Category Archives: Music

#FlashbackFridayVideos: Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks”

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Ok, here’s the thing…..

……each and every last Friday of each month, we were supposed to be posting #FlashbackFridayVideos, a segment focusing on classic music videos, classic sports games and general signature pop culture moments from back in the day. While the spirit is there, I’ve changed the parameters a little. We will post at least one of these segments, once a month instead of the 4th Friday of each month. So in case the spirit hits me (or us when I tag-team the segment with someone), I don’t want to have to wait until the end of each month to post it. We’ll still have quick rundowns and explore all the angles that come to our minds on each video when it comes to sports moments and videos, cool? Cool. Phew! Now that we got that out the way, let’s walk with Jesus….

Before the spazzing-out episodes about getting deeper into the clothing industry, before the paparrazzi, before the Kardashians, the Yeezy kicks, the Adidas deal, even before Katrina, we had “College Dropout” Kanye. This version of Kanye used his first album to bring out some of the fallacies and pressures of college life, which was completely different from anything that was heard from Roc-A-Fella Records. He sounded different, looked different, dressed different, and acted different. This was a dude that would show up on the scene in a pink polo shirt, a blazer, and a backpack (usually Louis Vitton-affiliated, but still). He was as “clean cut” a rapper, as you were going to get out of the Roc. Kanye didn’t have a drug dealing background like Jay-Z, wasn’t from the Marcy projects like Memphis Bleek, wasn’t a Broad St. Bully like Beanie Sigal (who was the first rapper to use Kanye’s production), wasn’t about the grimy life like Freeway, and wasn’t hustling until the sun came up like State Property’s persona. For all intended purposes, Kanye seemed like a regular (if not cocky) guy that happened to be able to rap and produce. He had insecurities, flaws, & even if he loved to floss, he wasn’t afraid to deal with his issues in his raps. Then on the production side of things, he was building a catalogue that was helping to change the landscape of Hip Hop. Between him and Just Blaze, their production helped to extend the life of the Roc and even Hov in particular, in the early 2000’s.

Once Kanye stepped out, started rapping not with his labelmates, but with guys like Talib Kweli, Yaasin Bay (forever known as Mos Def), Common and Twista, & they co-signed his rhyming skills, he started to become official. He put out the videos to, “Through the Wire” & “All Falls Down”, but had a song bubbling on the low that was going to change everything in his career up to that point……

“Jesus Walks”, even at that time, was not only one of the most original songs that Roc-A-Fella ever put out, but was one of the more original records that we ever heard from an artist. We never saw someone talk about Jesus as blatantly as Kanye did in Hip Hop. It was thought-provoking, it sounded dope, it shed light on his relationship with the Lord without sounding preachy, it sounded dope, it was hella-artistic, and again, it sounded dope. A Hip Hop record speaking about religious beliefs doesn’t work unless it aces the test sonically. Let’s face it, people may love the Lord, but the masses don’t want to hear about it in 16 bars or more over a boom-bap beat. If that was the case, the Christian rap game would be huge right now. It’s probably one of the reasons why we haven’t heard a song like this since. With that said, this song & video represented the best examples of Kanye as an artist & where he was headed. In the video, he touches on many different kinds of people in different scenarios struggling through their lot in life. The white supremacist/clan member cutting down a tree to carve out a cross; the prisoners in a chain gang; the drug dealers fleeing from the feds with the stripper in the backseat; and the disenfranchised youth skipping, all share the common denominator that the Lord walks with them through thick & thin.

He represented all different facets, while showing his greatest strength, which is to never fear the opportunity to veer left when everyone is heading right. He wasn’t afraid to promote his message (he put out THREE different videos for Jesus Walks for goodness sakes!), wasn’t fearful of challenging the status quo (“So here go my single dog, radio needs this / they say you can rap about anything except for Jesus / That means guns, sex, lies, videotape / But If I talk about God my record won’t get played, huh?”), & it was expensive as hell (1st & 2nd versions costs $1.5M combined). No one in Hip Hop would have dared tried to make this song, much less his labelmates. They might have tried to sautée their Roc-A-Fella chains, & eat it with some pasta before they’d cut a record like this.

It’s a shame though, because personally, I miss “College Dropout” Yeezy. Someone who made his own soulful beats, shared his experiences of his college days & his desires of making it big (even if he was already at the time), & also shockingly holding his own with some of the heavyweight rappers that guest appeared on his album. This album dropped around the time my friends & I were still in University ourselves, so for a lot of us, this album was our personal soundtrack. Shit, one of my boys even had a customized Jesus Walks Blazer back when wearing a Blazer &/or Button-up with a fitted cap was the way to go. Like many of us that have moved on and matured from those days, Kanye has graduated from his talents back then, to be one of the biggest superstars the genre has seen to this day. So much so, that outside of Jesus Walks, he barely performs any of the tracks off the College Dropout in concerts or other live events. Considering some of the controversies that we’ve seen from him since this song dropped (his mom’s passing, fighting the ‘razzi, “Imma let you finish”, etc.), maybe this song was a prophetic affirmation that HE would continue to walk with him through all his trials & tribulations (self-inflicted or not). I mean, how else do you explain the fact that he still remains so hot to the masses, with all of his public missteps and large portions of the public hating his guts because of it? He still hasn’t cracked yet, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Maybe in some way, this song is the one from his debut album that is still relative to his life nowadays, who knows really. All we know is that a song about God sent him on his way. Considering how dark Hip Hop can sometimes get, that’s probably an underrated blessing in itself.

 

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

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A Blurred Line

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I feel as though I have to throw in my observation of Robin Thicke, especially in light of the fact that he & Pharrell had to give up $7.3M to Marvin Gaye’s estate. Can you remember a time where a song provided an artist with his greatest triumph & his worst nightmares all in one fell swoop like this? Blurred Lines has become Robin’s Gift and his Curse. I want to insert you, the reader, in Thicke’s shoes for a moment.

You’re the son of a famous 80’s actor who stepped out into a different avenue altogether to become an R&B singer. You marry your high school sweetheart (the beautiful Paula Patton) whose dream is to become an actress. Together you both embark upon a journey to make it in your respective fields. Your wife starts to acquire great roles that help her become somewhat of a movie star, acting alongside a variety of people, from Andre 3000 & Big Boi (Idlewild) to Denzel Washington (Deja Vu). You break into the R&B market as a white soul singer; casts your wife as your leading lady in your video “Lost Without You” which wins the approval and hearts of women everywhere. Your buzz starts to grow bigger. You do a couple of collabos with Lil’ Wayne, and put out a couple more hot singles & albums, & the black community continues to appreciate your work even further. You’ve basically become this generation’s Jon B. Everything goes a step further when you accept a role on your friend, Kevin Hart’s mock-reality TV show, “The Real Husbands of Hollywood.” Nobody sees the potential you have to hang with the other actors & comedians on the set. Not only do you hold your own, but you become one of the most favorite and memorable characters of Season 1.  On top of that, the frenemy dynamic with Kevin Hart at times takes the show to an whole other level than we ever imagined. The episode where you get so angry at Kevin for stealing your “Lost Without You” song and video, all the while continuing to make comments of him wanting to steal your wife, & instead of turning into The Hulk, turns into a big, buffed out angry Black man, is probably one of the funniest things seen on TV since The Chappelle Show. Even though your career has been pretty successful thus far, you still haven’t had that major hit that maybe one day would take you over the top.

Then Blurred Lines entered your life.

You collaborate with Pharrell & T.I., making a fun party record, sounding like everyone is having a good time while its being recorded. It’s a record that brought a different sound than what you would normally record. The song sounds great & you figure this could be the early-bird type of single that can start generating a buzz for your new album in the future. You release it, and within weeks, the buzz starts to mushroom. It takes over all the important music charts in the U.S., then Canada., then London, Spain, Italy, China, etc. It has not only become one of the hottest records in the world at the moment, but it might be the best R&B song that came out this decade. Every man, woman, and child, every race, every young teen demo, every senior citizen demo, and everyone in between LOVES your song. And just like that, you’ve finally obtained your major smash hit, and you’ve turned into a superstar.

Would you like to come back for Season 2 of RHOH? “Uhhhh, no thanks!”

Would you like to do exclusive interviews with people like Oprah Winfrey? “Uhhh, you mawfuckin’ riiiight!”

You went from watching these big time music award shows to now you and your wife are sitting front row, and you’re one of the performers the world tunes it to watch. It reaches its full apex when Miley Cyrus brings you on stage to perform Blurred Lines on the VMAs & decides to “Twerk” on you (if you want to call it that) while rubbing your genitals with a foam finger. The whole world goes “Andre is off his meds again” crazy…. & you’re just riding the tidal wave of fame and success. Now women (who know you have a beautiful wife at home) are throwing themselves, their bras, and their panties at your every step in every part of the world. Man, it’s getting hard to turn all this down. You start getting a lil’ handsy & comfortable at some of these after parties & the social media agents start taking & sending pictures. The wife who’s nowhere near you, keeps hearing these rumors and seeing these images & starts to flip out.

Now, no one really knows for sure what really happened between you & your wife, whether you cheated on her or not, but now your marriage is getting more blurry than your eyes after going hard in bottle service. Your wife, your friend & someone who’s been there for you for almost twenty years is about to leave. The one song that you’ve been waiting for your whole career is now cracking at your foundation. You start to panic. You start rushing an album basically begging your wife to come back….

*** Cue the Announcer **** 

“And that’s when ‘Keeping it Real’ goes wrong”

Let’s step out of his shoes for one second…..

What Robin Thicke did was a huge no-no as an R&B male singer. The demographic who support his craft (i.e. Women between the ages of 18-40) want to always feel like he’s singing to or about them, not someone else. It doesn’t matter if he’s married or not. Even if the material he’s singing about is about his wife, it has to be done in a way that feels like it could easily be about them too. Usher’s, “Here I Stand” album was a peek into his progress as a husband, a father, and a family man……but no one was trying to hear about his stable family unit after “Confessions.” That album was fun, drama-filled, and salacious, mixed with great production. It’s probably not a coincidence that he released “Papers” as his first track once the “Here I Stand” album cycle ran its course. He still wanted to air out his business, but to also pick momentum back up from where he left “Confessions.” It’s a slightly twisted view, sure, but it’s a reality. Once an artist reaches that high, no one wants to see them seem weak, especially immediately after that life-changing success of a song/album. Even if they just want their wife back. If it comes off looking desperate while doing it, it’s even worse. What does desperation & ignoring the fantasies of your fan base look like when you mix them together?

Look at him. Head down, all somber, looking like he’s going to weep as soon as he’s off-camera with all the colors following him like the trail of a wedding dress. I’m sure his management team must have spent weeks double-fisting bottles of Hennessey and Grey Goose. After all the goodwill Robin collected in the last 15 months, he basically punted it all away with a “Baby, Baby please!” album to your estranged wife (with her name on it to make sure there’s no mistake who it’s about) and their eroding relationship that’s been in the news for months, & essentially putting his shit-stained boxers dirty laundry all over the boulevard for the neighbors to see. He should be getting paid by Jerry Jones, not Jimmy Iovine.

Ok, let’s step back into his shoes again…..

Predictably, you release “Get Her Back” off of your dedication album. Surprisingly, it doesn’t go over so well. You then release “Paula”, and your album tanks hard (24,000 1st week sales) officially killing any leftover momentum of “Blurred Lines.” The fame from this song has started to become the bane of your existence. If this wasn’t bad enough, along comes the Gaye family with claims that your biggest song sounds a lot like their Father’s biggest song, & since you didn’t get proper permission, you “Got to Give It Up” to the estate. It doesn’t matter if you were influenced by the man and/or the legendary song itself, the family wants their money, their cut, and for you to never perform the song again. You try to fight it out in court, but eventually you lose the case (that you’re trying to appeal). Within the same time frame that your divorce is settled, you now have to kick out $7.3M, a number so startling that you start flirting with the idea of calling your Dad & Kirk Cameron to get together and do a remake of Growing Pains just to recoup the lost monies.

Now that you have some perspective & have taken a look back at your career leading up to  Blurred Lines, the incredible peaks that the song took your career to, the depressing valleys you slid down into that sacrificed your family, putting “Paula Patton” back on the market again, and your career is now as hot as an ice bucket challenge……

……. If you had the chance to do the Blurred Line experience over again, don’t you have to have yes?

**** Removing shoes ****

In any facet of life, how do you know how far you can go, and how far you can stretch your talents and abilities to unless you reach for the ceiling? Once you do, you have to deal with the hurdles, obstacles, &/or temptations that may come with that success sometimes, and then deal with them accordingly. Once this opportunity came and Blurred Lines became what it became, Robin had to exhaust all ways to maximize on it. Could Robin have better handled the success that came with the biggest song of his career? Sure. Could he have maybe cleared it somehow with the Gaye estate just to make absolute sure he had no issues going forward? Yes. Hindsight always comes with perfect vision, and everyone can master his moves after the fact, but as long as you understand that it would be a complete disservice to his career had he not gone through his Blurred experience. He could have continued on with his career hitting doubles and singles like some average light-hitting baseball player & stayed where he was. If that was as far as he wanted to take things, then fine. But what if he knew he could hit that home run? Once he got the right pitch (song) and he know it could be knocked out of the park, doesn’t he have to swing for it, knowing that he’s going to run on the bases of temptation, vices, and pressures before he reaches home? It’s the gift and the curse of success…. and it doesn’t always come with a blueprint to navigate through it. It might be a shame what happened to Robin after that song came and went, but unfortunately that’s the price that comes with taking that bat off your shoulders. Knowing how to jog on the bases sometimes is just as important as taking the swing, so it will be interesting to see how he bounces back from everything moving forward.

 

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

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#FlashbackFridayVideos: Kardinal Offishall’s “Bakardi Slang”

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Each and every last Friday of each month, we here at South Shore Ave will be releasing  #FlashbackFridayVideos, a segment focusing on music videos from back in the day, to something semi-recent (like a few months ago), & every once in a while, we might review a classic game or sports moment. We’ll have quick overall rundown on what was hot about them, how it helped moved its culture along, the ridiculousness of the videos, and everything else in between.

In our first monthly installment of #FlashbackFridayVideos, Shawn Adonis and I, will take you back to a pre-Drake Toronto where one of the signature artists from the T.Dot educated us on the city’s slang.

Cee: Before Drake & the OVO Team, there was The Circle led by Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, and Saukrates. These guys (along with help from The Rascalz) changed hip hop in Canada, taking it to higher level of respectability, and let’s face it, put out some good quality music (Northern Touch anyone?). When Kardinal dropped “Bakardi Slang“, at the time, it was one of the biggest Canadian hip hop tracks to hit the market & actually gain notoriety outside of this country. This song became Toronto’s version of Big L’s “Ebonics“, giving everyone outside of the Toronto a peek into the West Indian cultural pot that’s been simmering in this city for decades.

For me, as a Canadian who lived & breathed hip hop, I kinda wish this song came out a few years before, when I just moved to Toronto. Believe me when I tell you Shawn, when I moved here, I couldn’t really understand what anyone was saying. They may as well have been speaking Mandarin. You know when someone’s speaking to you in a different language & all you do is smile and nod? That was me the first two years here. In fact, I used to come home from school & with my cousin Brian, we used to try to break down what we learned in T-Dot ebonics like a periodics table. The only thing we were missing was the lab coats & the goggles around our necks. If this song dropped 3-4 years beforehand, I could have at least printed it out & kept the shit in my pocket anytime someone started speaking to me. I could have referred to it like a thesarus. How didn’t I get jacked for my lunch money more often?

Shawn: I hear you Cal, that T Dot slang did leave me scratching my head on a few occasions. When you’d be talking to one of the “gyal dem”, and you’d feel like a total square for not being able to participate in the slang-extravaganza.  The most I could offer to the conversation was a strategical placed “Guy” every few sentences (which Kardinal conveniently left out of the song. Go figure…), as I’d think, “She must think I’m cool, she’s clearly a girl and I’m calling her ‘Guy’. My act of deception is working perfectly”.

You know, thinking about it now, it’s a shame that Kardi didn’t come out with this song in today’s day and age.  He could have packaged the song with a “Bakardi Slang Translator App”, and gotten the honorable mayor Rob Ford to endorse it at the height of his infamous late night drunken patois rants.  You couldn’t dream of better promotion than that, it would be flying out the App Store. Think of how much easier this would make the lives of old white sugar daddies dying to spend their money to get a lil’ taste of chocolate,  and how ground breaking this would be for young gold digging sisters, no?

Cee: That translator app would be awesome. You think the commercial for the app would look as professional as the Game of War App game with Kate Upton in it, or would the quality be more cheesy like the Shamwow guy?

Speaking of “Guy”*, here’s another word he left out: Arms. This was the most confusing word I ever heard by far. It’s basically the equivalent of saying, “That’s messed up”. However, no one ever said that. They’d always say, “That’s arms!” or “That’s arms house!” (which always sounded like “Arms-Zus”) or simply “Arms!!”. During that period when I’d basically black out & start depending on my smile & nod defense mechanisms, in my head, I would have a mental interrogation about what that word meant. I’d be like, “Arms? Arms?? That’s arms??? Who’s arms?????……. ***thinking*** ….. My arms???? The fu**?!?!” If someone took a good look at me at that moment, you could probably see the faint smoke coming out of my ears trying to hold it all together. I even had to bring in my brother-in-law (who’s Jamaican) in on the case & the most he came up with was that it’s supposed to mean “House of Arms (Guns & ammo)”, but was still confused as to why it was used this way. That word still gives me a twitch to this day.

We forget now, but that song back then was huge in Toronto, and Canada overall. I remember it being on heavy rotation, you literally heard it everywhere. The video back then represented Toronto properly, showing off the requisite local stars, the Circle crew (ie. Saukrates), took you through some of the popular areas and streets, Kardi basically checked off a lot of boxes here. In the era where rappers were still proud to sound different from one another, he made a regional song that helped The North get even more awareness to the masses, similar to what the south was doing (especially in New Orleans. See No Limit & Cash Money records). Choclair was the first from The Circle to cross over to the Stateside, now Kardi was next in line. You were rooting for them to make it & put Canada on the map in hip hop just like Vince Carter did for basketball. The buzz from this song eventually made it across the border, & next thing you know 106 & Park was going to launch the video. This was the official “N**** We Made it!!” moment……

…….until AJ & Free stomped out the buzz by calling Kardinal “The Canadian Puffy” after they played the video. It was like hearing fingernails being dragged across a blackboard, but if the fingernails were connected to a microphone & was being scratched over a loud speaker. Listen, Puffy is a GREAT businessman. You may want to be compared to Puffy in a lot of ways. As an executive, an owner, a spokesperson, a marketer, a tastemaker, a baller…..but never a rapper. Not especially if you’re a legitimate one. It’s not like we got our hip hop knowledge from AJ & Free anyway, they weren’t exactly The Source or XXL. Nevertheless, they still had a huge platform, & to be more or less categorized with a guy who would tell you firsthand he’s not a rapper….. I mean, I can’t say for certain if it hurt his record sales in the States, but I’m sure it didn’t help. The only reason why there wasn’t more flack about this (at least from me) was…..well, Free wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, and I enjoyed watching her, um, host the show (yeah, that’s it) on a daily basis. So for that they got a pass as a whole. But it still wasn’t the greatest of looks in Kardi’s sake.

Shawn: You know, they say that the true measure of a man is his ability to admit when he has made a mistake (According to an inspirational quote I read on a Facebook page, where the profile pic was a chick wearing just enough clothing so that her page doesn’t get shut down….. so basically a very reliable source).  With that said, Cal my good man, it pains me to admit that I may have not been giving the T-Dot slang innovators the full credit they deserve. I’ve said for years that young black Torontonians simply sprinkled bits and pieces of Jamaican patois into their conversations, and tried to pass off as their own lingo, like nobody would notice (which I think is still true 90% of the time).  But this whole use of the word “arms” has me completely flabbergasted.  You and your brother-in-law already spent enough time drinking coffee and chain smoking while you exchange theories, so I’m not gonna spend any more energy on it, that mystery is unsolvable.

After all this time has passed, and the members of the Circle have fallen from the limelight (Did I say fallen? I meant skydived, hit the ground, then put on a wet suit & oxygen mask to continue to descend to the bottom of the sea. Basically as far from the limelight as humanly possible), it’s easy to forget what kind of impact these guys, especially Kardi, had on Canadian hip hop fans as a whole.  Let’s be honest Cee, Canadian rap fans are generally US hip hop dick riders.  A club could be packed with dancing party goers until the DJ threw on some Canadian hip hop, and the crowd would suddenly look like they were waiting in line at the license bureau.  But with Kardi, it was different.  Dudes would drive down the block with the window rolled down and bump tunes from him and The Circle with pride.  I even copped Kardi’s first album (which was the first & last Canadian hip hop album I’ve ever bought. Sorry Drake, I’m a fan but thanks to the internet I can be one for free).  But that Kardi album was legit, that shit was certifiably & undeniably dope.  Call me a product of my “self hip hop hating” environment, but nothing would have made me happier than to say that slang translating rapper was trash…. but the dude was really talented, and forced you to enjoy the music for what it was.  Like you mentioned Cal, the fact that the Americans embraced it actually made us feel like we all made it. Of course to show our gratitude, we turned our backs on him as soon as he became lukewarm, in true Canadian fashion.

Cee: Man….. tell us how you really feel. I feel like I should send you a Hugagram, but upgrade it to the premium package where people group hug you for like 15-20 minutes straight while humming gospel hymns and everyone in the room fights back tears. Like Luscious said to his son in Empire this week (I’m paraphrasing here), it’s your music that’ll live on forever above all else….. & this song/video was evidence of the path that Kardi was taking towards making his mark on Canadian Hip Hop history. The song was innovative, and it shed light on the talent that Toronto (& this country for that matter) has. Bacardi Slang made an impact, otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this #FlashbackFriday moment…..still.

*“Guy” Translation: It’s like using “Yo” at the beginning of the sentence in slang speak. For example, “Guy, you won’t believe what happened to Mikey today”. Or you can use it as a statement if or when someone says something that you agree with. For example: “Did you see that game last night? Yo that shit was crazy!” Then all you have to say is, “GUUUY!” & everything’s understood. I’ve also added the lyrical meanings of this song off of Rap Genius here, so you should be at least 80% more educated on Toronto slang. I hope.

 

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

To subscribe to The Baseline Blog, click onto the Follow button or by entering your email address. Very special thanks to Shawn Adonis for his contributions to this posting.

Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of Mary J. Blige’s My Life

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of one of the Greatest albums in R&B history. Twenty years from tomorrow, coming off the success of What’s the 411?, Mary J Blige gave us the gift that was My Life, an album that solidified her as the R&B voice for her generation. As we celebrate My Life, we’ll review some of our favorite songs from the classic LP. I know you can hear me now…..

**DISCLAIMER — This is not a Top 5 list. You could make a honest argument for 10 songs from this album being in the Top 5. This is strictly a review a collection of songs from the album.**  

I Love You 

“All those pretty memories / I know you can hear me now / For the record / I love you / I love you“ 

I shine…… you shine (shine)…….. I shine……. you shine (shine)……. I shine…….. you shine (shine)…….. I shine……. you shine (shine)…….. I shine…….. you shine……. and this day and time / we maintain / the same frame of mind / elevation / spark it up / Yo Start the circulation / 360 degrees of rotation……

…… so I can’t just recite the whole first verse of the remix? Would this be considered as a crime of laziness? Ok, fine. So I won’t do that, but I will say this: you’ll be hard pressed to find another album with so much legendary remixes off the singles. This is no knock whatsoever on the original version of the record.  If there weren’t a remix, this song would be incredible anyway with the piano loops & that hard bass line that came from the mind of Chucky Thompson (well, sort of).  It’s a beautiful record in every which way.  BUT when they threw in Smif-N-Wessun (who were an hot up & coming duo from the Boot Camp Click, that was about to release their own debut album Dah Shinin’) on the beginning of the remix, it metamorphosed into the perfect marriage between R&B and Hip Hop. It’s something that Mary J mastered throughout her entire career, singing over hip hop beats & working with rappers so seamlessly.  You couldn’t find anyone who didn’t love that record. Even the hardcore hip hop heads who never listened to R&B unless their sister was playing it in the house, had to add this single to the collection. 

When I’m 80 years old, and this song comes over whatever speaker device will be around by then, I will get up & do the Puffy dance until I pop my hip out of place. I can’t stress this enough, play this remix to any Montrealer between the ages of 30 – 45 years old, & they’ll lose themselves in that “I Shine, You shine” call-and-response. This is arguably one of the best remixes she was ever a part of, & she had a whole damn album specifically for remixes. It’s hard to separate the remix from the original because they both use the same beat, but you can’t discuss the original without discussing the remix. It’s impossible.

I’m Goin‘ Down

Singing cover songs for artists are tricky. Depending on the kind of song that’s being selected by the artists as well as their vocal range, they can either do a song justice, or just ruin the record to shit. When I was younger, I didn’t have a problem with Michael Bolton, I really didn’t. Then again, I thought those were his songs. Once I heard the originals to them, it made me wanna shave a bald spot into his curls. On the flip side, Luther Vandross did a lot of cover songs & more often that not, killed the original to the point where you pretended he created it himself. In the 90’s, Jodeci annihilated Stevie Wonder’s “Lately” in one of the more memorable cover performances & for this album, Mary J made Rose Royce’s, “I’m Going Down“ into her own song. If she were a gymnast, her artistry on this track would be equivalent to a quadruple cartwheel, where she does a crazy flip & sticks the landing on the corner of the mat. Not only did you feel the talent in the song, you felt her pain so much so that, if she started sobbing towards the end of the song, you wouldn’t have been surprised.

This song was probably the best representation of her life at the time & not just because of the song title. As reported at the time, she was going through depression and battling with drugs and alcohol. I have this depressing theory about some musicians that the more chaotic their lives are, the better their art form. I wish it wasn’t the case, but I’ve seen this example too many times in history. The best example was Marvin Gaye back in the 70s when he made the, “I Want You“ album. He was high most of the time. Gaye then made, “Hear, My Dear“ after going through his divorce with his first wife. It’s like their pain becomes our listening pleasure through their work. It’s not a surprise that for all the accolades & the career she’s built, her albums after this were never better than My Life, because My Life was made during her darkest moments; which is completely unfortunate for her….. as a person. However, as an artist, with her pain channeled through her work, My Life became a gift to us as her fans and R&B in general.

Sidenote: Was there a remix for this? You bet your ass there was! Change up the lyrics, jack “The What” beat from Biggie Smalls, sprinkle in some Mr. Cheeks, and voila! You got a sweet remix that serves everyone well.

You Bring Me Joy

To keep with the theme of jacking beats and songs, we follow Sean “Puffy” Combs & the Hitmen in the getaway car while they load up the shotguns and prepare to jack poor Barry White for his production. I’m telling you, there wasn’t a more blatant beat stealer in the mid 90’s than Puffy. And unlike some producers who may take a piece here or there of a song, Puffy would just take every damn thing. If the original production was a chicken thigh, he ate everything off the bone, sucked out the bone marrow, & then chewed on the bone until the bone was collected into a small pile in the corner of his plate. He never shied away from that fact either. His theory was that once you heard those beats, it would automatically grab your attention. Plus, the original production worked before, so why wouldn’t it work again, right?  It was a smart way to market his artists, it was almost admirable. To me, 90’s Puffy will always be a cross between Robin Hood and Omar from the Wire. He came around in a trenchcoat & jacked 70’s & 80’s beats to provide musical pleasure to the masses. The only thing that was missing was the whistling before the start of every song.

To throw credit back to Puffy though, this particular beat and some of the other ones chosen for this album helped to make the songs timeless. When it comes to Mary, as depressed as she may have been during these times, she was also able to swing the emotion pendulum in the opposite direction. You may feel her pain in some of these songs, but you also felt her happiness, which is a hard thing to convey as a singer. Really hard. But you felt her joy in this song, and you can’t help but feel upbeat. On top of that, it was a staple on radio mixshows back then, and you can still play this song in the club right now to get the ladies feeling great. 

K. Murray Interlude

Interludes & skits are a 90’s thing that everyone used on their albums. Usually it’s a space filler to get enough material to make an album. Most are forgettable, others like Redman and Wu-Tang were classics. Bad Boy took it to another level by introducing the world to Biggie’s stroke game, Biggie’s sex stories (about how he um, “drops waste” on a chick), and the legendary Mad Rapper. Even though Mary wasn’t a part of Bad Boy, Puffy still provided the interlude influence anyway. No one remembers what the hell Keith Murray was saying, but most people I know wonder, what the hell beat is that?!?!? A few months later, we found out with “Who Shot Ya?“, which at the time might have been one of the most ridiculous hip hop beats we ever heard. Who the hell would have thought that this beat eventually would be the start of one of the worst beefs in the history of music, a beef that led two A-level rappers (Biggie & Tupac) to die right before they reached the prime of their careers & altered many others? And again, this beat came from a R&B album?? That’s one hell of a 24-second warning shot. 

Be Happy    

Quick story: I’ll take you back to the summer of 2006. Mary J was performing at the Molson Amphitheatre here in Toronto. I was meeting some family members at the concert & was flying down the highway trying to get to the start of the concert so I wouldn’t miss out on her Be Happy performance. I ran into a crazy amount of traffic near the Lake Shore area due to construction. I started getting annoyed because even though I had no idea what the listings of her songs were gonna be, I just knew she was gonna perform that song early. After doing enough things on the road that would have gotten me pistol-whipped by police, I finally made it into the parking lot. As I met up with my family members who had my tickets, and we’re walking up the steps to the outdoor arena, I hear the long intro coming in, “DUH-DUH Dun-Nuh-Duh” over the speakers as the crowd starts going apeshit. SMH. I’m stuck in line waiting for security to tear my tickets, praying that Mary feels like a Reggae DJ at a soundclash & rewinds the song back ten times with the air horns. Nope. By the time I walked into the place, she was on to another song. Even though I enjoyed the rest of the concert, it still burns me that I missed her perform that song, especially considering that I’ve seen her live again since then & she didn’t perform Be Happy. F***.

I also wanted to see her perform that song because to be honest, it’s my favorite Mary song ever. Considering how many songs you can choose from her catalogue, that’s saying a lot. Some others on this list (“My Life” for starters) I put almost as high. Almost. You remember that old episode of Seinfeld where the guy Elaine’s dating goes into a trance and he can’t be disturbed by anyone (not even her) until his favorite song is finished? Well… okay, it’s not nearly that bad but it’s probably within the ballpark. If I’m by myself & that song comes on, there’s a pretty good chance I just zone out until the first chorus is over, I won’t even lie to you. The video itself was memorable only because of Mary standing on that rock overlooking the mountains. Unless it really was her stunt double doing it all this time and if so….. it’s understandable. What R&B singer is risking their lives for the sake of that song?

Sidenote: Was their a remix for this song? Why hell yes of course. New beat, same lyrics, throw Keith Murray in there to rap his 16 bars, and another hot remix is created. What artist is even dedicating this many remixes to their albums anymore??? Seriously? I’m asking. 

My Life

“Life can be only what you make it / When you’re feelin down you should never fake it / Say what’s on your mind / And you’ll find in time / That all the negative energy / It would all cease”

The album title track is the realest song on the album. It’s relateable to every and anyone going through hard times. To keep fighting, to keep believing in yourself, and to keep believing in God to get yourself through it. When you’re younger, sometimes you don’t appreciate the positive messages as much as you would when you get older, and as an adult, it rings truer to you. I never paid as much attention to it as I probably should have admittedly, just because I was lost in the melodic production of Roy Ayers…. I mean Puffy and Chucky Thompson. However, appreciating the song now, it stands as a stance against your obstacles taking you under. In 2014, we are still fighting against the mental issues as a society, although I think there is a better awareness about it now, as opposed to the mentality we had 20 years ago in terms of sweeping those problems under the  rug. On this record, you can see that advice Mary was giving to others and even herself, to basically keep fighting. In fact, I’ll let her tell it…

“I was ready to just check out,” she says now. “It was a moment—I can’t get into it—but I saw my life going and I was grabbing for it. I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ That’s when I realized that I don’t want to die. And I switched, and I started praying and crying, and my life shifted right there.”

– Mary J to Billboard Magazine

The scary part of her situation is, not only do millions of people suffer through those same demons, but sometimes it’s the person right beside you that’s spiraling out of control and you have no idea. This is why it’s always important to communicate and to discuss your problems with someone when things are rocky. You never want to wait until it’s too late because when it gets too far, it’s almost impossible to come back from it. In some cases, you don’t. Which is why 20 years later a song like this can still register and resonate with many people.

Closing Thoughts

In my last post about TLC’s CrazySexyCool, I stated that they were the most relevant group of the 90s. Well, let’s just say that Mary is the most relevant R&B artist of an entire generation. I mean, Mary J is still selling out concerts & putting out quality music right now (see Think Like a Man Too Soundtrack). She may not go triple platinum whenever her album drops anymore like she did with My Life, but she has a loyal and huge fanbase that still allows her to put out material that they will respect. My Life wasn’t just an album that helped Mary J really break out as an artist, but as a listener, you literally felt it. It’s the greatest LP she ever made. Most great artists always have that one album that is their Picasso. Marvin Gaye had it with, “What’s Going On?” and “I Want You“; Stevie Wonder had, “Songs In The Key of Life”; Michael Jackson had, “Thriller“; his sister Janet had, “Rhythm Nation“; and “Janet“, the list goes on and on. Some of those artists have that “It” album a few years into the game after they find their voice. Some others like Mary find that classic early into their careers. It’s scary to think she was only 23 when My Life was made. However, it never matters what age or at what point of your career it happens. Once it comes, you have to embrace it because very few artists ever achieve classic album status. It’s even harder to create another classic album once you get one under your belt.

Part of Mary’s legacy will be how she successfully connected Hip Hop & R&B together. The perfect example of this is when she hooked up with Method Man on the “I‘ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By“ remixes in the Spring of ’95. Both versions of that remix were instant classics, and it catapulted Method Man further into the superstar stratosphere. After that, it has become a “Mama, I made it!” moment when rappers had a chance to not only work with her, but get a feature from her on their album. This My Life period was probably the highest peak of great R&B music as a whole. As the Hip Hop & R&B worlds blended together more and more since that album, the R&B industry became a little harder, and more edgier in some ways. It lost a lot of its soul and because of it, the R&B game overall has suffered. In no way does Mary carry any blame. Even if her production had a Hip Hop feel to it (especially early in her career), you always felt her soul no matter what. If the Golden Era of R&B was a mountain, My Life was the flag that was planted at its peak. We should celebrate that feat and then realize that we could only have come down from there. My question is, When is that renaissance period of R&B coming back? Two years from now? Five? Ten? Will I even like R&B anymore by then? I’ll say this: If more artists can capture the magic that this album had, I think you’ll know what my answer will be….

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

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Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of TLC’s CrazySexyCool

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of one of the Greatest albums in R&B history. Twenty years from tomorrow, TLC fresh off the success of their debut album, released CrazySexyCool to the masses. Not only did it help raise the profile for R&B female groups as well as artists going forward, it became one of the highest selling albums in music history. As we celebrate CrazySexyCool, we break down the album and what it meant to the R&B genre. And so we Creep….

If It Wasn’t For That House Fire…..

I’m about to get my Sophia Petrillo on right now for the ones who don’t remember this story. Or Sophia Petrillo…..

Picture it. Atlanta, 1994. Back when the clay was red (well, still is), when Outkast was still the local act on their way up, when the Hawks decided to trade Dominique Wilkins for a bowl of grits and hamhocks (or in other words, for Danny Manning who left for Phoenix four months later) and where a weekend called Freaknik was as wild as you can even think of. The music was bumping, the rumps were shakened, & the sex was as wild and as free as it could get. It was like Black Woodstock, except they shut down the city and you could have sex just about anywhere. Either way, a lot of sperm lost, just a lot of sperm lost…..but I digress. Anyway, a young NFL player named Andre Rison & a young artist from an R&B group named, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, lived in Rison’s huge mansion together as a couple. One day after a huge physical fight between the two, Left Eye decided to get back at Rison by burning his sneakers in a bathtub.   Only, the fire sparked out of control & before she could blink, the whole house was on fire. Almost like a deleted scene from Waiting To Exhale, Left Eye literally burned her man’s house down in anger. To make this story even crazier, Rison still declared his love for her even after all his childhood mementos & personal belongings were burned to a crisp. Even though their love remained, that same love couldn’t shake the fact that she burned a house down & well, insurance companies and police departments are not so forgiving to people who make the decision to add arson to their portfolio.

I know what you’re thinking right now. What the f*** does this have to do with this album??? Well, A LOT actually!!!!!! Considering the legal ramifications of burning down a house that was started wilfully, Left Eye was sentenced to 5 years probation and was placed under house arrest. Well, not that house, but someone else’s house I’m sure. For that reason, she missed out on the opportunity to record the bulk of CrazySexyCool. In turn, because they didn’t have to accommodate the space for her verses for large chunks of the album, T-Boz & Chilli had to fill in her gaps. With them coming into their own as R&B artists, & as woman for that matter since the debut of their first album “Ooooooh…..On the TLC Tip”, by happenstance the album had a more mature & smoother feel than their previous work. It had enough cool & swagger that catered to the younger generation (like mine at the time), but with songs like “Red Light Special”, and “If I was Your Girlfriend”, it was also able to appease their older audience and get the Quiet Storm radio love. Who knows what would have happened if Left Eye never set fire to some Nikes or doused the flames shortly after she set the blaze & walked away from the house. Would the album have been able to have that same feel with her rapping on 80% of the songs? Who knows? Honestly we’ll never know that for certain. What we do know for sure is due to the Left Eye-Rison argument/fight/fire & everything that ensued afterwards, it helped to create the most popular album the group has ever created, & cemented their status in the music industry as trailblazing superstars. No pun intended of course.

CrazySexyCool helped TLC to become the most relevant R&B Group of the 90s.

Think of how great their run was. They debuted in 1992 with their first album, sporting cross colored clothes and literally attaching condoms to themselves. I was a young teen when they came out & to this day, I still remember Chilli flirting & rubbing up on Arsenio Hall during their “Baby Baby Baby” performance. Boy did I want a piece of her back then……sorry, where was I? Oh yes. They had a major impact when they first jumped on the scene, then two years later releasing “Creep”, which completely took over the airwaves. By the time “Waterfalls” released & cratered the music industry a few months later, they were the biggest group in music, period. They were on every award show imaginable. They rode for the ladies & dominated the teenage girls demographic. Not only were the guys into their music, but it was a running conversation as to who you would sleep with between T-Boz, Chilli (mine), and Left Eye, kind of similar to the “Would you bone Rachel (mine) or Monica?” questions men had around that time. TLC locked down the clubs, the streets, most, if not all radio stations, and mainstream media. Considering they were the first female group to go Diamond (10 million+ albums sold) in the US alone, which is unheard of for most artists much less a black female group from Atlanta, the previous sentence shouldn’t be a surprise. The album was so huge they took a 4 1/2 year break between albums, & were still hot enough to end the decade making sure every lady wanted “No Scrubs” (and the men conversely yelling back “No Pigeons”) & that they loved themselves with “Unpretty” off of their Fanmail album. They left the 90’s as hot as they entered it by staying relevant with a whole generation that grew up with them from young teens to adults.

The only group that probably comes closest to them through the whole decade is Boyz II Men in terms of relevancy. They were powerhouses too, especially once they crossed over into the mainstream world with their ballads. Jodeci was an incredible group during the time that they were together, but by the end of the 90’s, K-Ci & JoJo Hailey had their own two-man group, singing songs that weren’t on the level of their Jodeci days.* SWV was hot for a good while, but they weren’t making any more material by the end of the decade. En Vogue had a long run as well starting from their “Hold On” debut song back in 1990, but definitely weren’t around by 1999. All these groups had classic material, but none of these groups had that one album that was as defining and as popular as CrazySexyCool. I’m not saying the albums from the other groups I mentioned weren’t as good. In fact, I’ll put Jodeci’s, Diary of a Mad Band, up against any R&B album that came out in the 90’s. This album helped TLC to sell more albums (40 million sold between their 3 albums worldwide, 23 million from CrazySexyCool alone) than any R&B group from their generation, & it wasn’t close.

* Have to mention this, but casting T-Boz as the fiancee/wife to Mr. Dalvin in the “Love You For Life” video was pure genius. It’s probably one of Jodeci’s most underappreciated classic songs, but having her play that role in the video gave the video & song an extra 25% in the coolness/swagger category (even if the group didn’t need it) and gave the video an official stamp of approval (again, even if the group didn’t need it). Even with the large, almost irrational amounts of hip hop my friends and I listened to &/or watched, you still watched that video from beginning to end. Well, that…. & let’s face it, it wasn’t like T-Boz was hard to look at either. Even if I still voted for Chilli.

The Top 5 songs from CrazySexyCool

5. Something Wicked This Way Comes

“Remember back in time when the only sign we had was pickets / But now in ’94 it be this way, something come wicked / G-angs killin’ others for colors / Thanks that we wear for fashion / Other brothers take it for a reason to be blastin’ / What the f*** is goin’ on?”

– Andre 3000

Why is this song in the top 5? Andre 3000 drops his verses on this track. Isn’t that enough? No? Ok, well I’ll also add that this is the most underrated song on the album. It’s the last song off of the album and quite frankly it’s also a great track to end the album with. Andre & T-Boz goes through the trials, tribulations, and obstacles of life, while Organize Noise produced a smooth song & lays the guitars down to give it that little bit of edge. This song normally isn’t discussed as much, because the remaining four songs on this list just eclipses this one in terms of popularity.

4. Diggin’ On You

Written and produced by the legendary Babyface, this song was made for radio. Can’t you imagine hearing this song while in your car around 1:30PM on some afternoon ride show, or better yet, the one black song that gets played every three hours on your local contemporary/easy rock station? It kinda fits the characteristics of one, with the song being about the beginnings of a relationship and having feelings for that person. The style of the song is easy & smooth, the chorus is melodic, it’s light on the bass, what more do you need? I can imagine the radio shock jock cutting into this song partway through the final chorus…..

“……….annnnnnnnnnnnd that was DIGGING-ON-YOU by T-L-C from their 1994 classic album Crazaaay Sexaaay AND Cool. Comingupnext with the Song of the Hour is Debbie Gibson with “Only In My Dreams“. Currently, it’s four degrees with flurries in the air, you better bundle up and dress warm while you ride with us ON 105.7FM Easy Riiiiiiiide….”

3. Red Light Special

This album’s official Quiet Storm-y song. This song was really made for guys in terms of letting us know what they wanted us to do to them & helping fulfill their “wants” & “needs”. At least that’s the interpretation that I got from it. So now when it comes to the video, why the hell do I see a bunch of dudes trying to rub up on Chili by a poker table and some dude with S-Curl juice sucking on T-Boz’s toes??? And worse, we have Left Eye dressed as a pimp & flipping over the poker table at the end? And why the hell are they even playing poker in the first place?? What does this have to do with a Red Light Special??? This is the definition of false advertising, or to keep in terms with this sexually suggestive song, a straight up cocktease. I’m sure the ladies would strongly disagree especially because Boris Kodjoe also plays the role of one of the male hoes (yes, I’m calling them that), but the last thing I was expecting to see when I heard this song was a bunch of glistening, oiled up dudes in boxer briefs trying to grind on T-Boz’s shoulders. It should have been more for us to watch than just Chilli dancing with the guitar player bottomless & her silk pajama top during the bridge. If there was any way to teleport TLC into 2014 & remake this video so that it could be “Worldstar Approved”, I would have flicked that switch yesterday.

2. Creep

The best record off of CrazySexyCool, plain and simple. As soon as you hear that trumpet come in, it’s a wrap. It’s the funkiest record that they have, and can still play in clubs today. This was a hot, hot record, and the video added more to the song. Looking back at it, the video wasn’t controversial or anything but back then, having them all dancing in silk pajamas for some reason was huge, and I know a lot of women who thought that video was iconic. Back then, the only thing my friends & I wanted to see was if one of their breasts would pop up from under those pajama tops. Hey, I didn’t say we weren’t morons.

As I said, this is the best song from this project in my mind. However, sometimes “the best” has to take a back seat to what is the “most important”…..

1. “Don’t go chasing waterfalls / Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to / I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all / But I think you’re moving too fast”

– Waterfalls

……. & this song is the most important song not only for this album, but of their entire career. It took the group to a level that no one could fathom. The album was doing wonderful in terms of popularity and sales, but when this single was released, it took another life of its own. The song not only told a story from the eyes of a mother who tried to rein in & then eventually lose her son from the street life, but it had a message that spoke to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that was dominating our culture and society in the mid 90’s. The latter part of the song is what we all gravitated to the most.

We forget now just how large the epidemic was, but it was extremely polarizing to say the least. Most people were still so ignorant to the symptoms, how it was contracted, there was a general fear that people had about the disease. So when the video was released back in the summer of 1995, the second half of the song was as raw as it could get at the time without being graphic. It was groundbreaking not just in the fact that it was very socially conscious, but with TLC turning from water into themselves like superheroes and the Waterfall-choreographed dance routine, the whole five minutes looked like something that Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson would have done. The only songs that were as big as this was MJ’s “You Are Not Alone” and especially Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”. You can argue that it was my generation’s version of “What’s Going On?” or at the very least, it fell into that category with possibly a couple of others. There’s no question it was one of the biggest songs of that decade.

I personally think Creep is a better record musically, but it’s nowhere close to being as important, which is why Waterfalls gets the top spot.

Which Female Group in 2014 Can Be The Next TLC?

Hold on, lemme take a look and see……..

****searching****

Hold on, I’m still searching ya’ll……….gimma a minute………..

……………..I think I found one……I think………..hold on……….

***still searching***

……….. F***. No one I guess. Well damn….

Let me take a nose dive into why we won’t see another TLC again, & honestly, it doesn’t have as much to do with the lack of talent out there. The game overall has changed in the music business & it doesn’t have to do with obvious signs like the talent pool that was overflowing in 1994, compared to the shallowness of it nowadays. The internet, and more specifically, social media has changed everything for better and for worse. It’s a lot easier to obtain music now as compared previously.  With all the various websites, you can obtain everything for free with just the click of a button. It has also transformed regular people into stars, who normally may not have gotten a look and/or glance from a record label. The bad part of it, is most labels are not developing artists anymore, but instead are looking for artists who have already established a movement on their own. So if someone has some songs on Youtube with a catchy dance, & has about 500,000 followers on their account, a label will be quicker to scoop them up & ride that gravy train instead of putting in the time and money to developing an artist. It’s the same decision that TV networks use in choosing to develop a reality show rather than actually creating a real show. It’s cheaper & cost effective. Moreover, dealing with female groups can be expensive. Not only do you have to deal with booking studio time & nurturing the talent, you have to deal with make-up, wardrobe, dance choreographers (depending on what kind of group it is), etc. For record labels these days, it’s easier to just avoid that unless the talent knocks their socks off.

As for the artists, albums don’t sell like they did 20 years ago. As I mentioned before, TLC sold 23 million copies of CrazySexyCool, but even a group like Boyz II Men, sold 9 million & 12 million from their first two albums respectively. Our generation bought product. We would rush down to the local HMV or Tower Records to buy the albums of our favorite artists, & the pre-buzz before an album was released was amazing, as you would have to anticipate the release of said album. Once the album matched the pre-buzz hype, you became a superstar in a lot of cases. In 2014, we consume music different. If our favourite artist is dropping an album, if it’s not being downloaded on something like iTunes, you’re just getting it bootlegged. Gone is that pre-buzz feeling of buying an album, which in a lot of ways had its value. Album sales in general have nose dived across the industry in the last 10 years. Few artists are selling platinum albums these days, & no one is going Diamond. It’s just not happening. So if you’re an aspiring musician, in the land of dwindling sales and 360-recording deals, does it make sense to join a group and split the profits 3-4 ways anymore? You may as well get all the money you can get if you have the talent, and there’s a better chance you’d accomplish more on your own.

So in 2014, would TLC even be around? There’s a better chance that T-Boz & Chilli would have their own solo careers, while Left Eye would be trading bars & hooks with Rick Ross and Meek Mill on MMG (Maybach Music Group) than there would be of TLC joining together to influence a generation. The only way I can see a female group be as huge as TLC was, is if Rihanna, Nick Minaj, and Elle Varner were to make a female super group and put a couple of albums out. They are all attractive & talented artists (& even if Varner isn’t as known as RiRi or Nicki, she can definitely sing) & at their ages right now, they could possibly have that kind of impact on today’s generation if that were to happen. But that’s a well thought out pipedream. Good luck trying to recreate this group. TLC will remain the most popular female group in R&B history, & this album will forever be at the center of their success.

 

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

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Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of The Notorious B.I.G’s Ready To Die

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of one of the Greatest Times in Hip Hop history. On September 13, 1994, right in the middle of the Golden Age of 90s Hip Hop, Bad Boy Records officially dropped the debut album The Notorious BIG “Ready To Die“. This album went on to become one of the most iconic and influential albums of the genre, simultaneously making Bad Boy an industry super power and launching Biggie into superduperstar status. As we celebrate the anniversary of Ready To Die, with the help of my friend Shawn Adonis, we break down the top four songs from the album. If you don’t know, now you know….

UNBELIEVABLE

“Breeze through in the Q-45 by my side, lyrical high / and those that rushes my clutches get put on crutches / get smoke like dutches from the master / hate to blast ya but I have to / you see I smoke a lot, your life is played out like Kwamé / and them fu**ing polka dots…”

Cee: I don’t wanna add any more hyperbole to this song as great as it is already, but I could have honestly quoted the whole first verse of the song. When Biggie’s name was buzzing back in the summer of ’93 with his Party and Bullshit track, as much as I liked him and all the remixes he was on (i.e. see Mary J. Blige’s “Real Love“ remix), I would have never thought he would have reached the lyrical levels that he brought to the song. I’ll admit, I just didn’t see the other levels coming. Before anything else that was released from him off of Ready To Die, this was actually the first cut I heard from the album. You can tell the difference in his voice from this song compared to the previously released tracks. It always sounded like he was yelling &/or too hyped up when he was rapping, as great as the songs were.

On “Unbelievable”, he appeared to be more relaxed, the confidence in his abilities had fully grown, & the swagger was completely swollen. But the lyrics….the lyrics….the lyrics though. In retrospect, what he did to that DJ Premier beat almost wasn’t fair. How he set up the metaphors (i.e. “Breeze through in the Q-45 by my side…”), intersects the humor (i.e. “Wear boxers so my dick can breathe“), ended the remaining potential of rappers careers (i.e. The Kwamé shot), this wasn’t just lyrical gymnastics, it was a verbal P90X session. Again, I’m only speaking about the first verse. Do you know how difficult it was to stand out like that lyrically in ’94 when people like Nas, Snoop, Jeru, Redman, Wu-Tang, Scarface, Keith Murray, Buckshot & everyone else were roaming the streets? And yet, he was so ridiculously talented that he made major room at the table anyway. The song title actually says it all to be honest.

Shawn: Very well said Cee. I’ve gotta say, you brought up some very interesting points that I’ve never really considered. And that I fully intend to steal like a burglar, while I head to the nearest barber shop to pass them off as my own original & enlightened thoughts so that I can be showered with praise.

I had heard a few tracks from Mr. Biggie Smalls before hearing “Unbelievable”, but they never captivated me enough to really keep my attention. The hyped up yelling flow that you mentioned just didn’t do anything for me, but this song changed all of that.  Just like you Cal, this was also the first track that I heard from Ready to Die. It was back in the days before you could go online and hear any song you wanted with the click of a mouse.  If you wanted to make yourself a hip hop mixtape (which back then was actually literally a tape), you had to sit by the radio with your fingers hovering over the ‘play’ & ‘record’ buttons waiting to hear something that was worthy to make the cut, and you were afraid to leave the room, cause as soon as you did, that’s when they’d play a song you wanted.  As soon as I heard that Primo beat come in, I started recording with the quickness.  After trying to figure out who “Sticky Smalls” was (I can’t be the only one who thought, and still thinks, that the hook sounds like he’s saying “Sticky, Sticky, Sticky Smalls is the illest”…. Perhaps this was some intentional brilliance that I just wasn’t cool enough to understand.  Why not just emphasize the B?). I heard him spit that first bar and I knew I made a wise recording decision.

No one can debate that Big was given a heater of a beat.  Back in those days Premier could have used a sample of himself passing a bowel movement, and as long as he mixed it right and added a baseline to it, it would be an instant classic.  But the “Unbelievable” beat stands out to me because it could have went either way depending on who laid down the verses over it, and the Notorious one’s style, flow, and energy is what made you take heed to the beat.  Any other rapper on that beat would have been like someone wearing a fly outfit with a beat up and bummy pair of sneakers.  It would have just ruined the whole thing.

What separated this song from others at that time, was that other rappers often used two bars to complete a thought, however, Biggie laced every bar with entirely new subject matter, and kept it up for line after insanely lyrical line. You hardly had a chance to process everything he was coming at you with.

And one last thing, that senseless unprovoked jab at Kwame was totally uncalled for. That poor bastard was probably somewhere plotting his comeback, when out of nowhere he was blindsided by the most relevant thing in rap saying he was now irrelevant.  I can’t help but to think that he was probably in a dark room somewhere pouring gasoline on his polka-dotted memorabilia, with tears streaming from his sleepy eyes.  To avoid the public backlash he was probably forced to change his identity……. which would have pretty much consisted of him dying that bleached swirl in his hair black.  Without that or the polka-dots, no one could have picked him out of a line up.

JUICY

“It was all a dream / I used to read Word Up! magazine / Salt-N-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine / Hanging’ pictures on the wall / Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl.”

“Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood / And it’s still all good / Uh… and if you don’t know, now you know, ni**a.”

Cee: It’s safe to say this is the most popular song Biggie ever made, right? I mean, we could make an honest case for that, can’t we? I don’t believe it was his best work, but it did its job, which was introducing him to the masses. And it worked in a major way. People can rip him all they want, but much praise goes out to Puff Daddy (I’m using his original name dammit!) for coming up with the idea of using Biggie’s talents over an old, classic 80s record. Sure, he almost ended up literally overkilling hip hop a few years later with that same “Just use the whole beat, don’t bother sampling it. No one will care!” formula, but for this song & some of the other Biggie songs & collabos down the line (i.e. “Sky’s The Limit” and, “I Love The Dough”), it always worked to perfection. It was perfect actually. It allowed Biggie to stay street & gutter talking about his rags-to-riches story, but having the melodic nostalgia to play on major radio stations & still suck you in. In fact, the remakes Puffy created would bring new life to a whole new generation. Think about it Shawn, in 1994, what teenager even knew who the hell Mtume was?

To me, what made this song more of a classic than anything else is the video & the fact that it actually matches the lyrics. This is probably one of the more true to life videos we’ve seen, especially back then. It shows the progression from him hustling on the corner; getting arrested; his boys running after someone for doing something that violated crew standards; getting interviewed by the pool; his boys playing Street Fighter with either a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis on a 50-inch screen while Big, Puff & from the looks of the older token white man sitting beside him, his accountant handling business on the money green leather couches. Shit, he even had his Moms in the video holding the Source Magazine with a smile on her face. This was almost as authentic as you can get. A feel good story that matched the wordplay letter for letter.

If this song drops in 2014, there would be girl-on-girl kissing in the pool while guys pour Peach Ciroc on them; everyone holding red cups sipping on that lean & blowing weed smoke into the camera; & the reporter would have dropped the mic, stripped down to her bra & thong, to then start twerking on Big to the point of muscle spasming. But in 1994, everyone just waved their hands in the air & partied by the pool. It was almost wholesome.

Sidenote: Did you ever look at a street light & wanna do pull ups on it too Shawn or was it just me?

Shawn: Most definitely Cal, not only did those pull ups and dips on the street lights make those guys look like ghetto superheroes to me (cause as I’m sure you remember, I had what one might describe as a stick figure physique back then), but it inspired me to climb lamp posts to get my strength up. Unfortunately, they’re 30 feet high around here, so my fear of death deterred me a bit.

Now, I know that what I’m about to say is going to be considered the highest form of Hip Hop blasphemy known to man, and that the ground may open up and swallow me whole as soon as I finish typing this……..but…….. I’ve never really liked Juicy. * insert Gasp here *

Ok, now don’t get me wrong, I definitely understand the allure of the song and why so many people like it.  How can you not enjoy the story of a young downtrodden kid from the hood, single parent home, mother that struggled to put food on the table, took to the streets to make money, experienced the ups and downs of hustling, went to prison, pursued music to finally become one of the top rappers in the game, living a lavish life and finally being able to take care of his Mom.  I get it completely.  It’s just not my cup of tea musically.  So let me defend my opinion here.

First of all, like you said Cal, this wasn’t Big’s most lyrical contribution to the Album, and back then I was a lyrical fiend, I would live for those “I can’t believe he said that, I have to rewind it 30 times” moments, and this song had zero of these moments.  Secondly, that beat never did anything for me.  It was so simple, so boring.  I’ve never been tempted to so much as nod my head to, or even tap my foot to this song. When it comes on in the club, that’s my cue to take a trip to the bathroom. When it comes on the radio, that’s when I switch to the news station to get caught up on current events.  It’s one of those songs that you hear once and that’s enough.

It’s a great story that would make a great movie (which ironically was poorly casted years later, and made a mediocre movie at best), and like you said Cal it made a great video.  Sure, parts of it that looked cool to me back then, look a bit cornier and outdated now, but that’s only because people took this video’s blueprint and improved upon it throughout the years, which is why all the classics look a bit corny.  From what I remember too, this was the first video of that era where a rapper stepped out that “grimey” persona, and made it look cool to throw on some linens and hard-bottoms.  In a rap climate where Wu Tang, Nas, Boot Camp, and others made sure they were dressed in clothes that would make them “fit the description” of a perpetrator,  Biggie made it look cool to be classy.

Even though we only got little glimpses of it in this video, how cool were Puff’s diddy bop scenes? We had no idea at the time that Puff’s smooth two step/shoulder jerk/arm wave/neck bob/spin-around dance moves would end up playing Robin to Biggie’s Batman in his future videos and performances.  Or who would have imagined back then that this shirtless dancing champagne sipper would become one of the biggest music moguls in history?

By the way, not only did I not know who Mtume was in 1994, I don’t  know who they are in 2014 either.  But thanks to my pal Google, I’m fully caught up now.  Those dudes look disco-rific.  And sadly a lot of people would hear the original song today and think they stole Biggie’s ‘Juicy‘ beat.

Hey….um…. that 2014 version of the video you described, would you happen to have a link to that video that I could check out for some….. Uh…. research?

Cee: I’m sure we can find that version on Youtube somewhere. ***Searching***

BIG POPPA

“To all the ladies in the place with style and grace / Allow me to lace these lyrical douches in your bushes / Who rocks grooves and make moves with all the mommies / The back of the club sipping Moet is where you’ll find me / The back of the club, mackin’ hoes, my crew’s behind me / Mad question asking, blunt passing, music blasting / But I just can’t quit/Because one of these honeys Biggie gots to creep with”

“I love it when they call me Big Poppa / Throw your hands in the air if you’s a true playa”

Cee: This song is the blueprint and the reason why Rick Ross can take his shirt off, let his tatted man boobs swing freely into the air today & nobody bats an eye. In Hip Hop, The Fat Boys made being big funny and comical as well as stereotypical. I mean, we understood they were fat, but did they really have to talk about their love of food & gorge on pizzas in interviews too? Even as a little kid, I never took them seriously. Heavy D made the big man dynamic into something cool and fun. Not only were his songs on par with some of the best Hip Hop & R&B material during the late 80s & early 90s, but he kept up with everyone & them some on the dance floor in the era where you danced until you sweat through your clothes. He wore the suits, had his dancers behind him doing all the innovative dance moves (one of his dancers Trouble T. Roy died unfortunately during an accident at one of his shows, and was forever remembered on the T.R.O.Y classic by Pete Rock & CL Smooth), and even introduced Monifah to the game. I will never, ever be mad at him for that one.  With that said, as great as he was, he never gave off the image to women that they wanted to get with him. They wanted to party with him, and maybe afterwards give him a great big hug when the night was done.

Here’s where Biggie changed things. You know how you can speak things into existence? Meaning that if you keep making affirmations to groups of people after a while, the affirmation starts to become believable. Well, with songs like these and “One More Chance” (both the original & the Remix) off the album, Biggie gave the affirmation that he was a ladies man & gave all big boys a chance to prove they can also play the field. You kept seeing it in his videos. He started moving differently, performing in concerts in dress shirts, slacks & suits. He started looking more like the head of a crime family instead of a rapper. The bigger his star power got, the hotter the music got, the more women just started flocking to him. A year after this album dropped, this dude was married to one of the most popular R&B artists in the game on his own label (Faith Evans), & had a mistress on the side that we all pretty much knew wasn’t a real secret (Lil’ Kim). He converted this supposed weakness into strength and power.

The allure of power. It can make you look more appealing than you really are, funnier to your peers than you can ever imagine, and look more appealing than you really are. There’s a reason why I wrote that twice….it’s because it’s true. Some of your favorite athletes & entertainers are not the best looking guys, let’s face facts here. Also, the fact is, Biggie was not an appealing looking guy. Heavy-set, heavy-tongued, labored breathing when he spoke, & had an eye that was lazier than the least motivated couch potato. Not only did he know that, he effin’ told us this & rapped it so ridiculously most times, that it no longer became a focus. He turned his rap skills into a persona and his persona into superstardom. This song is living proof. Even in the video, he’s leaving with two chicks. I know it’s only a video & they said “Cut!” when he walked offscreen, but the images from that & the lyrics he spat made you think that this was at least possible to believe.

Most importantly, Big Poppa is a classic anthem that can still rock radio and clubs in 2014. The flow, cockiness & swagger was ahead of its time. Throw in The Isley Brothers “Between the Sheets“ sampling, he raised the bar for “I’m gonna take you home. Here’s why and you’re gonna love it” records & almost made it mandatory for rappers to have at least one record on their album like this if they wanted to go major. All this from a  man who self-described himself as black and ugly.

One more thing: In the video, is there any reason why he couldn’t be in the whirlpool with the video chicks too? Puffy’s in the thing with all these woman wearing next to nothing, pouring champagne, basically about to get it in….. & Biggie’s rapping outside the lip of the pool like he’s providing them elevator music. The song’s called Big Poppa, shouldn’t he reap the benefits 100%? Instead he only got 80% like a work dental plan. Smh.

Shawn: You hit the nail on the obese head there my brotha. Big rapped with an arrogance and confidence that made it seem like if you were a woman, and weren’t craving him in all of his big, black, fat glory….then there was something wrong with you.  But something tells me, if he were Chris Wallace the grocery clerk, he may not have had that affect on the ladies.  It’s amazing how money and power seem to sexify a man in a woman’s eyes.  But then again who knows. They say he was a really charming dude, so maybe he would have dropped a line like, “Would you like paper, plastic, or latex?”, and he would still have the women fighting over his large physique.  

I’ve never really been a huge fan of these cassanova tracks, where rappers act like their lives are a never-ending Axe commercial.  But Big Poppa had to be the best of its genre, not only offering you ladies-man braggadocio, but clever wordplay such as: 

“Really honey listen I’m askin / most of the fellas think they be mackin’ / but they be actin’ / who they attractin’ with that line what’s your name what’s your sign / soon as he buy that wine I just creep up from behind…” 

Gotta respect a man that lets another dude buy the drinks before he comes in and snatches the woman right from under him, and quite aggressively too.  In the video Biggie moved the dude aside by palming his face like Kareem Abdul Jabbar.  Talk about adding insult to injury. I hope that dude went home after that. There’s no respectable way to dance and try look cool in the club after another man no-look passes your face. 

I have one question: Who was that chick that played the main love interested related too???  She had to be the director’s sister or something, cause she straight up looked like snaggle puss in the face.  Not only is she not the prettiest chick in the video, she wasn’t even the prettiest of the three people in that scene with her, Big and Busta.  I mean, maybe she had a killer body, but you couldn’t really tell cause they didn’t pan down.  Didn’t this chick look like Ludacris from the “Word of Mouf” album cover?  Google that pic and tell me that’s not the same person. 

I hear what you’re saying Cee about that hot tub scene, they got Biggie up there rapping, steam from the hot tub probably got him dripping sweat under that leather jersey, leather sticking to his skin, all uncomfortable.  They couldn’t even invite a brotha to roll up his pant legs and let his feet dangle in the water, with the hot water bubbles massaging his feet?  Honestly, it’s only cause Big played it so cool, making it look like he gets so much ass, that it didn’t even phase him to let his peoples enjoy moments like that.  Most men, myself included, would have taken a running start into a canon ball in that tub.  But I guess that’s what separates Big Poppa from the rest.

It’s all good Baby Baabeehh…..

THE WHAT ft. Method Man

“(Assume the position) / Stop, look and listen / I spit on your grave then I grab my Charles Dickens, bitch” – Method Man

Shawn: Cal my good man, the first time I heard Method Man, my favorite rapper at the time, spit that line, I thought my head was going to explode into my Wu Tang scully (actually, I was never cool enough to have a Wu Tang scully, and by the time I finally had two pennies to rub together and bought a Wu Tang t-shirt, it shrunk after one wash and was unwearable. Very traumatizing. I try to repress those painful memories). Not that it was necessarily the best line in the song, cause Meth and Big went back and forth with with so many hot lines that to borrow (steal) your phrase from earlier, I could have quoted the entire song, but something about this line stood out from the rest for me.

For the only feature on Ready to Die, Biggie employed the services of one of the games most captivating characters, the most recognizable member of the famed Wu Tang Clan, the “M-e-t-h-o-d Man”. Remember Cee, back then features happened about as rarely as a solar eclipse. Nowadays, rappers are feature whores, hopping on tracks with every other rapper, every time the wind changes direction.  It’s so bad now, that some rappers have more songs featuring other artists than they even have by themselves, and truth be told, it’s because a lot of them aren’t talented enough to hold your attention for a whole 3 minutes.  Some songs have so many different people featured on them, that by the time the song is over, you don’t remember who the song originally belonged to. But this wasn’t the case with “The What“. They were two rappers in their prime that could have easily commanded an entire song by themselves. What they offered their listeners was a rare gift.  Back then, cross-crew collabos were so rare that when you heard that two rappers you liked were hopping on a track together, you were actually excited, cause you knew you were in for some musical magic that probably wouldn’t be repeated any time soon by the pairing, if ever.

This song was very necessary for the album, it struck a balance between songs that real hip hop head’s would love (most men), and the more commercial snoozefest tracks like ‘Juicy’ that catered to a different demographic (mostly women, and we know that men like what women like).

I’m sure that Big spitting that opening line about throwing “Shield’s on the dick” was probably the last time a rapper claimed to use anything but Magnums, wouldn’t you say?  These days every rapper claims to be packing an Anaconda.  You have dudes that are 5’2″, 100 pounds, looking like they haven’t gone through puberty, yet claiming to be suffering from Ron Jeremy syndrome (I may have dated myself with that reference, and inadvertently revealed to my parents that those nights that I said I was watching “wrestling” in the basement, the blonde and brunette weren’t Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper) .  And then of course, in the next bar they use the word “magnum” as a double entendre in reference to a handgun. Man, hip hop is depressingly predictable these days.

Cee: Before I jump on this song, I wanna pour out a lil’ liquor for the career of producer Easy Mo Bee. Seriously speaking, this dude had a major hand musically for the first two projects for Bad Boy Records. I’ll never, ever take anything away from the talents of Biggie or Craig Mack, but think of how different life would be for those guys coming into the game without his production. I actually forgot just how much work he did for these guys. From “Party & Bullshit” to “Flava in Ya Ear” (AND the Remix!) to Get Down, I mean, I especially remember just how hot those records were back then. Shit, the “Flava in Ya Ear Remix” still shuts down parties now. By all accounts this is supposed to be one of the greatest albums that ever came across the Hip Hop genre & this man literally produced 1/3 of all the songs on it.  A third! Yet, by the time this album (and to a lesser extent, Craig Mack’s album) exploded, Biggie was a superstar, Puff was a superstar, Craig Mack was at his peak of screaming “Haaaa buoy!” everywhere with his Philly Afro-cutting ass, but where was Easy Mo Bee’s name in flashing neon lights??? Poor dude got left at the docks with his knapsack & suitcase while the party boat departed without him. He’s been properly credited for his work on “Gimme the Loot”, “Machine Gun Funk”, “Warning” (undisputed classic), and the album title track (Ready to Die), so I’m hoping he was properly paid for his services, however, I still can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. He’s THE forgotten entity off this classic & one of the most overlooked producers in hip hop history. I mean Shawn, did you know that he even produced this?!?!?!

Outside of DJ Premier with “Unbelievable”, Easy Mo Bee quite possibly produced the hottest beat on Ready to Die with “The What”. It might sound simple, but it’s a perfect combination of eerie and funkiness.  Also, if you’re gonna bring someone like Method Man in the studio to rap, wouldn’t it be to something like this? This beat was made for him. In fact, Easy Mo Bee created the perfect backdrop for both these rappers to come out with their best lyrics. If this was a boxing match, it would have been Method Man in a split decision, IF Biggie didn’t drop that last verse to make it a solid draw. Both guys are firing haymakers in this song, but these bars right here….

“I used to do stick ups, cause hoes is irritating like the **hiccups** / Excuse me, flows just grow through me / Like trees to branches / cliffs to avalanches / It’s the praying mantis….”

…..it showed another example of Biggie as the brightest of stars. Back in 1994, before Tical came out, Method Man was arguably the hottest rapper in hip hop. If he featured on your song, you had to perform first because once he got on, you had to do like those safe sex commercials & wrap it up. Nobody cared about you after he performed. Just sing the hook & get the hell out of Dodge. Make no mistake about it, Method Man came for the jugular here. So for Biggie not to only fight that off buzzsaw, but to drop lyrics like the ones I just quoted with almost effortless flair, it should have shown anyone who wasn’t aware that he was going to be major. And he was. By the beginning of ’95, he was the biggest hip hop star alive. You couldn’t touch him. The only ones that was on his stratosphere lyrically &/or star power-wise was Nas, Meth (and Wu Tang as a whole), Snoop & probably Tupac before he got shot and went to jail. He was not only the King of New York, but was basically the King of everything. Like Nas with Illmatic, he dropped a Mona Lisa. Unlike Nas, he eventually changed the game from how we looked to what we wore & what liquor to drink.

Looking back at it now, my generation was so spoiled because we had such groundbreaking legends from the rappers to producers who were creating at such a high level that we almost took it for granted. Almost. As a huge lover of music, I kind of wish that today’s generation experienced what mine did because we got fed. If hip hop was a restaurant, it was a five-star restaurant in the mid-90s. We were eating filet mignon & caviar, & washing it down with some Autumn Reisling wine and champagne often. As the times went along, the prices got more expensive and some of the superb dishes that we got to eat were taken off the menu. Now in 2014, a five-star meal mostly consists of spaghetti and meatballs with Allen’s Apple juice, & it’s being eaten up by everyone under the age of 25. I don’t want to knock it & say it’s not a good meal, but the palate of my generation was forever affected. Some of us decided to close our eyes and dig in, while others decided to try different restaurants altogether. And some like myself, want to try these new dishes, but when I look back at albums like Ready to Die & remember how well off I was, I end up walking out of the establishment shaking my head. Maybe that makes me a snob. Maybe so…. & it might be better that way. Damn, I hope I didn’t make you get hungry…..  

 

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

To subscribe to The Baseline Blog, click onto the Follow button. Very special thanks to Shawn Adonis for his contributions to this posting.

Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of Nas’ Illmatic

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of one of the Greatest Times in Hip Hop history. On April 19, 1994, an up and coming 20 year old rapper named Nasir Jones released his debut album Illmatic, which would go onto become one of the top five greatest albums in hip hop. As we celebrate the album rerelease of Illmatic today (not to mention the release of the Time Is Illmatic documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival tomorrow), we will review the direction it took hip hop, the impact it had on its genre’s history, list the Top 5 tracks, and the most overlooked song on the groundbreaking album. It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine….

Illmatic launched the super producer era.

Before this album started, most of the big named rappers (either solo or group) had an in-house producer that handled most, if not all of the production. DJ Premier handled all of the Gang Starr beats. Pete Rock manned the board while CL Smooth mostly handled the mic. Both NWA and Death Row was handled by Dr. Dre. Public Enemy was handled by their in-house production team The Bomb Squad. Tribe was handled mostly by Q-Tip, RZA handled all things Wu-Tang, Black Moon had The Beatminerz, the list goes on and on. On Illmatic, the game was changed in that regard. It was the first album that had multiple big named producers contributing to the work. Not only that, but with regards to Primo, Q-Tip & Pete Rock, these guys were at the very top of the producer game in hip hop. It also set off a friendly competitive environment with all the producers. No one wanted to be the one that put out the subpar beat on what was supposed to be the coming of the next Rakim at the time. As much as they all supported each other’s work & sat in on each other’s studio sessions, it also kept them on their toes to deliver their best. Primo even stated that after sitting in on the session and listening to Pete Rock create “The World is Yours” and also listening to Q-Tip do the beat for “One Love” , he was so blown away he felt he had to go back to the studio to come up with something on the same level of what he had just heard. He ended up remaking the beat for “Represent”.

Just think of how hot those producers were at the time the LP was created. Q-Tip was fresh off of making the Midnight Marauders classic album with Tribe Called Quest. DJ Premier was working on Gang Starr’s Hard to Earn LP just after the success of the Daily Operation LP and the ’92 summer smash “Dwyck”. Pete Rock came off of Mecca and The Soul Brother success, just helped Run DMC become relevant again with “Down With The King” and gave the world the House of Pain’s “Jump Around” remix a few months prior. All three of these guys basically were having MVP seasons & all of them (including Large Professor & L.E.S.) felt compelled to give the then 20-year old some of the very best work they had to offer. Within a few years, having the hottest producers on your album (if you were a big name & could afford it) became the norm to make your album. If you had the major buzz coming before your debut album came out, it was almost a prerequisite. The In-House producer didn’t become extinct necessarily, but it definitely took a huge backseat to the new method of creating an album. Illmatic was the original blueprint. 

Memory Lane (Sittin’ In Da Park) is the most underrated record on Illmatic.

“Pumping for something, some’ll prosper, some will fail/Judges hanging ni**as, uncorrect bails for direct sales/My intellect prevails from a hanging cross with nails/I reinforce the frail with lyrics that’s real”

Not only is this track underrated, after listening to the lyrics yet again, this song may be the true soul of the album. Nas takes us back on a journey to his youth & touched down on everything from: his boy getting robbed for his sheepskin coat; to the friends whose lives have been lost; to the justice system that is designed to take down him & other black people, to the legendary drug dealers that ran New York City in the late 80s. More importantly, it also may arguably be the most lyrically dense song on Illmatic, which is saying a whole lot considering this is one of, if not the most lyrical hip hop debuts that ever existed. The belief in his rhymes is that he is the Verbal Massiah, here to uplift his listeners, inspire them, and give them a glimpse into the future of what the new standard of lyricism will be.

However, the song shines even more with the production of DJ Premier, and by flipping an old Reuben Wilson song into a laid back, underrated classic. The song brings out a 70’s nostalgic kind of vibe that marries Nas’ lyrics to the beat. As incredible as Primo was as the producer of all the Gang Starr classics (i.e. Code of the Streets), it was his work here & the other tracks (“N.Y. State of Mind”, “Represent”) from Illmatic that helped thrust him further into superstardom. Post-Illmatic, if you wanted your album to be hot, you had to get a Primo beat to make it official. In addition, to top it off, Primo provided his legendary cuts & scratches to the “Coming Outta Queensbridge” sample at the ending of the song, basically killing anything else left on the track that Nas didn’t already destroy in the first 3+ minutes. Trust me, the more you listen to the record, the more you realize this song doesn’t get its just due. 

The Top 5 songs on Illmatic. In order.

Just remember, this is my list and my opinion. If you feel differently by all means, feel free to share. Who doesn’t want to have heated discussions about Illmatic? You can probably flip these 5 songs about 100 different ways in terms of ranking, but however, let’s review the list.

Just know this was hard to rank. HARD. 

5. One Love (produced by Q-Tip)

“On the reals/All these crab ni**as know the deals/when we start the revolution all they probably do is squeal/But chill…”

“So I come back home, nobody’s out but Shorty Doo-Wop/rolling two Phillies together in the bridge we call ’em oo-wops”

Probably the best “jail letter to my homie(s)” record ever recorded. Many artists have tried to follow in his footsteps of keeping connected with his friends in jail as years gone past, but nothing touches “One Love”. Q-Tip blesses Nas with the Xylophone’d out track that almost making you feel like Roy Ayers was sitting by your speakers. How he makes that instrument work in hip hop like that I’ll never know.

One part I have to bring up: forget the part about him providing updates on the hood, or him trying to provide advice to twelve year old Shorty Doo-Wop rolling up blunts (maybe he should have, you know, taken the blunts out of “Doo-Wop’s” hands instead seeing that he may have been a senior in elementary school??), but couldn’t they use a better girl as his boy’s baby mother in the video? She has a faint moustache! I know this was 1994 & everything, maybe the budget wasn’t huge, but video chicks came from this era of hip hop. There’s no excuse for this just like there’s no excuse for a uni-browed chick to get a close up head shot. Even back then, it always confused me when I saw that part. Of course shorty don’t care, she’s got excessive facial hair & she still has dudes trying to get with her. Why would she care?

4. Life’s A Bitch (produced by L.E.S.)

“Visualizing the realism of life in actuality/F*** who’s the baddest, the person’s status depends on salary”

“Life’s a bitch and then you die/That’s why we get high/Cause you never know when you gonna go”

– AZ

Think of how sick AZ’s presence was on this song. Firstly, he was the only guest artist on the whole album outside of Nas’ boys conversing at the beginning of “One Love” & chanting the song title on “Represent”. Secondly, his debut verse & hook was so hot that he started a major bidding war between record labels, eventually signing to EMI Records later on that year. A year later, he dropped the classic “Sugar Hill“ track off of his debut album Doe or Die (which had a lot of gems on it) & helped to spin off his rap career. All of this came from his verse and the hook alone. That was the power of this album. If you produced something hot or in this case, spit something hot, you were gonna become a star if you weren’t one already. It’s amazing how album sales for Illmatic were slow coming out the gate even though it was revered at the time.

It’s even debatable that he even outdid Nas on his own track, though if you listen to Nas’ verse I’m still not so sure. Either way, Life’s A Bitch was the song that formed future collabos and The Firm album from the duo. Nas’ pops Olu Dara comes in with the smooth sounding horns at the end of record & adds a classy touch. Here’s an interesting fact: Nas originally wanted to sample Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit”, but L.E.S. didn’t have the record. So he ended up sampling The Gap Band’s “Yearning For Your Love” instead. Imagine that, he would have beaten Biggie to the punch had he come out with that first, mostly likely forcing Biggie to use another sample to make “Juicy”. Actually, no……I don’t wanna imagine that.

3. It Ain’t Hard to Tell (produced by Large Professor)

“Deep like The Shining/Sparkle like a diamond/Sneak an Uzi on the island in my army jacket lining”

Nah, nah, nah. Rewind that back…

“Deep like The Shining/Sparkle like a diamond/Sneak an Uzi on the island in my army jacket lining”

Oh my Gawd!! The first time my friends and I heard this line, our brains exploded. Back then, it was like going from Sega Genesis to a PS4 overnight without gradual process. Lyrically it was unlike anything we had ever heard. When we saw the video, it was simple, but still cool enough that it affected us to the point that we believed in all things Nas. If they sold Nas socks, Nas baseball caps, Nas jackets, Nas hoodies, Nas Fun Dip, Nas water bottles, Nas .40 ounces, Nas poutine (I am from Montreal, so…), whatever it was, we would have literally cleared the shelves of it. We were sold like that. Throw in Michael Jackson’s Human Nature sample which SWV also previously sampled to make a huge hit in the summer of ’93, some of the other gems and flows that he dropped on this song (Nas will analyze/Drop a jewel/Inhale from the L/school a fool well/you feel it like Braille….), & giving us the term “half-man/half amazing” and it was over. O-V-E-R.

It’s strikingly amazing that this song is only ranked third on my list. It could have ranked higher but, well, there are two reasons why….

2. The World is Yours (produced by Pete Rock)

“I sip the Dom P watching Ghandi ’til I’m charged/Then writing in my book of rhymes, all the words past the margin”

In my opinion, it’s not only my favorite song off Illmatic, but it’s my favorite Nas song ever. More than “Street Dreams”, “Nas is Like”, “2nd Childhood”, “The Message” and, “One on One” & every other classic he ever put out. I’m an absolute sucker for piano loops, so that piano intro right at the beginning caught my attention. Pete Rock comes in to sing the question “Who’s world is this?”, Nas drops the lyrical gems. It’s not a complicated track, but the flow and the production is incredible. Quite frankly, it’s one of Pete Rock’s greatest beats. The mellow landscape allows Nas to paint the vivid picture of his life & how he views his surroundings. The video then captures the laid-back & mellow vibe but intersects shots that matches the lyrics.

Does it also help that the song is about 30% better because the song title is lifted from the silver Globe in the indoor water fountain/pool that Tony Montana had in his living room, before he fell in it by way of the shotgun blast to his back? Hell yes!!

More than that, similar to like Memory Lane, this song hits you right across the chest in a soulful, nostalgic way. You can just close your eyes, and you’re transported to your teenage days (in my case, back to 1994) trying to navigate through the pitfalls and obstacles that come in front of you. Funny thing is, even when that song was released, the song made me feel nostalgic too. No, it doesn’t mean that I closed my eyes & I was playing with Legos in front of the TV waiting for Transformers to come on. It just means that it had an old familiar vibe to it, that made it forever timeless. To this day, it remains the flawless diamond above the rest of gems on this album. I won’t even get into the remix for this track, which was almost as sweet as this original.

However, there was another song that was more significant….

1. N.Y. State of Mind (produced by DJ Premier)

“The smooth criminal on beat breaks/never put me in your box if the shit eats tapes…eats tapes…”

“It drops deep as it does in my breath/I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death”

When you peeled the plastic off your CD or cassette and stuck it into your stereo or Walkman, right away Nas snatched you up with this opening track. And to think, he didn’t even know how to start the song off.

As the legend goes, when he stepped into the booth to rap, he was confused as to how to start the track. The beat threw him off a bit. He even stared off with some ad-libs,

“Straight out the fu**ing dungeons of rap/where fake niggas don’t make it back…”

& then literally says a few seconds later,

“I don’t know how to start this shit…”

As he looked up from his notepad, DJ Premier was literally waving at him already counting down for him to catch the beat. 4, 3, 2, 1….

& then in one take, Nas sheds the nerves & rips through the first verse like a veteran, stunning everyone in the studio. After he finished, he stepped out of the booth & asked in all seriousness, “Did that sound cool?” The entire studio erupted, completely freaking out over what he spit.

That moment & the song set the bar high for the rest of the album as a listener. If this was the first song, what the hell was the rest of the album gonna be and sound like??? Even though “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” was already released & was blowing up on radio everywhere, we were still waiting to hear the finished product. The beat by Primo was so eerie & menacing on top of everything else, it just took it to another place. This song was never released on the single, as the other ones mentioned in the top 5. With that said, it remains the most important song on Illmatic without question.

The Illmatic album cover represents the official Declaration for Hip Hop Greatness.

Along with Tribe’s Midnight Marauders album cover, Illmatic is in the category of the “most classic & original” album covers ever. Unlike Marauders, the Illmatic cover has been replicated repeatedly. This was the first cover that didn’t feature someone posing hardcore or otherwise on the cover, or have some kind of artwork done, or the artist/group’s logo sprawled on the front cover. Instead, it has Nas’ face as a kid blended in with the Queensbridge project buildings in the background. Nobody at the time knew what to make of it, until we started hearing tracks spew from the album. As time went along, it started being viewed as one of the greatest albums ever made in the genre (even though it did not reach gold status in the first year). Others started following the Illmatic artwork, starting with the Notorious B.I.G. on his debut album Ready to Die. While Biggie’s album became a certified classic & worldwide smash, some knocked him for copying Nas’ album cover, including Raekwon and Ghostface Killah who called him out subliminally on the infamous “Shark Ni**as” interlude off the legendary Only Built For Cuban Linx LP.

Whenever viewing the album cover, it’s automatically equated to “ultimate greatness”. Don’t think our favorite rappers don’t feel the same way. Starting from Common, to Lil Wayne, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and more, they have all used a variation of this blueprint. Personally, I feel it’s a way to not just pay homage, but a statement to the masses that, “this is my greatest work, I’m reaching for elite/iconic status right here”. It’s no coincidence that those albums in particular were either good if not straddling the greatness line. It’s the “Baby Picture Theory” I call it. You put a baby pic or pre-teen pic of yourself on your album cover in hip hop, and it better be damn good…..because you know what it’s gonna be compared to.

Sidebar/Wild angled question: Can you imagine if after all this time, Nas really stole this idea for his album cover from Nirvana? It may sound crazy, but that “Nevermind” album they had back in ’91 was HUUUUGE & I’m not even a rock guy. PLUS that album had “Smells Like Teen Spirit” & I don’t know Nas personally, but he had to have loved that song. Who the f*** didn’t like that song??? Tell me you didn’t love that song. I f***ing dare you!

Illmatic is the greatest East Coast album ever.

With deep apologies to Jay-Z, Biggie, Tribe, Wu, Redman, Boot Camp Click, Eric B & Rakim, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Mos Def, The Roots, Talib Kweli, 50 Cent, Mase Puff Daddy DMX & every other hip hop classic album I’m forgetting from the East Coast, none of those albums are deified quite like Illmatic. They just aren’t. For most rappers, they all strive to have Jay-Z’s success and/or be revered like 2Pac and/or Biggie. Everyone is forever trying to retrace their footsteps of success, but every rapper strives to make an album that is on the level of Illmatic. In their own way, rappers have followed in Nas’ path. From using their album cover as a spinoff of Illmatic or having a short tracklist (i.e. at least two of Kanye West and Common’s albums have a limited playlist), or even trying to be lyrical & heartfelt (i.e. J Cole), everyone’s used this album as a barometer to strive for greatness.

The formula was so tremendously successful, it’s a wonder why Nas himself hasn’t followed suit. He’s delivered many great albums since this Illmatic (including 2012’s “Life is Good”) as well as collaboration projects like The Firm & Distant Relatives. They have all been good if not great, but none of them have quite matched up like his first album. It shows you how hard it is sometimes to replicate greatness, & it has nothing to do with Nas’ skills as a rapper/lyricist. One of the biggest complaints for Nas is the production selections in the past doesn’t match his talents. Doesn’t matter how good his albums are, there always seems to be a few beats that seems like they don’t belong there. Every time I purchase (yes, I said purchase) a Nas LP, a part of me keeps expecting a flawless LP, where his skills & the beats are one & the same.

I’ve heard rumors that he is thinking about making Illmatic 2. Normally I would cringe to hear these album sequel projects. Only this time, because of the stature of the original, Nas would literally have the ear of every major producer in hip hop about wanting to get on the project with him. It would be a producer’s dream. Until that day becomes a reality however, we’ll have to continue to honor the original. An album that was ahead of its time, but yet the future is still trying to catch up to it. #IllMatic #20Years

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

Follow me on Twitter or email me at southshoreave@gmail.com

 

Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back through to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Greatest Time in Hip Hop history. Back in November 1993, three iconic albums were released within a span of fourteen days that forever changed the landscape of hip hop music. A Tribe Called Quest’s 3rd album, Midnight Marauders & Wu-Tang Clan’s debut release Enter Da Wu Tang (36 Chambers) were both released on Nov 9th to massive fanfare & acclaim. Two weeks later, they were both bested sales-wise by the release of Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg’s debut album off of Death Row Records that turned Snoop into a full-fledged mega superstar. Today on The Baseline Blog, we wrap up the final segment of this 3-part blog series the day before the 20th Anniversary of Snoop’s solo debut by asking some questions about the classic LP.

“Let the motion of your body be the key, cuz we/Be the m*********** G Funk family/Now, I’ll play the G in this deadly game/Snoop Dogg is the name, Dogg Pound’s the gang” – Pump Pump

Is Doggystyle the best album to ever come out of the West Coast?

Yeah. I went there. Why not? Is this not debatable? Have you not listened to the this album? Oh boy, I’m getting the sense I’m getting a lot of dirty looks & teeth-sucking here so I’ll say my piece quick. Here’s a list of some of the greatest albums to come out of the left coast….

Ice Cube – AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, The Predator

Dr. Dre – The Chronic, Chronic 2001

Snoop Dogg – Doggystyle

2Pac – All Eyez On Me, 2Pacalypse Now

N.W.A – Straight Outta Compton

Young MC – Stone Cold Rhymin’ (I kid, I kid)

One thing to notice, Dr. Dre has his hands in FIVE albums here. I mean, wow. NWA’s album is foundational, Ice Cube’s album set a standard, 2Pac’s album was trendsetting & revengeful, & The Chronic is the most important to come out of the West Coast, so for that, I’ll also say that for this reason, it makes it the best album ever. Not just that it’s widely considered the best hip hop album ever made, but Snoop rode shotgun for most of it. I will say that in retrospect, listening to these albums now (not including Young MC of course), Doggystyle comes a close second, & I mean close. Let’s look at this album another way….

Is Doggystyle the best produced album to come out of the West Coast?

I say yes, & it’s all praise to Dr. Dre on this one. When he has cart blanche to do what he wants on an album, not only do they sound great & become classics (or at least flirt with the line), it sounds cinematic. He’s like Steven Spielberg behind the boards. When you listen to all the albums he’s worked on from The Chronic, to this album, to even 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Trying” & The Game’s “The Documentary” , they all have the same feel, like a larger than life sound to them. They’re like movies, & not in the same way that DJ Khaled says it & makes you roll your eyes. You listen to the albums, & you can almost visualize everything you’re hearing on the spot. I wish I knew how he does it, but it’s an incredible tool that he’s long mastered. Bringing it back to Doggystyle, I honestly believe this is his best all around work production-wise from top to bottom. Match this up with Snoop’s talents & his skyrocketing star power at the time, & you have a groundbreaking masterpiece. Just know there are no holes in this album. Even the “fillers” could have been released as singles. Just because I say that, it doesn’t mean I think it’s the best album ever, but it definitely belongs in the top 10. At least in my eyes.

“Everybody’s got to here the s*** ….”

If branded properly & packaged on satellite radio, would WBALLZ work?

Maybe, but they would only be available after 11pm. I mean, where else would you be able to have on-air radio personalities named DJ Suck T Nuts & DJ EZ Dick? Ok, maybe Shade 45. Even with that, they would probably have to be called DJ STN & DJ EZ if they wanted to be on air when the sun is out. FCC sanctioned or not.

“He is I and I am him/Slim with the tilted brim…”

What songs off this album are the most club relevant in 2013?

4. Who Am I (What’s My Name)?

The first released song off of this album. Love the Blaxploitation-style intro before the beat rolls in. Classic, classic song in every sense even though you don’t normally hear it as much as you should. Lyrics were on point, the record at the time had that “Get ready, I’m about to take over right now” vibe to it. And the video? Part slapstick, part “Check The Rhime” that ends off with a big party and has a girl grinding her ass on top of the dude’s bald head (fast forward to the 3:47 mark). Ok, the video may not have made the video as huge looking back now, but trust me, the song was huge.

3. Doggy Dogg World

This song has my favorite lyric off of this whole album.

“You know some of you n***** is so deceptive/using my styles like a contraceptive/I hope you get burnt…”

Production wise, this is the cleanest, smoothest record on here. I have to say again, Dr. Dre & that Death Row team were really in their prime back then. If there were awards given out that year, Snoop would have won rookie of the year, made the all-star team, won the regular season & finals MVP off this one album alone…. & this would have been one of the signature games everyone would have been talking about. Just a phenomenal record.

2. Gin and Juice

Twenty years after this song was released, this song still gets a party going as if it came out twenty days ago. Arguably the best record off this album. If there was a definition of G-Funk in the dictionary, this song would be the prime example. I really want to say this is the #1 song from Doggystyle that you can play in the clubs right now, I really do…..but I can’t. Here’s why…..

1. I won’t even name it…..

“When I met you last night, baby/Before you opened up your gap/I had respect for you lady/But now I take it all back….”

You already singing along right? Should I continue? Ok, what the hell…..

“Cause you gave me all your p****/(long pause)…..And you even licked my b****/Leave your number on the cabinet/And I promise baby, I’ll give you a call…..”

I hope Moms ain’t reading this right now. In fact, anyone who knows my Moms, don’t…..just…just don’t even show her this post. Yes, I do realize that I’m a grown ass man.

“Next time I’m feeling kinda horny/You can come on over/And I’ll break you off/And if you can’t **** that day baby/Just lay back and open your mouth…”

You feel guilty that you’ve been reading this out, feeling remorse over these lyrics, but yet still can’t stop singing this? & ladies, don’t even lie to yourselves right now, you know you sing this louder than a lot of men do when this comes on. Since we’re here, we may as well finish….

“Cause IIIIIII have neverrrrrr met a giiiiiiiiiiirl……..Thaaaaaaaaat I looooooooove in the whole wide woooooooooorld”  #aintnofun #ifthehomiescanthavenone

Will we ever see a time in music like this ever again?

I can’t speak for the other genres of music, but as far as Hip Hop is concerned? No way. It’s been 20 years & counting since it last happened, & with the way the landscape of music is now, it won’t happen. Take this year for example. The biggest album releases this year came from Drake (Nothing Was The Same), Jay-Z (Magna Carta Holy Grail), & Kanye West (Yeezus). But those albums came out within 3 months of each other not two weeks & outside of possibly Drake, those albums won’t define a generation much less be memorable years from now. The great thing about these albums that we’ve been discussing here, wasn’t the fact that they changed the landscape of hip hop forever, or that they remain ingrained in the Mount Rushmore of the greatest albums ever made; their sounds were all so radically different from one another. That fact is what represents the Golden Era best. Back then, there were so many artists with different musical styles & sounds, and so many of these artists put out such incredible material that a lot of it stood the test of time.

I don’t want to come off as the old guy here who hates everything new or anything like that, cuz admittedly, I’m also predisposed to pumping my arms & loudly yelling out thoughtful phrases like, “Sha-Shabba Ranks/Sha-Sha-Shabbaaarrrrrraaaaanks!” or “Ocho Cincooooo!” when the mood & the music strikes me in a club. Seriously speaking though, I root for good music, especially if it’s new. However, something is clearly missing from today’s hip hop, & anyone who grew up in this generation that read and relate to this blog series over the course of these two weeks would agree. The diversity from the artists you saw from these three albums used to be a regular thing back then. The rappers in the West Coast had their own style. The ones coming from the South drummed to their own bass line. Artists from the Midwest moved & sounded differently too. The East coast guys sounded different from themselves much less from any other region. Now in 2013, you can’t tell the difference between a rapper from Brooklyn and a rapper from Fort Lauderdale unless you googled their bios. Everyone sounds the same, style, lyrics & production. Hip Hop has become a big factory pumping out the next robot to entertain us, similar to how Hondas ship out Accords. We’ve basically become used to this now, & for the most part it is what it is. Some of us have adapted along with the new ways, some of us have left hip hop never to return, & some of us (like me) are left bewildered while we sit on the fence not knowing which way to fall anymore. It’s interesting that High Top Gumby-style cuts, skin fades, Ewing sneakers & hammer pants have come back in rotation.  It’s all good, but sometimes I wish that hip hop from my era was on the next DeLorean driving back to the future.

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

Follow me on Twitter or email me at southshoreave@gmail.com

If you missed Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders Anniversary review, click here.

If you missed Wu-Tang’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) Anniversary review, click here.

Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back through to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Greatest Time in Hip Hop history. Back in November 1993, three iconic albums were released within a span of fourteen days that forever changed the landscape of hip hop music. A Tribe Called Quest’s 3rd album, Midnight Marauders & Wu-Tang Clan’s debut release Enter Da Wu Tang (36 Chambers) were both released on Nov 9th to massive fanfare & acclaim. Two weeks later, they were both bested sales-wise by the release of Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg’s debut album off of Death Row Records that turned Snoop into a full-fledged mega superstar. Today on The Baseline Blog, I’ve recruited Jay F. from out of his Touched by Music Studio Lab/Cave & break down the legendary Wu-Tang debut. Get your W’s up….

If you missed Tribe’s Midnight Marauders album post, click here.

Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Kliknij obrazek, aby zamknąć

 

PROTECT YA NECK

“The Wu is too slammin’ for these Cold Killin’ labels/Some ain’t had hits since I seen Aunt Mabel/Be doing artists in like Cain did Abel/Now they money’s getting stuck to the gum under the table” – GZA

ME: This song was the 1st official single from this groundbreaking hip hop group. Let’s just think about this for a minute. This song, this aggressive, frenetic, psychotic, record, was their 1st released single??? Are you kidding me?!?! Now before this record, we’ve heard collaboration/posse-type records before & have been wowed by the results. From Tribe’s “Scenario“, to the Self Destruction track from KRS-One, to the Juice Crew’s “The Symphony“, we’ve experienced the highs of when a collaborative effort works wonders. However, this wasn’t a one-time only posse cut, but this was a group, & it had eight different rappers each with different styles going HARD. It almost didn’t make sense at the time, hearing this type of record. Each year, hip hop continued evolving & elevating from the “Sugar Hill/Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five” beginnings, & it kept getting edgier & more creative. Even with that said, we simply had never seen anything before that could even prepare us for what Wu-Tang was offering. It’s almost like going from a rotary phone to a cordless with call display & 3-way dialing all overnight. It would take you a few minutes just to calibrate what was actually happening.

All the lyrical gems dropped in the song in itself were ridiculous, but the way RZA handled the production was like an elite-level cook. Its part Bomb Squad (Public Enemy’s production team), part martial arts, part piano loops & all chaos….with about 2 cups of street ruggedness thrown in. The beat Superman elbows you in the face John Jones style. It’s one of their best records they ever made, plain & simple.

JAY: Revolutionary is what I think of when I look back on the Wu era. A group of lyricists each with their own style and finesse that remarkably was able to complement each other without drowning each other out. For sure not an easy task, but The Wu was able to get it done for several years.

And they were smart, either smart or caught up in the rise of martial arts movie movement that practically played on every hip hop head’s televisions at one point during those times. It was wicked, the fighting, sword slashing sound effects heard throughout their songs is one of the many reason why The Wu Tang Clan was so embraced. Of course, all thanks to RZA’s production who brought all of these qualities to life.

With all that being said, looking back on their first album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”, they almost had no choice but to make “Protect Ya Neck”, their 1st official single. That song to me was the only one that could convey the seriousness of this group’s intentions in entering the hip hop world. It cunningly gives you a healthy dose of what each member is capable of doing and that RZA was going to be a force to be reckoned with in the beat making world. They each represented themselves enough that you couldn’t wait to hear more of their styles as you progressed though the album.

CAN IT BE ALL SO SIMPLE

“Started off on the island, AKA Shaolin/Ni**as wilin’, gun shots thrown, the phone dialin’/Back in the days of 8 now, making a tape now/Rae gotta get a plate now”  – Raekwon

“Kicking the fly clichés/Doing duets with Rae & A/Happens to make my day”

“Sunshine plays a major part in the daytime…” – Ghostface Killah

ME: I’m going to piggyback off on your revolutionary views on the Wu for a second Jay. Outside of the many ways this group affected the culture of our generation, an underrated fact that they did with this song: they helped usher Hype Williams into the game. Shooting his first major video, Williams’ vignettes matched the essence of the lyrics from Ghost & Raekwon. We have seen lots of videos shot in the hood from our respective rappers, but until then, we never seen it shot so cleanly. It almost looked like a mini movie, with all the slo-mo shots of the Clan shooting dice, hanging out, their crews posting up on Lexus’, Acura’s, & MPV’s, the cinematic look helped to make this song feel even bigger than it already was. After that, the who’s who of the Hip Hop & R&B industry clamoured to get that same special touch from Williams that he helped give to Wu. You don’t think this video was a factor in sculpting the way videos were shot? Look at this video & compare it to all the other videos that came from this album. All of them were cool but, Can it Be looks like it was shot by Scorcese compared to the others. Admit it Jay, you weren’t expecting me to go into that direction were you? Also, the rumors that I wrote this paragraph in a smoker’s robe while sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass of Brandy like those Turner Classic Movie intros…. are mostly false.

JAY: Check point for you Cal. I had no idea Hype did this video, or that you sip brandy naked sitting in front of a fireplace (I assume wearing the robe was the “mostly false” part…you friggin weirdo). I can see why other artists lined up for him to shoot their video. It’s amazing how a video can play an important role in capturing the essence of a song. Wu chilling in the streets, black hoodies, talking, cracking jokes. We’ve all done it at some point, hanging out later at night with your peeps, those were at times the best moments, when you can laugh and be real. Then the video cuts to day time shots, simple and focused on the two lyricists doing their thing.

A few things that become apparent while listening to this song (or watching this video) is the connection that Raekwon & Ghostface Killah had. There’s always inner bonds in a clique where individuals see eye to eye more than others (not in a bad way at all), But if you think about it in regards to this song, which other Wu members could have pulled it off as smooth as those guys? Once again RZA’s production was tight and works really well with Hype’s vision of the video. Not to mention Wu Tang was brave to make a song of this tempo on this album, especially when you listen to their other songs, but they were able to pull it off. They showed people that “Yes, we can get you all riled up with songs like Protect Ya Neck, but we can also cool it down, still stay tight lyrically, & keep it laid back enough for slow head bob”. Funny how the Range Rover even back then was the bomb SUV…

ME: Nah man, you got that wrong. You can never do that in front of a fireplace. One of the flames flickers & sparks out of the pit towards you….yeah, you really can’t come back from that. To jump back on the video for a second, can you imagine in 2013 if a group were to come out in a video posing in front of Acuras TLs & Mazda 3s? You’d know for sure their budget is extremely tight right off the bat, and most likely it would be 3-4 of their friends shooting the video off their iPhones & Galaxys from various angles. What would happen faster: Us changing the channel or the strippers video chicks walking off the set? Crazy. Funny how much things have changed since then.

C.R.E.A.M.

“The courts played me short, now I face incarceration/Pacin’, going upstate’s my destination/Handcuffed in back of the bus, forty of us/Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough.” – Inspectah Deck

ME: Let’s just get this out of the way right now, this is easily one of the greatest songs, not hip hop songs, but songs that’s ever been made. Put this in the same category with any song the Beatles, Elvis, Elton John & any other legendary artists or group did that affected the society that they lived in. I’m not saying this with hyperbole here. Think for a second of the cultural impact this song still has. That term C.R.E.A.M. is probably the most used word that affected pop culture in the last 25+ years. Cash Rules Everything Around Me. It fits in every structure of life, from the most determined stockbroker on Wall Street, to the shadiest drug dealer, & everyone in between & to the side. It’s how our society is built. We do everything that we can to stack that paper, whether it’s to be responsible for the future or to floss & pop bottles at the club today, we may not admit it, but it is our life’s mantra. We all want to touch the good life in some way, so this was part of the genius of this song that they touched on this topic. A slang acronym made by them that’s timeless today as it was back in 1993. It’s an incredibly creative move that makes them relevant being that you always think about them when this word is mentioned, or when you grinding hard to make that money.

We haven’t even gotten to the lyrics dropped by Raekwon & Inspectah Deck, touching on their hard lives growing up & the decisions that they’ve made to make a better one. It’s done in a gritty way, but it’s actually a positive song when you break it down. Two things I’ll mention here: 1) Deck’s verse in this song is very underrated. Rae’s verse is sweet, but why I say this is that from looking through the DJ/Producer glasses here, the amount of songs that sampled Deck’s lines in this song is ridiculous. 2) No one in this group could have pulled off the hook better than Method Man. This dude was a true superstar back then & his flow, his voice (sounding different than anything we heard before or since he entered the game), & the way he carried himself on any song he did, I mean, he stands out. He could be rapping out the words to the Marine Land song & you’re already nodding your head. His voice is magnetizing & you can’t help but listen to what he’s saying at all times. While I won’t say the song wouldn’t be as popular if someone else did the chorus, Meth on the hook just brings the record up to a higher level. I just can’t imagine anyone else in the group drawing you in like that.

JAY: Well said Cal! “C.R.E.A.M.” was indeed one of Wu’s tightest tracks of all time. Method Man kills on this track “Cream get tha money, dollar dollar bills ya’ll“. Every so often you’d like to be a fly on the wall when certain tracks are materialized, like what came first? Would it be the chorus, the lyrics, or the beat? RZA’s production on the track is tight; he can really do no wrong when it comes to his beat making technique, the art of sampling at its very best. Even though this song isn’t as hard hitting as others on the album, you can’t help but wild out when you hear the beat drop in the first few bars. Then off the bat Method Man comes in with the legendary chorus for a quick hit, followed by Rae and Deck.

Both Rae and Deck come off great in this song. However to me, with how the track is laid out, Rae gets the most props off the track while Deck bringing up the rear kind of gets left behind. No disrespect to Deck because his lyrics are tight as well. But Rae coming in after the chorus as the primary beat drops makes his verse even better. True story telling indeed, we get a little glimpse in to the beginnings of two of Wu’s best lyricists. I like how they both come off on this track, it’s simple, and for the lack of better words “not noisy”….you get the story straight up with no chaser. The beat is clean, not distracting and the lyrics are crisp, and you right Cal, another collabo where only those two guys can bring life to this track. They both have a kind off lazy lyrical style which plays to the laid back flow of this track even though the message is no joke. C.R.E.A.M. is definitely one of the classic Wu tracks, which even though it might not be played as often as it should be nowadays, it still feels good to hear. I think I still got some Wu Wear jeans in my closet, gotta represent at the next old skool jam.

SHAME ON A N****

“Shame on a Nuh! Who tried to run game on a Nuh!” 

“Yo hut one hut two hut three hut!/Ol’ Dirty Bastard live & uncut”

– Do I really have to tell you here?

ME: We can’t get away with talking about this album without mentioning Dirty. Has there ever been a character like this in hip hop before? He was like the crazy drunk uncle out of the group, always sounded like he was 3 drinks over his personal limit. As wild as he was, he still put it together in a creative manner that somehow made sense at the end. He was the other side of the spectrum to Method Man just in the sense that what Meth brought to the table in terms of his smooth flow & husky voice, Dirty brought the crazy, almost nonsensical style that had no origin to it whatsoever. To flip it in martial arts terms, he really was the verbal drunken master if there ever was one. I always loved him the most on his song, it’s like RZA decided that this beat was too smooth for his liking & just threw him in there to see what would happen next.

Also, he had the most creative radio edit for the N-word. Usually any curse word either gets blanked out, has a ding or some crazy sound effect, or it gets played in reverse so that it can be playable for radio mix shows. Usually that’s the responsibility of the producer or sound engineers to deal with that. I would love to know who decided for him to do that, be it him or RZA to come up with “Nuh!” to replace the N-word, but it added a funny element to any record he was on. To be honest, it’s one of the reasons why I love listening to the radio edited version over the original, just to hear “Nuh!” That, and my one quick childhood story regarding this record. One day I was listening to this song on the radio & the chorus was coming in as my Father walked into my room to hear what I was listening to. When he asked what that “Nuh” sound was, I explained to him what it meant, while nodding my head to the beat. He took one looong look at me….held that look for an extra second…..& then just walked out of the room. Just that priceless, “My son is a dumbass” look on his face alone will never make me forget this song, and it’s all due to ODB.

JAY: Ahhh Ol’ Dirty Bastard. I can’t even say he was revolutionary, because no one has ever been able to duplicate or even imitate his lyrical style. He was indeed a “one of a kind” rapper that will go down in history as the best there ever was (more like the best creativity-wise there ever was). “Got burnt once but that was only gonorrhea”, Oh Dirty, the ladies won’t care. They would still want a piece of you.

Cal you had right it, listening to the clean version is much more memorable that the original. Method Man’s verse is a prime example of how sick he was lyrically. His style was unmatched back then and I would still think this now. His flow was tight, quick witted and clever. Shoot, while writing this response to you, I’ve listened to Meth’s verse 10 times already, I can’t get enough of it. Ol’ Dirty’s verses are imaginable as ever, that 3 drinks over his personal limit might be an understatement.  He might have also been under that “Oooh Weee” when dropping his verses. You almost don’t know what to expect when ODB touches a track, but you always know that it will be crazy, and like me, you’ll wait for someone to post the lyrics online so you can rap along. Oh yeah, Raekwon’s on this track as well. He actually didn’t really need to be, but who am I to tell them what to do??? Once again RZA does his magic on the beats, but honestly I don’t even really care about it as much as I would on other tracks, its ODB and Method Man’s verses that make this track great.

Shame on a “Nuh!” to anyone who didn’t like this track.

ME: A perfect example of the levels of crazy that ODB can reach? That Woo-Haa remix he did with Busta Rhymes. I know, I know, it has absolutely nothing to do with this album….I honestly just wanted an excuse to show this video.

METHOD MAN

“From the slums of Shaolin/Wu-Tang Clan strikes again/The RZA, the GZA, Ol Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghost Face Killer AND/M-E-T-H-O-D MAN!”

– GZA….then Method Man

JAY: Thank you sir, for giving me the pleasure to start this convo off talking about one of my favorite Wu Tang tracks ever “Method Man”. This track brings back great memories, but most notably though were the times when I would listen to this track on my way to school early morning before home period for basketball practice. There was an energy in this track that got me pumped before, after and throughout my day. Needless to say, this track was in heavy rotation on my Walkman (Sheesh! A Walkman, how far we have come).

There were several elements in this track that made it special for me. From the mentioning of the other group members in the intro, to when Meth first comes in with the chorus, to the RZA’s production. All of which made this track a highlight on the album. Once again, Meth shows you that his lyrical style is unmatched, and more so his capability of holding down a track with little help from the others. So it was no surprise when Wu started releasing solo artists, the debut started off with Method Man’s “Tical” album.

Method Man was clever in how he linked his versus together, catchy, and at times a little silly.

“Patty cake patty cake, hey! The Method Man/Don’t eat Skippy, Jif or Peter Pan/Peanut butter, Cause I’m not butter/In fact I snap back like a rubber/band, I be Sam, Sam I am/And I don’t eat green eggs and ham/Style will hit ya, wham!, then goddamn/You be like ‘oh shit that’s the jam’…”

But that’s what made it so great to listen and rap along too. There aren’t many tracks out there that I can really enjoy listening to, and I’m glad that this one is by far one of the best.

ME: Silly? A little silly?? Jay, this man in a song — representing one of the most rugged groups of all time – mentions in order:

  • Patty Cake(s)
  • Skippy
  • Jif
  • Peter Pan
  • Peanut Butter (what, no mention of jam??)
  • Sam I am
  • Green Eggs AND…… Ham.

Take a look at that list again. He actually spent time name-dropping different brands of Peanut Butter & Dr. Seuss in his rhymes. He then goes on to quote Tweety Bird & Fat Albert 25 seconds later. Can you imagine what was going on in the mind of the sound engineer when he was mixing down the record? The poor bastard probably picked up the phone multiple times to call RZA & Meth to ask if they’re absolutely sure they don’t want to redo the first half of the verse, thought better of it, hung up & then just continued on with the song with a perplexed look on his face. Considering how the rest of his career turned out though, I’m willing to let this slide. I almost feel like he knew he was so hot back then that he wanted to test the limits of how far he can push us by sliding that in his lyrics. As a teenager, I would play this song relentlessly but always pause slightly at the Green Eggs part like, “really?” I think though that in a funny way, it actually speaks to how great Meth was & is as a rapper & musician. I won’t even get into the fact that he’s by far the only rapper in this group that pulls it off (seriously, I’m not even touching that), by having an authentic voice & delivery, it can really take you far with your audience. I’m not just talking rappers, but singers too.

Whenever someone like Marvin Gaye or Al Green, or even a Ron Isley starts to sing a song, you don’t even need to hear what they’re actually even singing about, they’ve already roped you in with their voice and delivery. The charisma, smoothness, swagger, however you want to describe it, sounds so natural that it comes off as another instrument woven into the music. It’s an extremely powerful quality to have if you’re blessed to even have the quality. In hip hop, rappers like Method Man, Snoop Dogg, & Notorious B.I.G. are examples of this. As soon as they start rapping, you’re pulled in until they’re finish. Didn’t matter what they said, they had you. On top of that, they all had the lyrics & wordplay to match that natural gift they possessed & that’s what made them superstars. This is the greatest trick that Meth shows you in his song, he was magnetic & you couldn’t help but stop what you were doing to hear him speak…..even if he was jacking the words off of Dr. Seuss.

To take it a bit further, it’s that magnetizing spirit that Wu Tang had on our generation. Once they had us, we were taken in by everything they said & did. They changed the game in ways we didn’t even fathom. They affected everything & everyone, from the hood to the suburbs, the streets to the boardroom. They were the first group to sign a record deal that allowed ALL of the members to sign their own individual deals. They were one of the first set of artists to have their own clothing line, setting the path for guys like Diddy & Jay-Z to be wildly rich from this business. They affected our slang, our footwear, shiiit, we even watched more Kung-Fu flicks because of them.  Most importantly, they released large amounts of classic material for almost 7 years straight right up until Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele album…..but 36 Chambers was the foundation where the house was built on. Twenty years after their legendary debut, their influence is still felt & for that we are all still very thankful.

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

Follow me on Twitter or email me at southshoreave@gmail.com

To catch up my previous posts, click here.

Very special thanks to Jay F. for his contributions to this article/blog posting. His radio show The Limelight airs every Saturday from 6 – 8PM on CJLO. You can catch the podcast versions of his show at http://www.podomatic.com/limelight

Golden Era: 20th Anniversary of A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders

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We here at South Shore Ave are gassing up the DeLorean & taking you back through to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Greatest Time in Hip Hop history. Back in November 1993, three iconic albums were released within a span of fourteen days that forever changed the landscape of hip hop music. A Tribe Called Quest’s 3rd album, Midnight Marauders & Wu-Tang Clan’s debut release Enter Da 36 Chambers were both released on Nov 9th to massive fanfare & acclaim. Two weeks later, they were both bested sales-wise by the release of Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg’s debut album off of Death Row Records that turned Snoop into a full-fledged mega superstar. This week, we’ll be taking a look back at each album, reminisce over our favorite tracks & the impact it made on the music industry. Today on The Baseline Blog, with the help of my friend Phil N. DeBlanc, we will take you back and review our favorite songs from ATCQ’s Midnight Marauders LP. Hold on to your seats…

Award Tour

“Lyrically I’m Mario Andretti on the MoMo/Ludicrously speedy or infectious with the slo-mo/Heard me in the eighties, J.B.’s on “The Promo”/In my never-ending quest to get the paper or the caper.” – Q-Tip

Me: Not sure where to start here Phil.  Do we touch on the infectious chorus done by Trugoy from De La Soul? The all-out, xylophone-flavored production from Tribe itself? Or the fact that Montreal or Toronto didn’t get a shout out on the chorus? Is that too much to ask? I mean, Montreal DID win the Stanley Cup that year & the Blue Jays DID win back-to-back World Series right before the LP dropped.  Phife’s a sports nut, he couldn’t get clearance for Canada to represent on the hook too???  Ok, maybe I’m being a little selfish here. In any event though, this was the official first song released off of Midnight Marauders. What I loved about this song more than anything else is that it raised the bar even higher from their other work. I love Check The Rhyme, Bonita Applebum, Jazz (We Got It), & everything that came from Tribe, but this was the 1st example of how they now had their craft mastered from top to bottom in every sense. This still remains as their most popular & highest charting song believe it or not. 

Phil: “Doo dat – doo dat – doo doo dat dat dat “ – Still more memorable than most stuff out now…with an xylophone no less!

I thought I was the only one wanting some Canadian love from NY hip hop. Didn’t BDK (Taste of Chocolate intro) and ATCQ ( Award Tour) know how hard it was for us to support them? Waiting weekly for CKUT to stumble their way into playing some rap on the radio? Did they not know how heavy Walkman’s and Discman’s were? How many times did your rinky dink headphones with the metal band dent your high top, but you didn’t care cause the tracks were tight? How much allowance money did I spend on batteries and tapes to support the cause? Yet Paris and Tokyo got the love? Are you kidding me? Eh?

I think this was the track where they announced that they had arrived. This was their James Harden track. Allow me to explain the similarities. A bit of buzz when they first declared they were eligible for the draft. Some heads knew but they weren’t front page headline worthy….Had to bide their time on the bench while Durant and Westbrook (Native Tongues) got more shine. 6th man status nonetheless….Learned the playbook and how to master their craft and when it was time to blow…enter 2012 James Harden. Fear the Beard!…now everyone wants to sign on for the ride.

I was always more partial to Phife’s verse because he had came off like a lyrical Napoleon. Though he was small in stature he could hold his own with his words. Until my pituitary gland kicked in, this guy was my idol…

Me: First of all, you spent a lot of money on batteries? You didn’t keep them in the fridge in the same slot where you kept the stick of margarine & the cheese? You had to stretch out the life span of everything back then. Waste not, want not! Either you did that or you found the special on the economy-sized red Eveready batteries & just kept them in your knapsack until you got down to the last pair. The things we had to do to listen to music.

Phife does a great job of finishing off the track, but man, Q-Tip kinda just wowed you lyrically here. An underrated exercise in lyricism that often goes unnoticed at times, because of the chorus & the infamous “Do Dat” part of the song. But that “Do Dat” line did two things for his verse: It dumbed down his verse just enough for the average listener to hold on to while also making it catchy & fun enough to be remembered forever. Seriously, even if you’re not totally familiar with Tribe’s work, if you tell someone in our generation “Do Dat Do Dat…”, almost 100% of the time, they finish the sentence for you while nodding their heads. This is partly what I meant by them having their style & craft mastered. Having the skills to appeal to the hip hop heads who hungered for the verbal wordplay, to the average person who just wanted to have a good time & dance to your work, while keeping everyone happy AND making a memorable classic in an effortless manner. Not as easy as it sounds or looks.

INTERESTING FACT: Q-Tip was inspired by & then used Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away” bass line to make this track.

Sucka Ni**a

“What you figure, rhyme-wise I do the figure eight so concisely/Musically we are the herb so sit back and light me/Inhale….. My style is kinda fat reminiscent of a whale” – Q-Tip

Me: This song probably represented the many times in hip hop that the word “Nigga” sparked a controversy. In this case Q-Tip took it upon himself here to show us his views on the topic. Tip weaves through each topic in the track seamlessly: how he feels about brothers acting as something that they’re not, to the origins of the word, to the position that he & his generation feel about the word, to the simple fact that he just can’t stop saying it. Two things about this track I’ll address right off the top of my head: 1) Probably one of the most underrated tracks on this album; & 2) This is probably one of the first times that I believed that even back then, Q-Tip was probably headed towards a solo career at some point.

Don’t get me wrong, Tip & Phife Dawg play off their skills & styles like few rappers did before them or since. Those two together were like soulful medicine, & that greatness stuck out like a sore thumb even with all the great rappers & groups in the Golden Era of Hip Hop that Tribe lived in, but Q-Tip really owned that track. You didn’t need Phife on that track nor did you want him to be on it. Just a beautifully cohesive marriage between lyrical substance, social content, simplicity, production & rare groove sampling. It’s one of the many, many reasons why I miss 90’s hip hop, especially when you turn on the radio & hear the songs that are being played now. I mean, will you ever see platinum selling group that raps about good times, focus on musical substance & doesn’t pop molly/sip lean/smoke kush/shoot people in the face again?

Phil: I never played this song too loud at home because it had “foul language” peppered generously in the chorus. If my Tribe was confiscated…maaaaaan…I shudder at the thought. I don’t think I would have been able to successfully explain to my parents that a man named “Q-Tip” was trying to teach me something.

Thanks to the total degeneration of my once beloved and misunderstood hip hop, I barely listen to these new so called artists. One particular reason is because their songs do not have much of a message. Sucka Nigga however, is the opposite.  As a matter of fact, this song could be deemed prophetic;

“Now the little shorties say it all of the time/And a whole bunch of ni**as throw the word in they rhyme”

Insert almost any modern day artist into that list. It seems like anytime an artist has a brain cramp, they call on the N-word like Mighty Mouse to save the day (Busta Rhymes’ ears must be ringing). Anyway, back to the track. In my opinion it was lyrically ingenious. The song possesses an educational and sociocultural aspect that can often be overlooked. I figure ATCQ had tons of notepads and loose leaf of brainstormed rhymes. By no means were they low on creative juices. So how brilliant is it that the second verse isn’t that different from the first? Apparently, there was a message we were intended to absorb over that Freddie Hubbard sample…

“It means that we will never grow, you know the word dummy/Other ni**as in the community think it’s crummy/But I don’t, neither does the youth cause we/Em-brace adversity it goes right with the race”

Could that be it? I think so. The use of the N-word and those who try to justify it is a topic of discussion for another time. But I will raise this question: How many other artists could have pulled off this title and track 20 years ago and made it a classic?

Me: Back in 1993, over that production? Not too many guys to be honest. Ice Cube possibly, because every now & again he would rap about something social, but with the content & this beat it wouldn’t have been as smooth, & it definitely would have been edgier. I’d like to think that Tupac would have done a really good job on this track actually, his vocals & emotion would have worked fine here, plus he’s taken stabs at socially conscious & uplifting music (like “Keep Your Head Up” for example) around these times. Chuck D would have sounded too aggressive, & as much as I loved Guru, he wasn’t lyrical enough to make it a classic (although the production from DJ Premier would have been incredible). We can pretty much forget about groups like EPMD & Onyx. If Redman did it, it may have been an interlude called “Sucka Niggaz & Bitches” & it would have had so much weed talk on the record we would have gotten high from just listening to it. I think Nas, Common, Andre 3000, & Lauryn Hill could have done well with it too, but they were still a year away from changing the game.

I agree that the N-word topic is a discussion for another time, but it just goes to show you after the whole civil rights movement in the 1960’s & the changing of black culture since that period, that it’s still very much a hot button topic then as it was in the 1990s, as it still is today. When Nas wanted to named his LP the “Ni**er Album” back in 2008, it raised so many debates & controversy at the time that it almost ostracized him altogether. Even though his career was still intact after that situation, you did think at that point with all the backlash that this might be the beginning of the end for him. At least I did. As we also learned through the negative sides of social media & Joel Ward’s 2012 playoff experience, we still have a long way to go as a society when it comes to the use of this word & the history that continues to be built upon it.

To bring it back full circle though, if this song came out right now, it would still be relevant today. We still use the word as a term of endearment amongst our friends, it’s still sprinkled up & down in our favorite hip hop songs, it’s still an uncomfortable topic to discuss publicly, & Busta would still make love to this word if it were a woman. A part of me still wonders if he makes another song one day that tops “Break Your Neck”. The amount of times he dropped the N-Word in that song, was like the hip hop equivalent of dropping 70 points in a game. It was almost kind of amazing actually.

Electric Relaxation 

“Let me hit it from the back, girl I won’t catch a hernia/Bust off on your couch now you’ve got Seamens furniture” – Phife

Phil: ” I am speechless…I am without speech!” – Elaine Benes (Seinfeld)

Bonita Applebum Part 2 for the guys who wanted to get it in but didn’t know how to express themselves. Whoever she was back then, she couldn’t relate. Songs like these are why my batteries were in the fridge and my wacky high top had dents in it. No, its not because my barber was subpar, its because this track had me vibing. There are a handful of instruments that can resonate well with me: pianos, horns (only because I was a victim of the Pete Rock production) and bass.  I can envision this song being performed in a jazz bar on the down low with an older bassist just strumming along laying it down. Sometimes there are songs that are so perfectly timeless that nobody should ever touch them again. You can admire them…but from a distance. This, to me, belongs in that category (see MJ or Stevie’s catalogue).

Me: If I had to pick two timeless records off this album that might still be played 50 years from now, Award Tour would be one, &  Electric Relaxation would be the other. Just the way it starts off, it sounds so smooth but you’re not 100% sure what to expect just yet. Then the strum of the guitar comes in from that Mystic Brew sample & Tribe’s already in a chick’s ear trying to get the draws like Tommy from Martin. That in itself would have been it in terms of the track, but then Q-Tip passes it off to Phife Dawg & he utters the words:

“I like ’em Brown, Yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian/Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation…”

The song went from good, to great, to legendary in 4.7 seconds. That line took the song to a whole other level. This song might be the pre-cursor to the Ice Cream hook that Method Man cooked up 2 years later on Raekwon’s classic, “Only Built for Cuban Linx” album. Plus the fact that Phife flashes his West Indian love & roots on wax, I mean, for a teenager of Trini descent in ’93? Mind blowing. It was like Phife was one of us.  It made him more relatable. You’re right about one thing though, if this song came out as an instrumental from Tribe like Marvin Gaye did with “T Plays it Cool”, it might have still been a hit. Production on this record is incredible.

INTERESTING FACT: Kanye and Consequence tried to do something to this beat a few years ago. Yikes. It was as if someone Botoxed the Mona Lisa.

Lyrics to Go

” I’m Jordan with the mic (uh), wanna gamble?” – Phife

Phil: Aside from the fact that it has the best 4-second intro in my Tribe memory bank, there’s something hypnotic about this song. It’s a kaleidoscope beat which again, forces you to rely on the lyrics to navigate through. Another ATCQ beat that only they could have pulled off successfully. You know what? Sometimes when we feel certain artists, we grant them creative leeway. The experimental “one off” examples:

I don’t even feel like they worked that hard on this one, it flowed like a freestyle. What are the odds that they banged this one out in one take? And talk about hypnotic beats, this was on loop 4x straight while I wrote this segment. Cruise control music at its finest….

Me: Did you really have to bring up the Electric Circus album, you bastard?? I mean, we already cremated that album as hip hop listeners & Common fans.  We even sprinkled the ashes & knitted cloth into the ocean while wiping away tears. Shit, even Common has his copies of that album in his storage unit. He already apologized by giving us “Be” & “Finding Forever”. I feel like that’s a low blow dude, even if he isn’t reading this.

The back & forth between Phife & Tip on this was on pre-Jadakiss & Styles P levels, the verbal sparring mixed with the never ending Mimmie Ripperton sample. Both of them were at their best, it’s actually debatable if we’ve heard any better lyrically from them. You say it comes off as a freestyle, it’s as if they were in a cypher in front of an A&R trying to sign their first deal. It’s almost like you can feel the hunger in each word. That’s actually pretty remarkable that they still sounded like that even though they came off the success of Low End Theory. This was the 2nd to last track on the album & they were still trying to make our heads spin.

I’m still not over that Electric Circus low blow by the way.

Oh My God

“Jalick…Jalick ya wind up ya hip/Drafting of the poets, I’m the #7 pick/Licks licks licks boy, ‘pon ya backside (x2)” – Q-Tip

Phil: No matter where you are or what you’re doing, I guarantee you sing along. Admit it. Thought so. Here’s another song with a classic intro and solid sample, right? Just add it to their list. Sampling really is an art and why I loved hip hop so much. You know that feeling when you hear an old track from the 60’s – 70’s and then it hits you like, “Hey! Wait a minute! They sampled this to make _____!” Then you have that proud MacGwyver moment because you figured it out. But then you realize you could never turn an umbrella & lawn mower (samples) into a getaway helicopter (beat) like they did?

There’s that jazzy base again. Phife gets my vote on this one. He only had one verse and he made the most of it. That’s an art that Vinny (Naughty By Nature) never mastered. It isn’t because he was the weakest of the two by any means either.

“Used to have a crush on Dawn from En Vogue/It’s not like honey dip would want to get with me/but just in case I own more condoms than TLC” 

Interesting excerpt, right? Well, anyone ever think that this verse might have influenced Biggie to pen “Dreams”? I don’t have the timeline, but wouldn’t it be cool if it did? Can’t you just see something like this happening?

Q-Tip gave him one of the best lead-ins ever and once he took off with “Trini Gladiator” and culminated with “Funky Diabetic” it was a wrap. They could have faded to the outro and it wouldn’t have made a difference. I ask you this, was Q-Tip’s verse really necessary? Why did he get two anyway? Make-up verses?

Me: That was the beauty of these two guys. You can say that Q-Tip was the “lead” out of the two & Phife was the 1A if we had to technically label their positions, but when Phife was ready to get into a beat’s ass, Q-Tip more than willingly stepped to the side & let Phife go do his thing. To answer your question though, I don’t think Q-Tip’s 2nd verse was needed really other than to make the song long enough to be usable for radio airplay. This is the one song off Marauders where the video is forever imprinted into my head. Tip & Phife running after Shaheed’s float with the little kids & Busta Rhymes in his “Guest spot, rah-rah, yellow raincoat & matching hat, pre-Guiness Book of World Record for N-Word mentioning” glory screaming the Lord’s good name on top of the convenient store. Great times!

It always seemed as though they were having so much fun together, be it recording, doing videos & shows. It’s that quality that makes them the most relatable, unlike some of these other groups that were larger than life at the time (ie. Public Enemy, Naughty, Cypress Hill), Tribe made you feel as if they were your boys that you hung with, even if they were superstars at the time themselves.

Although I don’t think Phife’s TLC lyric predated Biggie’s Dreams, I’m pretty sure that when Biggie heard this track, he smiled & nodded.

Album Cover and Closing Thoughts

Phil: Never to be replicated or duplicated. One of the greatest covers in hip hop, if not the music industry. A guess who or who’s who of the golden years…. and Sean Combs managed to slide his way in there (bottom left corner of the rear). Who let Verbal Kint (Keiser Sose) in the photo shoot? Imagine that he probably grossed more than Tribe and everyone else on the cover combined. Where’s the justice? Based on their facial reactions, maybe that’s what they were all told before their portrait was taken (look at them)!

You know how Chris Webber probably regrets not taking part of that Fab Five documentary (man, how great are those ESPN Docs)? Who do you think might have passed on being part of the shoot? Or missed the call? Gang Starr? Naughty by Nature? LL Cool J? Where was Biggie? Grand Puba? Hmmm….

I am lucky to have an older brother who was my gatekeeper into music. Some of the music he brought home wasn’t even worth puncturing the holes at the top of a blank cassette. Other times everything works and we are blessed with a masterpiece. Vinyl turned to tapes, tapes to CDs and CDs to data. No matter the format, this album should be immortalized in that pantheon of hip hop lore. Also remember that Hot Sex was on the European version. Damn man!!!!!

I’ll say this, as good as Phife was on all these albums we should acknowledge that Q-Tip was the mastermind of the beats. I would compare Q-Tip to Erick Sermon and Phife was Parrish Smith. You never knew how bad one would miss the other until it actually happened. That’s when we got Amplified and uhh…Ventilation. There must still be enough slices of that humble pie in Phife’s freezer.

Tribe beats were jazzy, experimental, easy going and non threatening. Essentially, that was the recipe for success. Somehow, the game changed and the fun loving message got lost. Don’t believe me? How many times did they ever rhyme about getting or having money? Exactly.

Me: The Marauders album cover is the official time capsule for hip hop. The hottest DJ’s,  artists, producers, movers & shakers in the industry represented on the cover of that time. Never seen anything like that before or since, & I think it adds to the mystique of this album. When I first spent my lunch money on the tape (yes, I said tape), I remember not even listening to it right away cuz I spent so much time trying to figure out the faces on this album. Whenever I look back on it as time goes on, I still get surprised by the faces that made this cover. Dr. Dre? Too Short? Puffy???? Actually, the Puffy one makes sense for that time though. He was the hottest thing going at Uptown Records, helped to make Jodeci & Mary J. Blige superstars, & had already started a buzz on the streets with Biggie Smalls earlier that summer.

You do bring up a funny point though. Can you imagine how some of those cats felt that either ignored the call, or worse, didn’t even get called for this? How awkward must those conversations have been afterward, especially when the album was flying off the shelves?

Neglected Artist: Yo Tip? What’s happening man! Congrats on the successful album homie. Yo man, um…how come you didn’t call me for the cover shoot man??? I live 10 minutes away from the spot!

Tip: You mean you didn’t get the message??? Nah son, I left you a message on your answering machine! What’s your number again man?

N.A: Come on Tip, it’s 555-718-1234!

Tip: Ahhhhh shit dawg, I have 555-718-123…5 man! Oh man, my bad…my bad……yo, I can call you back though?

N.A: Come on son……sigh…….aieet man, I guess that’s cool. I know I was having trouble with my answering machi…………hello? Hello???

****sound of dial tone on the other end****

I said this before, but it bears mentioning again: When will you ever see a group like this again, especially in today’s musical landscape? A group who just rhymed mostly about good times.  Their songs didn’t involve drugs, maiming or murdering people, made you dance & have a good time, and yet, still managed to sell millions of records? The formula’s been tried since, but always failed. Slum Village has some success, but Jay Dee left before they had a chance to make a real impact. Little Brother came after them & had a nice little buzz, but it died once they tried to go major with their The Minstrel Show LP & flopped miserably on the charts (even though that album was really good). Of course, their producer 9th Wonder left them too shortly afterward. Then the group Strange Fruit came out a few years ago, but I bet you the first time you heard of them was at the beginning of this sentence. We’ve been waiting for someone to replace that void Tribe left in music, but we have to accept the fact that they’re simply irreplaceable. We just have to continue listening to this album along with all their other work whenever we need that fix; & pray that they do a reunion concert in our city so that we can see them in person. It’s for this reason why they’re part of the Golden Era of hip hop music. However, like any great era in any type of genre, once it ends, it ends & that’s it. That’s why we remember those times as fondly as we do.

Last question: You know whenever we discuss the greatest producers in hip hop history (ie. Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, Timbaland, RZA, The Neptunes, Kanye West), is there any reason why Q-Tip never gets mentioned? If this is one of the greatest hip hop groups ever, & he was the man behind their classic songs, shouldn’t he at the very least get an honorable mention? He worked outside of the group too & made classic songs with Nas (One Love), Mobb Deep (Temperature’s Rising, Give Up the Goods, and Drink Away The Pain), & Janet Jackson (Got Til It’s Gone) just for starters, yet gets ignored to some extent historically.

The List of Faces on the Midnight Marauders album cover:

Afrika Bambaataa /AMG/Ant Banks/Awesome Two/Beastie Boys (Mike D, Adrock, MCA)/Black Moon/Busta Rhymes/Casual/Chi Ali/Chuck D/The Cold Crush Brothers (Almighty KG, Charlie Chase,Easy AD, Grandmaster Caz, DJ Tony Tone)/Daddy-O (of Stetsasonic)/Dallas Austin/Del Tha Funkee Homosapien/Diamond D/Doug E. Fresh/De La Soul (Posdnuos, Dave & Mase)/DJ Jazzy Joyce/Kool DJ Red Alert/DJ Ron G/DJ Silver D/DJ Teddy Ted/Dr. Dre/Grandmaster Flash/Heavy D/Ice-T/Jazzy Jay/Jungle Brothers (Afrika Baby Bam, Mike G)/DJ Kid Capri/Kool Moe Dee/Large Professor/ Lords of the Underground/MC Lyte/MC Serch/Neek the Exotic/Organized Konfusion/The Pharcyde (Fat Lip, Imani, Romye, Slim Kid Tre’)/Pete Nice/Rashad Smith/Rock Steady Crew (Crazy Legs, Mr. Wiggles, Pee Wee Dance, Ruel)/Sean Combs/Skeff Anselm/Souls of Mischief/Special Ed/Sweet Tee/Too Short/Whodini (Grandmaster Dee) /Zulu Nation Supreme Council (Zulu King Muhammad, Unknown)

Cal Cee // South Shore Ave

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Very special thanks to Phil N. DeBlanc for his contributions to this article/blog posting.