career.

Re : Agallah # 2

Just copped 2 XXXL Pro Club tall tees and I'm about to get them airbrushed up with the faces of HL and Blast in vivid flange pink and bellend purple coloured paint as a thanks for the hook-up on Agallah's Doomsday mixtape and the additional reporting on related lost Dipset classics. Doomsday is a pretty great 'tape if you're in the mood for some stank NY shit which combines the best facets of All We Got Iz Us-era Onyx with early noughties Dipset weed carrier joints, and the only thing better than discovering one of those songs which makes you feel that you've been living in false happiness without it soundtracking your exploits all the years you were unaware of its existence is also finding out that there's a remix of it featuring Juelz et Jim :

Agallah - Gun Go
(From Doomsday; 2004)



Agallah ft. Juelz Santana & Jim Jones - Gun Go remix
(From Doomsday; 2004)



Undecided on which I prefer currently; is it the original where Agallah rhymes "as far as me, I got the whole kit 'n' caboodle" with "my bitch got rocks 'n' minks and so do the poodle", or is it the remix with Jim has difficulty with Ag's name and calls him "Agg-you-lah"?

Bald Head Nutt

From a 2010 mixtape but clearly recorded sometime around 2005/2006 because Curren$y references Wayne on it with the "one shot to (Birdman) Jr. 'll have your block steamin'" line, mentions the then oft-repeated fallacy that Lupe Fiasco could skate, and Nutt Kaze himself acknowledges $pitta's Young Money affiliation twice :

Nutt Kaze ft. Curren$y - Come Back
(From 5 Star Generals; 2010)



What's the deal with this Nutt Kaze guy then? I refer not to his odd little Hitler moustache which makes him a dead ringer for Kase 2 in the extra features on the 2003 Style Wars DVD, but more generally who is this dude exactly since he also has solo songs on 2 of those Community Service mixtapes DJ Hektik & Curren$y put out last year?

Nutt Kaze - I'm Ah Beast
(From Community Service 2; 2010)



His M.O is Louisiana gangsta-rap in the more traditional vein of Ca$h Money, No Limit, Concentration Camp and Trill Fam, and, ergo, I'd prefer a dude interpolating untold Juvenile lyrics per song and rapping about "swiping his goon card" in the role of Curren$y's chief weed carrier as opposed to godamn Trademark Da Skydiver and Young Roddy rhyming about Karmaloop.com discount codes on at least 4 joints per $pitta project :

Nutt Kaze - Roll Wit' Me
(From Community Service 3; 2010)



I really like Curren$y's new She Don't Want A Man cut (double Aguirre OST swag with the ambient synths and vague traces of panpipe), but I'm way more excited that Amalgam Digital have finally released This Ain't No Mixtape (my favourite rap album of '09 alongside BlaQKout by Quik & Kurupt) on CD than I am about Weekend At Burnies, which sounded so humdrum it barely registered on the admittedly brief skim I gave it. Also, was that really the best 80s movie/weed pun he could come up with for a title when Kush Groove and Roach House are both still available? If his pun game is so weak nowadays couldn't he just simply name his next weed-themed mixtape after 3 O' Clock High, which was probably the only American high school flick of the 80s to use some awesome Godardian jump cut editing techniques in a climatic David Vs. Goliath fight scene; brass knux if ya buck, Jerry :



Related : the highlights of the Community Serice 3.5 'tape.

Re : Agallah

Agallah - Gangsta
(From Diplomats Volume 4; 2004)



Proto-waviness circa Agallah's 8-Off The Assassin to Don Bishop transitional period. I know Gangsta from the 4th Dipset mixtape but it transpires it was culled by Jim Jones from Ag's own 2004 Doomsday mixtape, which is probably the only Agallah 'tape that Datpiff don't have, scarcer than Lil' Fame's teeth in physical CD format nowadays, and the solitary downloadable link I can find to it requires a secrete & rare password that's vanished without trace like Madeleine McCann or Jeezy's Def Jam career.

Which is a real triple-threat of a bummer because the era of Agallah's career I'm mostly unfamiliar with and now feel the need to investigate is the 2004 - 2006 Purple City period between the 8-Off singles on Game Records in the early noughties and the You Already Know album in 2006, and this Doomsday mixtape appears to be that timespan's essential release from what I'm reading. Since I'm shit outta luck and already out for a duck with that mixtape, where do I even start with the myriad of Purple City group 'tapes he dropped with Shiest Bubz & Un Kasa during those 2 years? Other than Gangsta, the only other Ag' joint I know from that term is the thoroughly Dipsetted-out It Ain't Easy, a song which positively radiates with wrestling entrance theme swag :

Agallah & Shiest Bubz - It Ain't Easy
(From Purple City Byrd Gang 12"; 2005)



Help me out here, rap dudes! Preferably by re-upping Doomsday, but I'll take pointers on the Purple City mixtapes too.

Great songs from forgotten rap albums # 18

As ever, just some joints you might have forgotten or missed; all from the last decade this time.



Suga Free - Allergic To Bullshit
(From Smell My Finger; 2008)



I present this cut from Suga Free's fifth CD as a primer for his rumoured reunion with DJ Quik on Street Gospel 2 next year, because with Quik's festering animosity towards his sister and Sug' still seething from his baby-momma Kelis-ing him, can you imagine the magma they're going to spew on there? If Allergic To Bullshit is any kind of indicator (personal highlight : the "what, cadillacs ain't gon' roll no mo' 'cause your ass gone, bitch?" ad lib) then MY GOD, KING, IT'S GONNA BE A SLOBBERKNOCKER and the closest we'll ever get to the Bitch Haters Club album which Kool G. Rap & Akinyele failed to deliver after Break A Bitch Neck. Technically, this isn't an official sequel to both parts of Why U Bullshittin' but I look at it as an Army Of Darkness type situation where the parameters of the originals have been broadened and the absurdist comedy has been ratched up a good 10 notches thanks to the central character's O-T-T performance. "Get a paper route, Bitch!"



C-Loc ft. Maxminelli & J-Von - Got Mine
(From Camp III : Thug Brothas; 2000)



Camp III's psalm to staying strapped by C-Loc and Lay-Lo was a cunthair away from inclusion on my recent Camp 'Loc compilation but ultimately snipped from the final tracklist because the 3 Boosie songs from that album are essential and I'd already featured one Triggerman-inspired track in Tear It Down from 'Loc's Life's A Gamble. Did the Concentration Camp zip tickle your fancy then? I've got an expanded 35 song playlist variation of it with supplementary joints like Who Am I by C-Loc, a handful of cuts from My Balls And My Word, Take It Like A Gee by Lay-Lo, Lil' Boosie Anthem and I Got Dat Slap by Boosie, and Immuh and Whoa Na by Maxminelli which I regularly thug out to when sitting alone in my 4 cornered bubble bath staring at Kuumba Rain Barre incense sticks.



Agallah - Adolf "8-Off" Agallar interlude
(From The Piece Maker; 2000)



Hear that noise? It's a 21 gun salute for Drew Huge since he was the first person to use a Christina "8-Off" Aguilera pun in print. One of these days I'm gonna frogsplash right into Agallah's catalogue because I've dug everything I've heard by him from the 90s 12" cuts like 5 Star Millas and Crookie Monster to the noughties mixtape classic Gangsta and his much-underrated 2006 Dipset-era You Already Know album to last year's Treez For Xmas joint. This banger from Tony Touch's compilation for Tommy Boy, however, knocks harder than all of those and, even though the album features cuts from Prodigy, Gang Starr, Heltah Skeltah & Starang Wonduh, and D.I.T.C & Kid Capri (not to mention the Diaz Brothers cut with Doo Wop and the surprisingly ill Get Back by D12), the Clarence Boddicker's brain tissue-powered machine we use to settle debates here at The Martorialist office always goes nee-nee-nee-nee-nee-nee on Adolf "8-Off" Agallar whenever it's asked what the best song on Tony Toca's album is.



Agallah - Club Hoppin'
(From You Already Know; 2006)



Even though Agallah's debut single was a peculiar LOLz-worthy attempt at a chick-friendly summer jam back in 1995, his name's always been synonymous with looming New York grittiness due to Till My Heart Stops with R.A The Rugged Man from the first Soundbombing, the GTA III-approved Keep Rising To The Top with Sean Price and New York Ryder Music being his 3 most widely known songs. But the Don Bishop period of his career resulted in him revealing the other strings to his bow with joints like Club Hoppin', which would've been a way better soundtrack to the surreal opening scene in Belly than Back To Life by Soul II Soul, right? The key to scuzzy N.Y rappers making quasi-club bangers appears to be man dem like Ralf & Florian, because the Trans-Europe Express-sampling How Low by Ag's oldest grimy saltine confidant by R.A also went similarly hard in das diskothek a couple of years earlier in 2004.

A Concentration Camp compilation 4 u

In an age when even Klondike Kat probably has a videoblog, it's pretty cool how the Concentration Camp crew-era of C-Loc's career is still so under-documented online that old Amazon reviews, Youtube comment section squabbles, posts on abandoned ghostship blogs by dudes from Baton Rogue, and a Young Bleed & C-Loc interview in Murder Dog from 1998 are the most reliable sources of information about the period. That said, I wouldn't say no to a Concentration Camp Wikipedia page, a full discography of the releases on C-Loc Records (how is Boosie's first album not listed on Wiki or Discogs?) and an in-depth interview with 'Loc taking about the Camp since Baton Rogue legends like Bleed, Max Minelli and the pubescent Boosie passed through its ranks and the narrative of the crew includes fall-outs, shelved albums, and prison sentences at their peak of popularity.

In an attempt to rectify this situation I've zipped up 25 of the Camp's definitive songs in a RAR file for your enjoyment. The crew consisted of C-Loc, the group Lay-Lo (Maxminelli and J-Von), Young Bleed, Boosie when he genuinely was lil', and weed-carriers like Lee Tyme, Lucky Knuckles and Boo The Boss Playa who later became Boo Rossini, alongside their main beatsmith Nathan "Happy" Perez, who was seemingly at his most perky when knocking out ersatz versions of EA-Ski, Beats By The Pound and Mannie Fresh productions; and the criteria for the compilation here was to take songs from the albums on C-Loc's own record label with their trademark framed Pen & Pixel covers such as 1995's Who's Gonna Ride (the Whatever album slightly rejigged with a new title, cover and couple of extra songs), 1997's Concentration Camp, 1998's Ya Heard Me and Concentration Camp II : Da Holocaust, 2000's It's A Gamble, Camp III : Thug Brothas and Boosie's Youngest Of Da Camp debut album, 2001's Me And My Hustle, and 2004's Camp IV : Thugin' From The Inside.

I didn't bother including anything from Young Bleed's My Balls And My Word since it's the one Concentration Camp album that most regular rap-dudes are familiar with at this point, and there's nothing from Lay-Lo's Plain And Simple album because it wasn't released on C-Loc's label and it doesn't even use the crew's trademark Pen & Pixel framing on its cover. Enough waffle from me, it's time to take a stroll wit' the camp to see if you're ready to roll wit' the camp :



1. C-Loc - No Mercy (1995)
2. C-Loc ft. Lay-Lo - Dare Devil (1997)
3. Young Bleed - A Fool (1997)
4. C-Loc ft. Lee Tyme - Life's A Bitch (1997)
5. C-Loc - Killers (1998)
6. C-Loc - I Know (1998)
7. C-Loc ft. Lay-Lo & Young Bleed - Sickness (1998)
8. C-Loc ft. Maxminelli - What's Love (1998)
9. C-Loc ft. Master P & Silkk - Where The Playas At? (1998)
10. C-Loc ft. Concentration Camp - Cabbage Savage (1998)
11. C-Loc ft. Boosie & Maxminelli - My Thug There (2000)
12. C-Loc ft. Three 6 Mafia & Maxminneli - Don't Start Nothin' (2000)
13. C-Loc ft. Boosie & Maxminelli - Pussy Azz N*ggaz (2000)
14. C-Loc ft. Maxminelli & South Park Mexican - Tear It Down (2000)
15. C-Loc ft. Boosie - Shit Real (2000)
16. C-Loc ft. Lay-Lo - Camp Camp (2000)
17. C-Loc ft. Boosie - Outlaws (2000)
18. Boosie ft. Maxminelli - Pop It On Me (2000)
19. Boosie ft. Maxminelli - Feel Lucky (2000)
20. Boosie ft. Maxminelli - Same Ol' Shit (2000)
21. Max Minelli ft. Boo Rossini & Boosie - Throw It Up (2001)
22. Max Minelli - R.N.S (2001)
23. C-Loc ft. Concentration Camp - Hard Heads (2004)
24. C-Loc ft. Max Minelli & Boosie - Throw It Up (2004)
25. C-Loc ft. Max Minelli - Roll Wit' The Camp (2004)

Download here

I'm imagining the whole angle of the crew calling themselves the Concentration Camp was inspired by C-Loc catching Schindler's List on TV one night, but, look, if Jerry Heller can spend a couple of pages in his autobiography complaining that his publishing company wouldn't let him title the book N*gga 4 Life because he's always been a "true n*gga" then a group of black and Hispanic rappers from Louisiana can reciprocate by identifying with the Jewish ppl imprisoned in genocidal hellholes by the Nazis during World War 2.

Martorial elegance # 45

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 $pitta's mixtape cuts given that he was only involved with the label for one album and a notable verse on Whodi from the first 504 Boyz album a couple of years before Curren$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??!!??

504 Boyz - Whodi
(From Goodfellas; 2000)

'Loc'd after dark

C-Loc ft. J-Von, Maxminelli & Young Bleed - Sickness
(From Concentration Camp II : Da Holocaust; 1998)



Totally no Jonathan King here, but I really wish the sixteen year old Boosie could've graced Sickness with his presence, because, even though it came out a couple of years before he first began popping up on cuts on C-Loc's Life's A Gamble and Concentration Camp III Thug Brothas albums to establish a buzz for his Youngest Of Da Camp debut, Mind Of A Maniac is obviously hugely indebted to its thematic concerns and visuals, and the spectacle of a teenage Boosie in a straight jacket with his eyelids turned inside out in the Sickness video would've been some creepy ass shit which might have been enough to wither Jonathan King's priapic urges towards pubescent boys for good :



Reasons why rap bodies every other type of music out there # 9875 : other than acting as a possible deterrent to gay British paedophiles, it's also the only genre which can redeem a sound as offensive as the acoustic guitar, an instrument which never fails to bring out the Bluto in me. The second Concentration Camp album included another outing for Young Bleed's classic A Fool from the first compilation to capitalise on the success of How Ya Do Dat and there's even a C-Loc joint with Master P & Silkk which manages to consolidate the rickety charms of Richmond-era No Limit with the more polished country-rap stylings of the later New Orleans period, but it's the posse-cuts like Sickness and Cabbage Savage where C-Loc and his Concentration Camp BFFs from Baton Rogue shed light on the crew's central axioms over Nathan "Happy" Perez's shoddily brilliant production which are dearest to my heart :

C-Loc ft. Lay-Lo, Lucky Knuckles & Young Bleed - Cabbage Savage
(From Concentration Camp II : Da Holocaust; 1998)



So, I've been reading about an unreleased C-Loc & Boosie album over Perez's beats from 1999 called Smokey And The Bandit and the story runs thus : C-Loc and Young Bleed were originally scheduled to drop an album together under that title but both rappers fell out so Boosie replaced Bleed in the co-billing before the project was then scrapped due to C-Loc getting locked up. It seems unlikely that C-Loc would let the results of those sessions go to waste so I'm guessing all those pre-Youngest Of Da Camp 'Loc & Boosie joints from 2000 like Can I Trust, My Thug There, Shit Real, Outlaws and Pussy Azz N*ggaz which ended up on Life's A Gamble and the third Concentration Camp compilation were songs they recorded for it?

An AZ compilation 4 u

This was gonna be another one of those posts about some AZ songs which've never quite been embraced by the internet's bosom beyond hardcore S.O.S.A fans, but after writing about how he's not really allowed to get tetchy when Azie accuses him of swagger-jacking when his Gangsta Shit joint on Doo Wop's The State Vs. Doo Wop album is the namesake of MobStyle's most anthemic choon, and how it'd be unfair to chop Papoose out of Knowledge Is Freedom from the N4L mixtape when it's necessary to the equilibrium of New York rap that both rappers appear on a song together where AZ doesn't hilariously pilfer Cam's Confessions Of Fire-era flow like he did on Thug Connection (plus *whisper it* I actually quite like Papoose's verse on there) I decided to scrap the idea and threw together a compilation of lesser-spotted AZ cuts instead, including those two joints, a few songs I've posted before and a bunch of other stuff; all of which should fit on a blank CD-R.

Sending this one out to all y'all still unconverted and casual AZs listeners to familiarize you with some of his more slept-on moments, so we have original versions, remixes, songs from the independent S.O.S.A EP, mixtape joints, songs from DJ compilations, songs from his own Anthology compilations, cuts from officially unreleased albums, cameo appearances, songs from mixtapes & street-albums, and acapella viral video commercials ripped straight off the 'tube. Basically songs from everywhere but his official canonical albums, which are the ones he shot videos for if I use the same criteria he applied in some WSHH interview I saw where he was quizzed about the difference between the Doe Or Die 15th Anniversary album and his glut of dodgy indie releases throughout 2008 and 2009. Sex, cars, clothes, money and murder, soldiers - this is for your server :



1. AZ - Your World Don't Stop original version (1995)
2. AZ ft. Raekwon - Doe Or Die RZA remix (1995)
3. The Firm - La Familia original version w/ Cormega (1996)
4. The Firm ft. Half-A-Mill - Firm Biz remix (1997)
5. AZ - Sunshine (1998)
6. AZ - Platinum Bars (2000)
7. Doo Wop ft. AZ - Gangsta Shit (2003)
8. AZ ft. Ma$e - We Gon' Make It Right (2004)
9. AZ - I am AZ (2004)
10. AZ - Omega (2004)
11. AZ ft. Nas - Serious (2004)
12. Begetz ft. Half-A-Mill & AZ - Cold Outside (2005)
13. Styles P ft. AZ - The Hardest Part 1 (2006)
14. Statik Selektah ft. AZ & Cormega - No Holding Back (2007)
15. AZ - Doin' That Memphis Sessions remix (2007)
16. Foxy Brown ft. AZ - Too Real (2008)
17. AZ - Burglar Rap Intro (2008)
18. AZ ft. Papoose - Knowledge Is Freedom (2008)
19. AZ - Live Your Life (2009)
20. AZ - Hustle In My Blood (2009)
21. DJ Kay Slay ft. Ghostface, AZ & Raekwon - See The Light (2010)
22. AZ - Doe Or Die 15th Anniversary Commercial (2010)

Download here

Should Beelow's Big Body remix have been in Complex's 50 greatest N.O rap songs list?

Well, no, because Beelow's from Baton Rogue even though the song features Juvenile, but this gloriously cheap 'n' nasty posse cut is like what would emerge from Wyatt in Weird Science's en-suite bathroom if he and Gary had fed their magical computer a bunch of NOLA related data including crucial joints by Lil' Slim, the Hot Boy$, the Miller Brothers and Mystikal on another stormy night :

Beelow ft. Lil' Soulja, Juvenile & Thugg Addict - Big Body remix
(From Ballaholic; 2000)



How do metal dudes even have the sheer barefaced cojones to brag about their favourite genre being the most hardbody music in America today when Dimebag Darrell died after taking three shots to the dome yet rappers like Beelow, Azie from MobStyle and 50 have all been shot in the head multiple times and lived? Fuck outta here, heshers.

Ladies and germs - it's showtime!

I'm still dilly-dallying and deliberating on whether to check out that AG Everything's Berri album from last year which some of my favourite rap bloggaz have been enthusing about due to briefly hearing a song from it where AG had a banausic Ced Gee on The 4 Horsemen/MF Grimm since 2004 type of flow going on over some bogstandard production which made his outing with Brit' trip-hop dullard Aim sound as grandiose as Spit, but I'm hoping that song can be written off as a minor blip and there'll be at least 6 joints as good as Live Hard from that last Show & AG EP which they released under the ludicrous moniker of The Show & A Experience back in 2007 on there whenever I do get around to investigating it.

Show & AG - Live Hard (2007)



Highlight : Andre the Giant's professedly effortless flow.
Low point : Rodney "Showbiz" Lemay's ad-libbing; You're no Kid Capri, Pete Rock or Puffy, bruv.

In the meantime I've been reacquainting myself with Showbiz's totally forgotten Street Talk producer-album he dropped in 2005. This was released when Show was trying to diversify the Diggin' In The Crates brand with his ill-fated Wild Life Entertainment label who included perennial D.I.T.C weed carriers The Ghetto Dwellas and Bronx young bucks like Milano and A. Bless as its roster, so Street Talk is a 50/50 ratio of them and your veteran D.I.T.C stalwarts like AG, Fat Joe and O.C, the reused Big L and Big Pun verses you'd come to expect and a remix of an M.O.P 12" which wasn't even as good as the merely decent original. Here's my 5 choice cuts from the album :



A. Bless - That's Bless (2001)



Highlight : "I need a mami for the don with no kids/and I love 'em in white thongs with no skids!"
Low point : The song was 4 years old and had already appeared on the D.I.T.C Presents.. Wild Life EP from 2001.

Fat Joe & Party Arty - On My Way (2004)



Highlight : Show's take on the then de rigueur chipmunked up soul-sample joint template turns out as a standard hard-nosed D.I.T.C banger where Party Arty namechecks Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Low point : Would've personally preferred D. Flow was on this instead of Fat Joe because I could've done with some more Ghetto Dwellas joints like Make It Official or Who's The Dirtiest?

Party Arty - Show & Prove (2005)



Highlight : Arty suddenly breaking into an interpolation of the Fiesta remix hook towards the end of the song.
Low point : There weren't enough instances of Arty rapping solo over good production so this should've been longer than 02:59.

Fat Joe & Party Arty - My Bad (2005)



Highlight : Fat Joe kinda rips this, so tally it up with On My Way, AG's Underground Life, Who Got Gunz, the original Ahmed produced version of Best Behavior, Lean Back and Ja's New York as the only noughties tracks he should've been allowed to rap on.
Low point : Weirdly, the album version of this is edited for cursing when there was a perfectly fine dirty version on the 12", albeit with a moderately different beat.

AG, Ruck & Ghetto Dwellas - You Ain't A Killer (2005)



Highlight : Arty insinuating that he's had carnal knowledge of celebrity females as varied as Tia & Tamera and Christina Aguilera.
Low point : Unfortunately not that Ruck.

Related post : Let's condense AG's crappy The Dirty Version LP into a classic D.I.T.C EP.

Wanted dead or alive # 6 : Disco Stu-pidity

Someone ID me the artiste and the title of this absurdly erotic song, puhleez. I'm assuming it's not actually called Use Me John, it's just that the Moxie Disco Edits label who put out the EP with this on a few years back in 2008 would generally issue the songs on their releases under pseudonyms because they were a bunch of bootlegging Borks from the Netherlands, as witnessed by the re-edit of Curtis Mayfield's What Is My Woman For? as Yes You May on the A side of the same 12" :

Unknown Artist - Use Me John (197?)



I can't quite parse whether this is song about Cunnilingus or the simple joys of losing one's body to the rhythm under the disco lights with a partner, but it doesn't really matter either way because I envision it as the de facto 70s porno soundtrack to an opening tracking shot of Vanessa Del Rio's arse in a pair of skin-tight Daisy Dukes walking down 42nd Street into a porno theater in where Ron Jeremy is sitting with a box of popcorn in his lap with a hole cut into it and his...

You get the picture. Use Me John's monolithic groove would sound pretty damn sweet with Camp Lo rapping about pearl necklaces over it, but, ultimately, I think its ideal home should have been as an interlude on a 90s Beatnuts album with snippets of XXXplicit Vanessa Del Rio dialogue carefully grated on top. Here's Vanessa looking sultry, vampish and ridiculously doable sometime in the early 80s before she went ham with cosmetic surgery. Lick 'em places nuccas and whiggas wouldn't dare put they faces :

Great songs from forgotten rap albums # 17

Khayree ft. Mac Dre - Back 2 My Mission
(From The Blackalation; 1997)



We begin today by hopping in the DeLorean to zip back to the more innocent era of 1997 when wholeheartedly heterosexual west coast and southern gangsta-rappers could use the word cock as a euphemism for vagina without having to postfix it with a NO HOMO! ad lib. Scarface and Pimp C both ruled this roost in terms of sheer volume of AYO!-worthy quotables, but my personal favourite cock-er was Mac Dre, not least because he inspired message board threads like this, but also because his opening salvo of "woke up one morning about 6 o'clock/dick still smelling of spit and cock" from this cut from Khayree's The Blackalation (The World Is Yours) compilation inspires a dichotomy of impulses deep within my loins. Day-in-the-life-of Mac Dre narratives in the company of Khayree production is always a winning combination, especially when it's embellished with such piercing guitar, so just forget Hendrix, Clapton and whatshisface from Led Zeppelin because I want a west coast gangsta-rap guitar duel to the death between Khayree, Quik's string-plucker Robert Bacon and the James Jones fella that Mike Mosley & Sam Bostic used on the C-Bo and B-Legit joints they producer under the umbrella of Mobboss Productions.



Young Bleed - A Fool
(From Concentration Camp; 1997)



I mean, I like Young Bleed's one legitimate hit How Ya Do Dat with Master P and C-Loc, but I genuinely L-O-V-E the song that beget it, which is this solo Bleed cut from C-Loc's first Concentration Camp compilation that the grand imperial Percy Miller was so enamoured with he immediately signed Bleed to No Limit Records and had him rerecord it as a spruced-up posse track. Here on the less polished original version Bleed's hazy drawl is allowed to ramble freely for near-on 5 minutes without interuption and therein lay the problem with the No Limit roster featuring joints on My Balls And My Word like Bring The Noise : Bleed might have benefitted from rhyming over a beat which Craig B, KLC, Mo B. Dick and even Pimp C all had a hand in (it's hardly Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring in terms of composition so why it required 4 producers remains a mystery) but his voice just wasn't compatible with P's constipated URRGGHHHHH-ing and Mystikal's drill Sergeant barking. It ain't that easy to remain a No Limit soldier if you can't spazz out on a track with a voice which causes the listener to pull inadvertent vinegar-stroke expressions, as Bleed's spiritual heir Curren$y would also later find out.



Camp Lo - Material
(From Black Hollywood; 2007)



I wouldn't exactly say I'm a hollow shell of a human being too easily susceptible to the influence of rap music, but less than 24 hours after copping We Can't Be Stopped by the Geto Boys in 1991 I'd already re-christened our road the 5th Ward, dyed every denim item in my wardrobe purple, and had my nextdoor neighbour Julie shoot me in the eye with a catapult. Thankfully the influence of Camp Lo proved to be far less dangerous, even if I did waste away evenings looking up words which rhyme with Martini and spunk my student loan on leather bellbottoms and fake fur coats. Anyway, as "women are shallow jezebels and evil sappers of your bank balance!!!" rap songs go this isn't as relatable as either Gold Digger by EPMD or KanYe, but who listens to Camp Lo for relatability anyway, especially when this might just be the only rap song ever with a replay of a sample that's actually better than the sample itself? I feel like I could take a bubble bath in this song and that's the desired effect of pretty much every great Camp Lo jam. Didn't realise this came out on 12" until recently but it's been proving a bastard to locate a copy of, so if you happen to own one that you're willing to part with then I'll gladly take it off your hands.



Yelawolf - Ride Down The Highway
(From Creek Water; 2005)



No jokes about why Yelawolf's cartoonist apparently thought he resembled Skinnyman with Bells Palsy back in 2005, plz. Right now in 2011 I'd describe Ride Down The Highway as the highlight of Yelawolf's answer to Eminem's Infinite due to those little details in the lyrics and that almost Flamenco guitar which worms its way into your brain, but by 2013 all blog reviews of rap songs will consist of screenshots of the best Youtube comment section blurb about said song. So, let's hop back in the DeLorean and set the controls for may 13th 2013 to see what the definitive take on the song will be then :