The Ave Podcast with Cal Cee. Episode 21:Raptors, NBA Playoffs, & DAMN.
Today of The Ave Podcast, I invite friends of the Podcast DJ Chris Nice & Headley, as we discuss the Raptors playoff series with the Milwaukee Bucks, Game 6 predictions, as well our favorite moments from the rest of the NBA Playoff landscape.
Towards the end of the Podcast, Shawn Adonis (past contributor to South Shore Ave) joins me to break down Kendrick Lamar’s new album “DAMN”. We also break down where it ranks among his other albums, how it affects the Hip Hop culture, Drake vs. Kendrick comparisons, plus more.
*** Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and the blog below. Today’s podcast is available for streaming and download. Please enjoy. ***
The Ave Podcast with Cal Cee // Episode 21
To download the podcast, feel free to click the link below:
To subscribe to South Shore Ave, click onto the Follow button, and enter your email address, or click onto the RSS Feed. Very special thanks to DJ Chris Nice, Headley, and Shawn Adonis for their guest appearances on this podcast.
Welcome once again to The AvePodcast. In the spirit of #FlashbackFriday, we take you back to the musical Golden Era of 90’s music to celebrate one of the Greatest albums in Hip Hop history. Twenty years ago tomorrow (June 25, 1996), smack in the middle of a East Coast – West Coast Beef led by Bad Boy and Death Row Records, Shawn Carter otherwise known as Jay-Z, dropped his debut album “Reasonable Doubt”. At the time, it was highly viewed as a critically acclaimed album. As time went along, it’s now regarded as a masterpiece and one of the best Hip Hop Albums that has even been made.
Today we welcome back our guest & past contributor to South Shore Ave Shawn Adonis (The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready To Die, Episode 3 of The Ave), as we discuss our favorite songs from the album (what’s said about one song in particular may shock you), if this truly qualifies as Jay-Z’s greatest album, and how it ranks among our all-time Hip Hop albums.
*** Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and the blog below, and also, the podcasts are now available for download. ***
Roc-A-Fella y’all, Ha Haaa……
The Ave Podcast with Cal Cee // Episode 6
To download the podcast, feel free to click the link below:
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 guest appearance on this podcast.
The Ave Podcast with Cal Cee. Episode 3: The Playoffs & The Trap
Welcome once again to The AvePodcast. For Part I, we welcome O’Niel Kamaka(St. Mary’s College alumnist, Northen Kings AAU Basketball Coach), as we discuss our thoughts on the players who has both impressed & disappointed us from the 1st round of the NBA playoffs; recap our thoughts from the Pacers-Raptors series; & if San Antonio becomes the favorite to win it all with Steph Curry’s injuries mounting.
As always, thanks for tuning in. For you newcomers, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and the blog below….
The Ave Podcast with Cal Cee // Episode 3 – PART I “The Playoffs”
PART II “The Trap”
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 O’Niel Kamaka & Shawn Adonis for their guest appearances on this podcast.
In a couple of weeks from now, Toronto will be hosting the largest (if not one of the largest) sporting events in this city’s history. Sorry CFL fans & Grey Cup Guzzlers, it’s the truth. The NBA All Star Game & Weekend is finally coming across the border. I personally have been waiting for this since the NBA announced that Toronto & Vancouver were getting NBA Franchises back in the early 90s. I assumed once the Raptors got settled in (much like Miami, Charlotte, Orlando, & Minnesota a few short years after getting an expansion team), they would get to host an All Star game. Nope. Instead we had to wait 20 years for the NBA to finally deem Toronto worthy. Now that it’s almost showtime, many people are extremely excited for the opportunity to see what all the hype is all about. Almost as big as the event itself, everyone’s wondering what Drake is going to do for that weekend.
The only things that’s been confirmed so far is that he will be coaching one of the teams in the Celebrity Game against Kevin Hart, & that he’s releasing his OVO Jordans the same weekend. Outside of that, no one knows what else he has planned just yet. It could be everything, it could be nothing. He could do concerts across the city, he could perform in front of Maple Leaf Square; or at Dundas Square; or take a heated flatbed down Yonge St & perform all his songs Carnival-style like Kendrick Lamar did in L.A. last summer; or he could just attend all the parties like everyone else (doubtful, but technically an option). No one knows for sure.* If I’m Drake though, none of the above listed items will have as much impact as him releasing “Views From The 6” during All Star weekend…. you know, IF that’s what he chooses to do. It would be the smartest of moves if he pulls that off again like he did for last year’s All Star Weekend. To recap, here’s what happened last February & the impact it had once If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late came out:
The Unexpected Album Drop. In today’s music climate, it has become hard to generate a healthy buzz for your album, and unless you’re a major superstar artist, it’s even harder to make that flip towards large amounts of sales. The music game has changed greatly in the last ten years as you know (think about it: when was the last time you bought a CD off the shelf? Or in a store for that fact?) Unless your album is filled with classic material & that fact is being promoted all throughout the music industry before your album release, generating an album release buzz is much more difficult than it used to be. You know what works in our social media/digital age instead? Unexpected Album Drops! (Let’s refer to it as “UAD” for the remainder of the article). Nothing sets social media on fire more than your favorite artist dropping a new album on you without warning. Not only does it create major news & help that artist trend everywhere, it’s also protection from the album being leaked earlier than its scheduled release date. In a way, it puts the power back into the artist hands. A few artists have done it prior to “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” (ie. Beyonce’s last album), but when Drake did it last winter, it set Twitter on fire. By the next morning, customized “If You’re Reading This…” memes & gifs were already on heavy rotation before you even heard a track. A lead-off single, or a pre-album write up in XXL wasn’t needed. The public literally determined what was hot from the album, & within a few weeks, 14 songs from the album made it on the Billboard charts, something only the Beatles accomplished in music history (until Justin Bieber beat that record with his Purposealbum). Let’s take it a bit further…..
He Sent a Shot to His Competition. We all remember the whole Drake vs Diddy episode, so I won’t rehash it here. What was underrated about the UAD was its timing. At Madison Square Garden last All Star Thursday, Diddy had his first concert to kick off the All Star Weekend, as well as his 20th Anniversary of Bad Boy Records, his first concert in years. It had many, many big names from Snoop, to Nas, to Dr. Dre, to entire former Bad Boy Family + countless surprise guests performing on stage. Looked like an awesome time to be honest. On top of that, whoever couldn’t attend was able to stream the concert on their devices. Around midnight, while the concert was in full swing, Drake does a UAD on the masses. Within the hour, the streaming numbers took a bit of a hit, and even people at the concert took their attention off the stage for a few moments to check their phones respecting the breaking news. It was a chess move. By the time the concert was over, everyone focused their attention to digesting the album for the remainder of the weekend, therefore, putting the spotlight squarely back on Drake. What a time to have it on him because…..
His Album Dropped during “Black Super Bowl” Weekend. Shout out to Bill Simmons for being the first person to publicly coin that term as the “aka” for the NBA All Star Weekend. Since the mid-80s, that weekend has been known for when all the biggest black celebrities in the world get together to take part in the festivities and parties. The All Star Game & festivities take over wherever the host city it’s in like Bigfoot. So naturally, when Drake’s UAD happened, all the celebrities & athletes devoured it like everyone else that weekend, sharing their favorite songs & slangs from the album all over social media. Of course, this is all being re-tweeted & liked by their own followers hundreds of thousands of times, basically making the buzz now turn into The Hulk. You couldn’t possibly pay for better promotion that this.
His Album Dropped on Family Day Weekend. For those that don’t live in Ontario, starting in 2008, an extra long weekend was added to the calendar & was no longer to be the only province in the country with the lowest long weekend totals every year. The great part about Family Day Weekend is that every year it falls on All Star Weekend, so for you hoop junkies (myself included), this is a great weekend to kick back & watch all the festivities and old All Star Game marathons on NBA TV…… as well as spend quality time with family of course (coving my ass here folks). For Torontonians, Drake’s UAD became the official soundtrack for the weekend. Everyone riding around the city in the -45 degree climate to hit up clubs, get-togethers &/or house parties was bumping Drake’s most Toronto-centric album he’s made. I mentioned this to some friends after listening to it the first time. Anyone who was born & raised in Toronto basically stuck out their chests here. Pretty soon, the world would start implementing some of Toronto’s ebonics into their slang venacular. If Drake was the unofficial King of the City, this album added a couple of more rubles to his crown.
He Completed his Contract with Young Money/Cash Money? In one of the smarter moves around, with this particular UAD, Drake would have fulfilled his album obligations with Young Money/Cash Money. With the Cash Money empire in major flux, he may have jumped out the window of a burning house to free himself up towards his own OVO Sound Record Label. Although it keeps being called a Mixtape, it was sold on iTunes with YMCMB attached to it, and also scanned as one of the few platinum albums in the music business for 2015, therefore fulfilling his 4-album contract with his label in the process. If this is actually the case here, these strategies are almost Sun Tzu-like. (Here’s something that needs to be asked: Considering he put out an album that had no marketing or promotion of any kind, yet he still went platinum & broke records on the charts, does he really need to be signed to a record label with anybody at all? Do you really even need a distribution deal from a record label when you’re at his level, if his albums are being bought online & streamed exclusively? It’s an interesting thought.)
We can all admit now whether you love him or hate him, Drake is having an unbelievable 12 months. From winning rap battles, releasing another “Mixtape” with Future, dropping “Hotline Bling” which has taken off on the music charts, Serena, the Apple Deal, launching apps, & continuing to make OVO into one of the hottest brands in Hip Hop.
However, if he repeats the method & release an album’s worth of new material in a couple of weeks, it will further cement his legacy in Toronto. It’s one thing to do what he did in New York City, but putting out Views From The 6 when the spotlight will already be shining on Toronto (especially if the album is nice) will take it to another level. It could be an added event that nobody in the city ever forgets, especially for the ones that share his generational demographic. The Drake Brand can post another win locally and worldwide.
Here’s an underrated reason that’s potentially being glossed over…..
I for one, have always believed that Drake’s role as Global Ambassador of the Toronto Raptors was an underrated move by the Raptors. Just for the simple fact that he is either friends with a lot of major superstar players, or the ones that don’t know him personally (especially the younger players) revere him. In other words, because of who he is, he can put himself in places the average NBA GM cannot, simply due to his lifestyle. Please don’t get it twisted, some of your favorite basketball players love hanging out in this city for quite some time, & you can see a lot of them roaming the city during Caribana Weekend when Drake has his annual OVO Fest.
It lends itself to what Tim Lieweke & Masai Ujiri started in 2013, which is changing the narrative & perception to how NBA players feel about playing in Toronto. At the very least, you want to be respected enough to have the good Free Agents listen to your phone call to get you in the room to take a meeting. 2016 has been deemed as an important year for the Raptors for quite some time now in terms of being seen as a world class city (which is already established), a world class basketball organization, & as major players in the NBA. The Raps have the All-Star game, the new practice facility (which is supposed to be amazing by all accounts) that will be ready shortly, & will be pulling all the stops to show the world what kind of organization this is. Drake’s role on the team whether you believe in it or not, has helped in some ways with raising the awareness about the city with other basketball players & pro athletes. IF Drake does a UAD, the momentum of the aftershocks of that might play a part in how some of these athletes feel about playing for this city in a few months. You might laugh at that & say that’s ridiculous, but a couple of years ago, would you ever think you’d see Kevin Durant wearing a David Price Blue Jays jersey at a concert in Toronto either? I want to make this clear. This is not about believing that Drake can sign players. It’s about changing the perception about how people view a franchise to the point that you’re respected enough for Free Agents to listen to your pitch. That’s all that matters in these cases, that you get a chance to get your foot in the door & make a pitch.
As long as he’s affiliated to the Raptors, doing things like dropping UADs on All-Star weekend to help alter the environment for Player X’s enjoyment for example, helps market the Raptors down the line. It’s almost like dining at an upscale restaurant. You go there for the main course, but if the side dishes are incredible, the wine is aged just right & the service is top notch, you’re going to remember that restaurant experience once it’s time to decide where to dine out again, right? While I’m not relegating Drake’s UAD potential to a side dish, in the case of the Raptors place in the NBA Landscape, experiencing that on a weekend such as this could be placed in a future Free Agent’s memory bank, whether he’s there or hears about it from his peers.
It could be an interesting time in a couple of weeks in Toronto IF this album drops that weekend, going along with all the all-star festivities. Stay tuned…..
* I’m also hearing rumors courtesy of Jacky Jasper that the City of Toronto is banning Drake from headlining any after parties during All Star Weekend due to the aftermath of the shootings from the OVO Fest After Parties at Muzik nightclub last summer. You can read about it here, more as this develops of course.
SIDELINE NOTES
– Everyone keeps making fun of LeBron’s hairline issues & begging for him to cut his hair off. So, you guys are just gonna keep ragging on LBJ, but let Marcus Thornton walk these streets freely huh? That’s actually going to happen?
– If the over/under for Half American/Half Canadian babies being born in late November that were conceived in Toronto is 100, I’m taking the over. I’ll also bet about 8-10 of those babies will come with annual six-figure attachments by way of the Child Support Express…..
– The narrative of LeBron being totally unaware about David Blatt being fired like the rest of society……I don’t want to call someone an outright liar or anything, but I also have no frigging idea how to finish this sentence so…..
– If a condom company was smart, they’d have a kiosk planted at every major hotel across Toronto in about two weeks……
– Do I have to apologize for liking Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” song? I mean, I don’t have to hold onto that secret any longer, right? Ok, cool. Phew!!….
– After watching Steph Curry dismantle the Spurs on Monday, is there any way that the NBA could just announce the regular season MVP award to Curry during the All Star weekend? There really isn’t any point of waiting until May to officially give it to him….
– You’ve seen Josh Smith & Lance Stephenson slapboxing on the bench during OT of that Clippers game a couple weeks ago, right? #KnuckNation
– Speaking of the Knucklehead Awards, did Blake Griffin submit his registration forms too late for this year, or was he getting an early jump on next year’s awards? How do you do that to your boy (Assistant Equipment manager of the Clippers), & what the hell could have been said that you punch him (at a packed restaurant apparently), then follow him out the restaurant to punch him again, repeatedly? Did he sleep with your woman? Stole money from you?? Wore your underwear??? What’s the story here?!?!
– As far as David Blatt is concerned, his major problem was that he wasn’t meant to coach this team. He signed on to coach a rebuilding team with young players headlined by Kyrie Irving & Andrew Wiggins being the faces of the franchise. Then LeBron decided to come home & changed everything. They went from “let’s hope to make the playoffs in the next couple of years” to “championship or bust” by the time training camp started. It’s asking a lot out of most coaches, much less Blatt to coach that kind of team, especially when you have never coached in the NBA before. Once LeBron started treating Blatt like someone who showered every 5th day but always wants to hug it out, everyone else followed suit, including Tyronne Lue who used to call timeouts behind his back.
Unlike Miami’s situation a few years ago, Blatt did not have the backing from management & ownership to stand firm with LeBron. So it was only a matter of time. On top of that, personally, he always seemed a little pompous to me, always reminding people in interviews that he won a million championships in Israel, as if he had to continually validate himself to the public that he was a good coach and not Lebron’s wash cloth. He may have been doomed to fail from the start, but between that, and what Brendan Haywood had to say about the situation, it’s not as if he exactly helped himself either.
Cal Cee // South Shore Ave
To subscribe to The Baseline Blog, click onto the Follow button or by entering your email address.
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 one of the Greatest albums in Hip Hop history. While this isn’t quite the Twentieth anniversary date of Raekwon’s solo album “Only Built For Cuban Linx…” (initial release date was Aug 1, 1995), we simply couldn’t let 2015 pass us by without discussing one of the greatest Hip Hop Albums of the Golden Age era. So without further ado, me & my friend Shawn Adonis, break down four tracks off the legendary album. The Ice Cream Man is coming…..
**DISCLAIMER — this is not a Top 4 list. You could make an argument for 10 songs from this album being in the Top 4. This is strictly a review, a collection of songs from the album.**
Ice Cream
“Yo honey dip / summertime fine, jewelry dripping / Seen you on Pickens with a bunch of chickens how you’re clicking / I keep shooting strong notes as we got close / She rocked rope, honey throat smelling like impulse.” – Ghostface Killah
Cee: Lemme give you my personal experience of this Ice Cream track, one that still stings somewhat years later. Twenty years ago, right after Labor Day weekend, I went down to New York City to visit my family for about a week or so in the Bronx. While listening to Hot 97, they announced that they’d be shooting the Ice Cream video in Staten Island that day, & get this…… EVERYONE and ANYONE were invited. They gave the address to the area where they’d be shooting the video and everything. Now, considering at the time that I damn near had this song & the album on repeat for weeks on end, this might have been the best thing I had ever heard in my life at that moment. What are the chances I’d be in New York City, the same time they’d be filming this video that I could actually be a part of??? Now, one thing about New York that I’ve come to realize over the years, a lot of people don’t know much outside of their borough. For example, you could live in Brooklyn your whole life, & have absolutely no idea how to get to or around the Bronx, or Queens, or sadly, even parts of Brooklyn. This brings me to my cousin Rob…
Now I shouldn’t knock him because he usually has a good sense of where he’s going for the most part when it comes to navigating through those NY streets. However, when I suggested to him that we should go down to Staten Island to check out the video, dude had no idea how to get there. I was so confused & annoyed at the same time. I was basically like, “What the f*** you mean you don’t know how to get to Staten Island?!?!?” I’m sure it was a logical choice to him, but to me, I wasn’t happy at all. Now mind you, I never expected to be in the video. I did not think I’d be on top of the Ice Cream truck swinging a cane alongside Meth, or scooping up the Butter Pecan Ricans, or trying to cop gold fronts at the swap meet where Ghostface was trying to get at the thick chick. I just wanted to experience the hype around it live and in person. So seeing that video for the first time & seeing how hype it was, maaaan……….. it still stings. To make matters worse, there’s Cappadonna popping up in the video with a Canadiens jersey on. The road colors & everything. I’m not gonna lie, it felt like he sent a subliminal shot towards me for not attending the shoot.
With that said, this song/video always represented the absolute peak of Wu-Tang’s powers to me. They already changed the game by staying as a group while each individual was allowed to put out solo albums. As a unit, they were on fire, but this was one of the hypest videos that ever came out of the Wu camp. Method Man by this time was almost like a fu**ing superhero. So much so that when he dropped that legendary hook (that became legendary the second it came out by the way)….
“Watch these rap ni**as get all up in your guts / French Vanilla, Butter Pecan, Chocolate Deluxe….”
……. I’m not entirely sure people remember what anyone else said. It didn’t matter if Ghost’s verse stole the show, or that Rae & Cappadonna kept the level high. This was a perfect storm for Wu: right production from The Rza, right characters to rhyme over the beat, right rapper with the right flow/delivery to make the hook incredibly memorable, and then capped off with the right video to marry the song. Even if this was Raekwon’s song, this was the Wu’s version of perfection.
Shawn: If it makes you feel any better Cee, Robert’s inability to navigate beyond his own neighborhood might not have ruined such a potentially “epic moment” in your youth as you may think. Did you miss the opportunity to be in the vicinity of a video shoot for one of hip hop’s most legendary groups at the height of their careers?? Quite frankly, yes. But you know who I’ll bet didn’t miss it? Every other young New York hip hop head sporting clothing with the signature Wu Tang “W”, with hopes and dreams of making a cameo appearance in the video. Which would of course in their minds, launch their own rap careers….. only to realize once they got to the video shoot that their lack of having a vagina & a pair of breasts made them pretty much irrelevant, watching from a distance where they could see no Wu member, French Vanilla, Butter Pecan Rican, or Chocolate Deluxe shaking their ice cream scoops. So you’d be in NY in the mid-90s era, surrounded by a pack of angry & disappointed dudes, just looking for someone to take their frustrations out on. So, you and good ol’ Rob might have ended up in the remix as the newest ice cream flavor…. Blood Pudding.
Now, allow me to take a walk down memory lane of my youth. I was a certified Wu fanatic around the time the purple tape came out. So much so, that I convinced myself that anything affiliated with the Wu was automatically great (ie. Killa Army, Sons of Man, and Gravediggaz, all groups that I can now admit fell somewhere between garbage and mediocre in the talent spectrum). So while listening to Rae’s first solo project, I was pretty much in a state of euphoria by the time Ice Cream came on. After the beat dropped, I decided 3 seconds into the song that this was probably going to be my favorite track on the album. By the time Method Man came in with the hook, I was looking around for a brown paper bag to breathe into so that I wouldn’t pass out before the song was over. To this day, I’m pretty sure that respectable women everywhere fell into a trance with an uncontrollable urge to let dudes get “all up in their guts” whenever this song was played. I can just imagine a business woman in the board room meeting hearing the hypnotic hook from a car stereo playing it outside, suddenly ripping open her blouse, hiking up her skirt, and daring her colleagues to take turns in them “guts”, until the car drives away, and she suddenly realizes what’s happening, and runs out the room screaming in shame straight toward HR.
“Who come to get you, none, they want guns / I be the first to set off shit, last to run / Wu roll together as one / I call my brother ‘Son’ cause he shine like one….” – Chorus by Method Man
Cee: Remember that time in hip hop when every rapper was adopting the persona that they were part of an Italian crime family? Well, you can thank this song for being the originators of that era. Back in 1993, Wu-Tang was able to change the slang culture with C.R.E.A.M., five percenter philosophies, martial arts teachings and sound bites. This time, they went all in with the Gambino a.k.a’s. Or should I say Rae, because it’s known that he was the one that made sure all members of the Wu had an alias similar to the movie “Once Upon A Time in America”, in order to be a part of this album. Something that I’m sure was a small detail at the time, ended up not only being one of the sickest records, but changed the way artists presented themselves to the public.
After that album came out & particularly this song, some of the biggest artists in hip hop changed their style up. Nas went from Nasty Nas to Nas Escobar off of his 2nd album, “It Was Written”. You remember the pink suit off the Casino-inspired “Street Dreams” video, right? Mobb Deep flipped up their style a bit & became more menacing on their “Hell on Earth” album. I used to have their poster where their whole team was sitting at the big table with coke residue on some of the crew member’s noses, as well as a big pile of coke laid out on the table (can you imagine the shitstorm that would hover over Havoc & Prodigy if that poster was handed to kids today??? Twitter alone would lose its collective minds). The Notorious B.I.G added the Frank White alias to his name (borrowed from the character of the King of New York flick + also using alias to subliminally declare himself as the King of New York Hip-Hop wise), & played the part of a crime boss until he was murdered in 1997. Even Tupac had the Makaveli name added to his brand, even creating a whole album around that character right before he lost his life. Check out Jay-Z’s debut album. For those that actually have his album & not the bootlegged version, check out the photos in the packaging. Hov, Dame Dash, and Kareem Biggs all looked like either they were part of a Mobster conglomerate, or they were headed to an Al Capone-themed Wine & Dine function right after the photo shoot. What about AZ? That Doe or Die album was not only dope, but was presented in a big boss way too.
The record played a major part in how East Coast rappers portrayed themselves, pretty much everyone from the ones I mentioned to Kool G Rap (Fast Life) & others acted as if they were in Goodfellas. Everyone was touching their inner Scarface. Pretty soon, it morphed into the whole Versace/Named brand clothing; which was championed by Biggie & Junior Mafia; which then graduated to the shiny suit era that Puffy led with his chest out. Even Hov did a video with the shiny threads on & the fish-eye-lens-supported “My Sunshine” record.
Moral of the rant: Blame Raekwon for the Shiny Suit era.
Shawn: Ok, can we start by agreeing that the intro to this song was entirely too long & uninteresting to have been eating up an entire minute and 10 seconds of my yellow Sony Sport Walkman’s fast forwarding time? Back when I used to have to damned near beg, borrow or steal to find a pair of mismatched AA batteries to be able to use my Walkman in the first place. I think we need to file a class action lawsuit against Rae to get some of that battery money back, I’m sure there were many out there that shares my plight.
You bring up a good point though Cee, about Wu being the alias trailblazers, it never occurred to me but you’re right. Before Wu, every rapper and crew had one name, it was pretty simple. But after Wu, everyone had aliases, alter egos, different personas, crew nicknames, hell even country singer Garth Brooks caught the bug and became a darker “Chris Gaines” for a minute (which he abandoned with the quickness, I don’t think country fans were ready for the small taste of hip hop). But can we take a moment to make note of the fact that other than Tony Starks, Johnny Blaze, and Lou Diamonds, that every other Wu Gambino name was pretty much garbage? With the worst being Master Killa’s confusingly bizarre alias: Noodles (Rollie Fingers gets an honorable mention for sounding pretty uncool as well).
As for the song itself, is it me, or does the beat start to get a bit redundant after a while? The track starts strong, Meth and Rae both captivated you as they did in every track back then, but I could have done without RZA or Masta Killah’s submissions, and jumped right to Ghost’s verse to close it out. Speaking of Masta Killah, was he an official member of the Wu or not? Sometimes he’d be around, but most of the time he was nowhere to be found. I never missed him mind you, because he was consistently boring, but where the hell was he? Did he have better things to do at the time then to be part of hip hop’s biggest super group? Did he have another job that he just couldn’t get the time off from? Were there not enough sick days? That never made much sense to me; he was the allusive mysterious Wu member that always seemed to be away doing other things. I mean, U-God probably had 3 verses over the entire Wu Tang reign (for good reason), but at least he was around for the ride. I’m not sure Masta Killah made enough of an impact that he is even recognizable to the casual hip hop fan, then or now.
“Thug related style attract millions / Fans, they understand my plan / Who’s the kid up in the green Land? / Me and the RZA connect, blow a fuse, you lose / Half-ass crews get demolished and bruised”
Cee: There are some pros and cons to the argument about Raekwon’s stake of the mythical King of New York crown back in the mid-90s. Did he have some say in that title with Cuban Linx? Absolutely! For those that don’t remember, that album played in every car, house, Walkman, CD Discman (if you could afford one back then), anything that had a speaker or earphones connected to it. That trip I made to New York that I was telling you about earlier? I’m not lying when I say almost every car in New York was blasting some album cut of Cuban Linx. It was almost like a unified understanding. The knock on his stake is that you can’t be called “King of…” anything when you have so many guest appearances. Outside of two songs, every song featured Ghostface (who played more co-pilot than sidekick to Rae) or a Wu member. Even with that said, out of those two, Incarcerated Scarfaces was a certified classic.
Keeping with the grimy, drug game theme of the overall project, Raekwon takes you through to the life of being a big star, the “Avon Barksdale” of the block. At least I think that’s what it’s about. Let’s face it, as much as I love Rae & his swagger, style, and slang……. his slang even for me was over my head sometimes. There were times I needed that Wu-Tang Manual to decipher some of those lyrics because it was so rich in slang and double entendres that you couldn’t possibly keep up with everything. Much like Biggie & Nas, you may have rewinded this track over and over. Unlike those two, it was less him spitting bars that made your head spin and more of his ability of making anything he says make complete & total sense over RZA’s production. It’s a little low key compared to some of the other records (i.e. Guillotine, Glaciers of Ice), but it’s probably the cleanest/smoothest song that veers a little left from the rugged style of the songs.
As for the video now, it seems like the budget wasn’t a whole lot, and why would it be? Take a look at the above paragraphs. You know this was shot in Staten Island or some sort of hood equivalent, which is completely fine. It goes perfect with the song itself, from the slam dancing and rapping behind the fences, to the rooftop shots, etc. But of course Shawn, I have a couple of questions about the video:
1) Seeing that they were in the hood recording the video, do you really think that they had “that white” blurred on the table? I mean, why do that if it isn’t, right?
2) Was Dave Chappelle right after all in saying that Slo-Mo really does make everything cooler?
3) What was that girl really doing underneath that couch cushion while sitting alongside Ghostface?
Your thoughts…..
Shawn: Very good questions you ask there Calvin mi hermano (which means “my brother” in Spanish). I’ve been binge watching that Netflix show Narcos, which is a series documenting the life of the notorious Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar, so you’re going to have to deal with me acting like I’m a member of the Medellin Cartel for the next little while. Anyhow, here’s my take on your questions:
Question #1: If that was really La Cocaina that they were blurring out on the table?
After a heated back and forth debate in my own mind, that may or may not have ended in violence, I’ve concluded that it’s not really that “white girl” (I had to throw in a bit of present day slang, to fool any young readers into thinking that I’m…..how do kids say “cool” these days? Turned? Lit? I can’t keep track anymore).
Let me elaborate. I was torn about this until I realized at what point in Rae’s career this video was shot in. If this video was shot during the 36 Chambers album, when the Wu were still a bunch a grimy, hood Staten Island boys, to the point that Ghostface used to wear a mask in videos and public appearances because he had warrants and didn’t want to jeopardize his freedom; not only would I have said that would have definitely been coke on the table, but also that there were most probably numerous fire-arms tucked in waist bands across the room, ready to be pulled out on the video director & crew if the coke wasn’t all accounted for by the end of the video shoot. But seeing that by the time Cuban Linx dropped, a shitload of money had been made, and the Wu members were a bit (and I stress the word “bit”) more refined at this point, I’m assuming it was a video director’s attempt to make an edgy hood video with a pile of baking soda on the table.
Question# 2: Does slow motion make everything look cooler?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Si (the Narco effect continues).
I’ll be honest, before I saw this video, I pretty much slept on this song, and I would only listen to it long enough to allow my hand to press fast forward. Then “Rainy Days” would come on and I would start “the wave” with my left hand and finish the dance off by pressing fast forward with my right, until I got to Guillotine (where Inspectah Deck absolutely bodied that sickening beat with his “Poisonous paragraphs / smash the phonograph in half / it be the Inspectah Deck on the warpath” intro, at which point I was trembling due to sensory overload, but I digress. Back to me sleeping on Incarcerated Scarfaces, this stopped happening as soon as I saw the video, and a large part of my new found appreciation for the track had to do with the slo-mo scenes. Between Rae walking through the hood, looking around and grilling dudes he had no business grilling (they were pretty intimidating figures), to the large mob of brothas hurtling the project fences in unison (what were they running from, you didn’t know and you didn’t care, cause they were doing it with visually pleasing slow motion wizardry). Every time I heard this song, I was inspired to stop whatever I was doing in normal speed, and switch to slow motion, which probably made me look mentally ill, but it made me feel cool, so it was worth the sacrifice.
Question# 3: What was that chick doing with her hand under the couch cushion?
The reasonable and mature person in me thinks that after a long day of shooting, she was pretty much just sitting there bored simply resting her hand on her thigh, & therefore incidentally creating a coincidental illusion there was some hanky-panky going on under there. But the dreamer in me that would like to believe porno story-lines are in some way possible, and that one day I’ll order a pizza, and a sexy half naked delivery girl will feel compelled to “teach me a lesson” for giving her a bad tip (providing me with pleasure as punishment while chastising & belittling me may not make sense in the real world, but in the land of porn it makes perfect sense), likes to imagine that the young lady in the video didn’t mind the fact that there was a room full of brothas, and just had to treat her vagina like a turntable. So, let’s just agree for my perverted mind, that she was being an amazingly filthy, naughty girl, who couldn’t fight the urge to defile herself in a room full of dudes, with only a pillow to cover her shameful act. A pillow that some dude undoubtedly sniffed as soon as she left the room.
“It’s like a cycle, ni**as come home, some’ll go in / Do a bullet, come back, do the same shit again / From the womb to the tomb, presume the unpredictable / Guns salute life rapidly, that’s the ritual”. – Nas
“Perhaps bullets bust ni**as discuss mad money / True lies and White guys, we can see it through the eyes”. – Raekwon
Cee: Now before Cuban Linx, no Wu-Tang group or member ever featured an artist outside of their world. You can’t really blame them. When you’re one of the biggest entities in the genre altogether that go nine deep, and are also helping to change the landscape of hip hop, do you really need to? You want a banger of a beat? Call RZA. You want someone to wild out & act crazy on your track? Speed dial Old Dirty Bastard. You want a guest feature that will swing your song through the radio & the streets with the same impact of a bulldozer? Tap Method Man on his shoulder. You want your guest to slang & swag out our record? Hit up Raekwon and Ghostface easily. The list goes on & on. Wu Tang was like going to that friend’s house that had all the best toys & video games, and their fridge & cupboard was always stocked with everything. Right down to the different kinds of cereals, from Fruit Loops to Cocoa Puffs. You never needed to leave the house for anything. Which was why opening the doors for Nas to appear on a Wu-affiliated album was such a major deal at the time.
All Nas did once he entered the doors and took off his shoes was spit out one of the greatest lyrics he may have ever recorded. It was beyond being “Rewind-worthy” & it set the tone for the rest of the song. Both Rae & Ghost followed suit to destroy the record bar after bar. It remains the most underrated and overlooked song on this album, which seems crazy when you listen to this song again. You made a good point Shawn, on the Ready To Dieprofile, guest features between superstar artists were almost unprecedented, & when it actually happened, you couldn’t wait to hear it. So the fact that this song doesn’t get put on the same level as, “The What” for example, is almost blasphemous. I think only real hip hop heads with a great memory really appreciate this song for what it is.
Imagine if the three of them came together a few months after this album dropped and before It Was Written was released, and dropped a mixtape that was done by DJ Clue at the time. How seismic would that have been?
Shawn: No doubt Cee, a Nas, Rae & Ghost mixtape wouldn’t only have been ground breaking; it would’ve completely obliterated the rules of that era. We’ve grown to get used to the collaborative albums from major artists to the point that we hardly bat an eyelash anymore; from the most recent merging of the two super powers Drake & Future, to R-Kelly & Jay, Hov & Kanye, the Lil Wayne & Juelz Santana mixtape, and the trailblazers Red and Meth, we pretty much meet these types of collaborative albums with a shrug. Although some of them are dope, others feel like a cash grab meant to capitalize off of two major fan bases that would want to purchase the same album. But a Nas, Rae & Ghost album would have had hip hop purists at the time thinking the apocalypse was upon us. It would have sparked mass hysteria, looting, governments overthrown and national anthems being replaced by tracks from the album, it wouldn’t have been pretty. With all that said, I have to admit something that may affect our relationship my dear sir. I have to plead guilty to being one of those dudes that you mentioned that slept on this track when listening to this album. But it wasn’t one of those accidental “sleeps” where you doze off on the couch watching TV after a long day; it was more like as soon as I heard the song start playing, I downed an entire bottle of sleeping pills intentionally. Now, I know what I’m about to say is going to be considered blasphemous and incredibly unpopular, and if I were to say this in certain barbershops it would earn me a punch square in my freshly lined up face. But, how can I put this as delicately as possible; I kinda sorta find Nas……. boring.
Now before you start sharpening your cutlass, and setting your Google maps app for my address, hear me out. I can fully appreciate that Nas is one of, if not the dopest lyricist we’ve ever heard, I get that. But after I listen to a Nas track once, and take in the dope intricacies of his lyrics, I’m pretty much satisfied, forever. I don’t really have the urge to hear it again. I just feel satisfied that I’ve heard his verse that one time. I’ll kind of compare him to Tim Duncan, or even the entire Spurs organization, you know they’re great, but I have more fun watching those teams lose than I do watching them dismantle their competition. It’s like, my brain knows I should be excited, and I try Calvin, I really do. I try to fit in whenever I find myself in one of those best rappers alive convos, but I’m tired of the lies Calvin, they’re weighing heavy on my soul. So there you go, the cat’s out the bag, I find Nas boring. I said it. This is why I never really appreciated this song. Mind you, Rae dropped his usual bars filled with cool words, and the way Ghost broke down prison life in a few short bars was better than some dudes that dedicate whole albums to it. But unfortunately, this track does not rank as one of my favorites on the album. I hope we can still be friends Cee.
Cee: I…….. I don’t even know what to say. Actually, what did you say??? Seeing that 2015 is drawing to a close, I’ll express myself the way pop culture dictates me to: Through gifs & memes….
I feel so disillusioned, so misled, so hoodwinked by what you just said. I feel like Steve Austin after he teamed up with The Rock to beat up the villain wrestlers together, and while raising my fists & middle fingers in the air towards the crowd in my trademark fashion, you hit me across the back of my head with a 2 X 4, leaving me unconscious in a fake pool of blood. I don’t even know if I should sever our friendship, or if I should just pay some goons to run at your house Sosa-style, crash through your kitchen, tie you down & force you to listen to all 10 of Nas’ albums. Even the Lost Tapes. You bastard.
If there’s a lasting memory regarding this album, it was the hype leading up to it. I’ve discussed the theory before of the pre-promotion of albums in the 90s that made each major album release from your favorite artists feel like it descended down from the skies. The example I have of this theory and how well it works is almost specific to this album. Prior to its ’95 summer release, with some of the songs that we heard from the album, it was getting major, major buzz, “5 Mics in The Source” buzz. Hip hop fans were foaming at the mouth for this album, myself and my crew of friends included. The day the album was released, was an event. My friends and I headed downtown about ten deep to the one record store that were selling copies of the album. Of course, out of the ten, only about 3-4 of us bought it, and the rest was armed with blank 90 min Maxwell tapes ready to dub the albums off. If you’re wondering, wonder no more…….. I was in the “Blank Tape” group. You got to understand, I was fresh off of finishing high school in Montreal, with no money. Basically, I never purchased a CD unless it came with 10 more CDs for a penny, and it came from a Columbia House purchase list. I’m not ashamed…. I’m not…. I swear?
Anyway, we went back to our friend’s house & basically digested everything about the album, from the beats & lyrics, to the linear notes & thank you shout outs. It’s the only time in my life I ever went to a store with all my friends, & then bought watch them buy (& dub off) an album….but it was 110% worth it. Within a few months it was a solidified classic that you played for about a year straight before you could put it down. Looking back now, it remains the greatest solo album ever released by The Wu, one of the best Hip Hop moments ever from the Golden Era, and it’s not debatable. For you Wu heads, the only solo Wu albums that come close to it was GZA’s Liquid Swords(which was GREAT), and Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele (his greatest album personally), both classics…… and yet still, it was a tier down from Cuban Linx. It changed the game as much as the aforementioned Golden Era albums that I wrote about. It was dark, gritty, and cinematic, it changed slang vocabulary, it was completely swagged out (the makers of Clark’s Wallabee’s are forever thankful). The RZA was like a cross between Charles Barkley & Wilt Chamberlain on the boards, and it represented the absolute peak of the Wu Era musically. When Nas re-released his Illmaticalbum last year & celebrated the anniversary like nothing we’ve even seen, I was a little surprised Raekwon didn’t go down the same route this year. There should have been concerts across the world celebrating the anniversary of this album. Here’s to hoping Rae does a delayed go-round with this album like we did this post.
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, as usual.
……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
To subscribe to The Baseline Blog, click onto the Follow button or by entering your email address.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
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
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…
“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.
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:
Q-Tip: Kamaal the Abstract (Came out in 2009 on Battery Record. Sold 6K its first week)
Kanye: 808’s and Heartbreak and then… Yeezus. Sigh…
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.
“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)
South Shore Ave 