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Top 3 worst things rap music glorifies: True Religion denim, handshakes between men who are forever standing around posing with their hands on their nuts, drinking syrup. I wrote about the latter in my Deep Cuts entry about Speaker Knockerz's Erica Kane which is sort of doubling as a tribute post. Unsurprisingly, Complex cut the last sentence where I suggested the world would be a better place if Yung Lean had died instead of him.

"I took his hoe and then beat up the kitten
She give me brain, I'ma pay her tuition
I'm at the top so I guess I'm the villain"

Speaker Knockerz - Erica Kane
(From Erica Kane single; 2014)


Ya boy MC Renato Pagnani had posted Speaker Knockerz music when he was still breathing and already planned on Deep Cuts-ing Erica Kane this week after noticing it on DJ Day Day's Audiomack page last thursday, so I'm not the Speaker Knockerz equivalent of one of those ghouls who suddenly pronounced themselves Doe B experts after he died despite the fact they'd never once mentioned him prior to his death, honest, guv!

Greatest movie scenes ever: Lord Jamar vs. Marlon Wayans Twitter beef edition

Was this now-deleted Tweet in jest or did Marlon Wayans have a point during during his Twitter spat with Lord Jamar? One For All is a top 5 New York rap album of all time, but does it contain a single verse by Jamar that manages to nail the racial complexities of being a white rap fan in AmeriKKKa like this scene from White Chicks did?


"YOU TELL ME!!"

I'm tired of these suckas and they jive stories, I'm just tryna put my mother in a 5 storey

I will never ever get bored of ersatz-Jacka melancholy mob music with mad sensual Sade samples. Never ever? Never ever ever ever ever ever EVER:

"Yo, I'm tryna cope with the pain, hop in the black Maverick
With a scope by my Hanes, goin' backpackin'
Movin' coke in the rain, now that's traffic
I think I'm goin' insane, but I ain't mad at it"

Young Lox - Legion Of Doom
(From Illest album; 2014)


Can't imagine any of these guys pay sample clearance so I do wonder if Sade is aware that her music has become a constant backdrop for drug dealers from the Oakland/Kansas/Akron/Fort Wayne cocaine/MDMA trafficking circuit to rap about pain and pistols over?

R.I.P Speaker Knockerz

AKA the rap game Richard Beckinsale. Let's remember the kid for recording Check, Lonely, and Freak Hoe in the same way we remember Richie B for playing Lennie Godber in Porridge, yeah?

"When I dropped out I said fuck all of y'all
Imagine pullin' up to your school in the best car"

Speaker Knockerz - Lonely
(From Lonely single; 2013)



"I ain't tryna cuff, yeah, I'm tryna fuck, yeah
You ain't tryna fuck, yeah, pack your stuff, yeah"

Speaker Knockerz - Freak Hoe
(From Freak Hoe single; 2014)



I'm not kidding like Jason either since Lonely is a legitimate 9/10 Emo-Tune jam and Freak Hoe is catchier than the O.G Tetris theme, plus I was planning on Deep Cuts-ing his latest single Erica Kane next week. Dude was a promising rapper/producer/songwriter auteur, and we all love the idea of auteurs in rap, yeah? Damn.

Ayo God, why couldn't you have taken that Chicago rapper who killed his own mum for her life insurance money instead? Failing that, Termanology would have done.

No NORE

"She let me beat it, Mike Jackson
N*gga, we eatin', you snackin'
Lately been feelin' like a tennis player 'cause, n*gga, I just got them racks in"

K Camp - Oh No
(From the internet; 2014)


Is it socially acceptable to opine that you think K Camp's Oh No is light years better than Money Baby? For best results bump Oh No in a car and try to replicate its bassline with your mouth on some Husalah at the end of Fighting The Feds type shit.

(One last Mic Terror post)

Are you familiar with the story about Puffy gettin' head from Naomi Campbell and then failing to reciprocate when she asked him to go down on her? Looks like Mic Terror is judging by the song No Panties. Fear not, though, feminists and faux-feminists 4 hire whenever a thinkpiece opportunity is available because Lucci Vee is on hand for the second verse to break hearts by finding fellas, fucking fellas, and then forgeting fellas. Read about No Panties on Deep Cuts here.

Mic Terror ft. Lucci Vee - No Panties
(From Fresh Prince Of Darkness album; 2014)


Ain't gon' lie, ya boy Jenn Pelle Pelle right chea is very disturbed by rappers like Lucci Vee and Young Thug bowling around town with septum piercings. C'mon, folks, there is nothing cool about looking like '80s anarcho-punx or '90s raver crusties.

"Cut it out!"

"Wake up, Hatch, pack your bags!"

Lil' Boosie - Free At Last
(From 4 Walls To A Cell mixtape; 2010)


Free Max B, HD, and Pussy Riot!

Don't free South Park Mexican, Ian Watkins, and Big Lurch!

Lock up all 3 of those sex offenders from Das Racist!

R.I.P the BoosieJustice Facebook page!
EDIT: Boosie freestyling in the car on his way home from Angola last night, taking it back to the TRILL street DVD days:


It can't be a coincidence that Boosie got out of prison a mere fortnight after CJ De Mooi got his own quiz show/agreed to rejoin Eggheads.

Betcha can't blog like meeeee, betcha can't blog like me

It looked like M.I.C's Lil' Chris had consigned himself to the one-hot-song-in-your-career junkpile after he'd abandoned the melancholia of Same Shit Different Day to make half-arsed jaunty Bop songs that don't behove a 4'9 gentleman who looks like he was made out of the spare parts God discarded when putting Lil' Cease and Jadakiss together, but I'll be damned if his new single 2 Fake isn't a reprise of his Same Shit Different Day's style, so I wrote about it for Deep Cuts on Complex. Read that shit here.

Lil' Chris of M.I.C - 2 Fake
(From YouTube; 2014)

On the ones and twos

"Talkin' about how you tryna get up in the Treated Crew
Boy, we both rap, what the fuck you want me to do?
Versace instrumental that you say you wrote a heater to?
Go find a corny motherfucker you can Tweet it to"

Mic Terror ft. DJ Gant-Man - Get Off My Dick
(From Fresh Prince Of Darkness album; 2014)


Get Off My Dick's vital statistics: the second Mic Terror song instructing you to Get Off his jock; the second Mic Terror song with low-end slap that sounds like someone trying to recreate the bassline from Ice-T's Drama with Super Ping Pong on the Sega Genesis; the second Mic Terror song to flirt with Juke music production; the first Mic Terror song that's a two-trax-for-the-price-of-one bargain since it climaxes with a near-two minute frenzied Jukin' breakdown courtesy of DJ Gant-Man.

Blame Juicy for me referring to Sega's Mega Drive as the Genesis, when Jaz Rignall was editing Mean Machines magazine, man, he couldn't picture this. Anyhoo, other great Chicago rap songs with basslines that sound like the sound FX from some Pong-redux game on a long-defunct sixteen bit video game console: Band Nation by King Louie, Gimme That Cash by Gzus Piece, and Probably Nu It by TREE. Any others I'm missin'?

A Mic Terror compilation 4 u

Mic Terror's official debut retail album Fresh Prince Of Darkness is out tomorrow so here's a quick primer compilation from my current go-to regular-guy rapper whose music falls somewhere in the rap nexus between cocky, cock-centric, and conscious.

Mic describes himself as the "the evil Will Smith" which is an excellent snappy soundbite and not entirely inaccurate, but I see him as the '00s Chicago equivalent of Positive K if he'd grown up on pre-College Dropout-era KanYe instead of Masters Of Ceremony-era Grand Puba. Plus, he's a big fan of old Ice-T shit, which makes him one of the 3 people on the planet under the age of 30 familiar with the pre-Tank Girl oeuvre of one Tracy Marrow esquire.

This compilation isn't intended to be a definitive Mic Terror collection or anything, just some of my own personal favourites from his catalogue; you have the anthems like Juke Them Hoes and Rodney King, a couple of concept tracks with If God Was Mic and Habibi, two of his rap-de-rap records like Get Off and Cold As Hell, some macked-out Chicago shit with The Heauxs Love Me, a couple of his syrupy sex-jams like Going and My Bitch Tonight, and even a dis track to some ageing Chicago struggle-rapper with the song Dickey Simpkins.



Mic Terror - The Micberg compilation

Juke Them Hoes (2007)
Cold As Hell aka Mixtape Shit (2007)
Get off (2008)
If God Was Mic (2008)
My Bitch Tonight (2010)
Going (2010)
Dickey Simpkins (2011)
Habibi (2011)
Rodney King (2012)
The Heauxs love me (2012)

~~> DOWNLOAD HERE <~~

Scuff Daddy & the family

Father forgive me but I've just realised that Scuffin' Those Knees by The New Style was a glaring omission from the recent shinola songs by shit rappers list.

The New Style were the group formed by Treach, Vin Rock & DJ Kay Gee in 1988 before they changed their name to Naughty By Nature in 1990, and their 1989 album Independent Leaders is utterly forgettable other than Scuffin' Those Knees and its front cover where Treach busts a prison-pose, Kay Gee resembles a Big Daddy Kane back-up dancer who'd have probably gone by the name of Shagg Lover (geddit?), and Vinnie sports the sort of cardigan that Fred West probably wore when trawling the streets of Gloucester looking for girls to abduct in the '70s:



The New Style - Scuffin' Those Knees
(From Independent Leaders album; 1989)


Not sure if Kay Gee was responsible for the beat since the entire album is vaguely listed as being "produced by The New Style", but whoever put Scuffin' Those Knees together deserves credit for saving Mantronix's King Of The Beats from an eternity of being known solely as an instrumental B side cut beloved of AZN turntablists and German breakdancers.

Bloggin's not a movie, like J.D & Veronica I lean on 'em with the loogie

I wrote about Movie by Giftz for Deep Cuts on Complex. I think it's Giftz's 1st song of 2014 and it's pretty much my 2 favourite Giftz songs of 2013 in 1.

"Wise words from a decent man, I never heard those
My role model drove a Bentley with a four and a fur coat"

Giftz - Movie
(From the internet; 2014)

Generic list post: february 2014

Another token vanity round-up of songs your host has been feelin' the hardest this past month. January's edition may have resulted in the leak of the full version of Spice 1's Killa Days so this series has already proved its worth beyond being a personal log for my own future use.

Spice 1 - Killa Days (full version) (1992)
Mic Terror ft. DJ Gant-Man - Get Off My Dick (2014)
Loon - This Ain't Funny (2003)
ZMoney - Dope Boy Magic (2014)
Willie The Kid ft. Roc Marciano - Avalon (2014)
DB Tha General - Savage (2013)/Intro III (2014)
Skooly of Rich Kidz - Na Na Boo Boo (2009)
Zilla ft. Young Dolph - Yeen Said Nothin' (2014)
Mouse On Tha Track - Been A G Thang (2014)
Juvenile - Live Wire (2014)
JuJu ft. Tragedy Khadafi - Thriller (2014)
Cashy - Stupendous (2014)
Philthy Rich ft. D-Lo, Dolla Bill & Stevie Joe - Ready 2 Ride (2010)
J. Stalin ft. Too $hort - Fuck That (2014)
Adrian Marcel ft. Sage The Gemini & Problem - 2 AM remix (2014)
Being named after a fat Anglophile from Boston who listens to the Stone Roses is not a good look for ya boy, so say toodle-pip to Chris Thott and please raise a glass to your new host of The Martorialist: Si Mane Price.

Hip Hop was set out in the dark, they used to do it out in the Taylor Parkes (no romo.)

The spirit of Mark B & Blade lives on

Never forget!

Yo, remember that time Noisey got a couple of black teenagers arrested for selling lean on Instagram, or that time Noisey paid some Brendon Soderberg weed carrier to fly to the windy city, pretend to be a smack addict, and then ask the people on the violence-ravaged streets of south side Chicago that burning question on everyone's lips: is Citgo a better song than Laughing To The Bank?

Well, Noisey just redeemed themselves for such travesties by letting the great Clive Martin -- the Norman Clegg to 2$hin's "Electric" Entwistle in this Rap Game 2010 episode of Last Of The Summer Wine -- finally tackle the depressing spectacle of UK Hip Hop club nights in his latest installment of Big Night Out: Do Brits Get Hip Hop? The scenes contained here will be all too familiar to anyone from this grey isle, but the high concentration of girls and non-white faces at such a night seems slightly unrealistic. There are ethnic people in Bristol other than those 2 mumbling stoner cunts who used to be in Massive Attack?

Is Anthony Fantano #problematic?

The Makin' Magic band is back together again with ZMoney, JNeal & Brickfare reuniting over a beat which sounds like it was made on a Bontempi keyboard by Anthony Fantano's "comedy" Mexican roommate Cal Chuchusta, and the best ZMoney hook since Regular:

"Cops do the cuffin' and the chasin'
IONDODAT!
Don't wantcha information
IONDODAT!
Tryna hold a conversation
IONDODAT!
Iondodat! IONDODAT! Iondodat!
Why dey do dat?"

ZMoney, JNeal & Brickfare - IONDODAT
(The internet; 2014)


Dunno about you guys and gals, but here at The Martorialist we're definitely catchin' a strong whiff of Jim Davidson's controversial black character Chalky meets Phil Collins in Genesis' much-reviled Illegal Alien video from Fantano's Cal Chuchesta persona.

Loonie Gee

This is where I bestow Loon's This Ain't Funny with its own post since that shit is my favourite discovery of 2014 so far (God bless Puffy for making sure the Bad Boy back catalogue is on Spotify!) An associate described the song as "total Martorialist aesthetic", which may or may not have been meant as a compliment, but it's true, oh it's true: This Ain't Funny is simultaneously what a Slick Rick single for early '00s Bad Boy would have sounded like AND what Ma$e's Welcome Back should have sounded like.

But that does Loon a disservice because he kills this ("if Loon dies, wolves come out like moon rise/and make n*ggas hard to find like moon pie"), demonstrates why having stooges like Shyne and goons like Anthony "Wolf" Jones on the Bad Boy payroll was paramount ("the code of the street is to hold ya own/if you're smart then you never got to hold no chrome"), and he deserves one great song to his name after being a part of two bona fide classic singles in Cali Chronic and I Need A Girl Part 2.

Loon - This Ain't Funny
(From Loon album; 2003)


This Ain't Funny is that one great song, and it should have been the third single from Loon's album with a video set in Spanish Harlem full of tracking shots of Puffy playing air-flamenco guitar while standing up in a moving drop-top 1930 Rolls Royce Phantom II that's chauffeured by Fonzworth Bentley, and Loon doing the invisible rope-pull dance down 106th Street with the chick who looked like Brandy from the Feel So Good video.

It's 2:26 PM

Ratchet & Bloke singers are a complicated-ass genre for me in 2014: Ty Dolla $ign needs less rappers on his music for me to listen to him, whilst everybody else needs more rappers on their music for me to make it to a 3rd listen; case in point, 2 AM by Adrian Marcel: the original solo version was cool but there was an existential void in the song just waiting for someone to come along fill it with some rapping about g-spots and exes.... step forward Sage The Gemini & Problem:

"It's 2 AM and I'm tryna get in there
Say X marks the spot, but your ex not in here"

Adrian Marcel ft. Sage The Gemini & Problem - 2 AM (Young California remix)
(From the internet; 2014)


Bonus beats: in-studio performance of Paranoid by Ty Dolla $ign & Joe Moses, which is as close as we're ever gonna get to the O.G version on YouTube now. Keep the original alive so your baby momma's/daddy's children's children will know there was a time when it wasn't ruined by B.o.B and French Montana & Trey Songz:


Ty goin' for that Legion Of Doom swag with the fingerless black & red leather glove on his right hand.

Fantasia

JuJu from the Beatnuts walks into a bar and asks Tragedy Khadafi if he wants to hop on a new solo song of his that fits into the Beatnuts' super Disco sample-tracks chamber alongside Give Me Tha Ass and We Got The Funk. Tragedy asks him if he's crazy, so big Ju' The German plays him the instrumental and suddenly Trag' goes all yung Anthony Fantano on datazz:


JuJu ft. Tragedy Khadafi - Thriller
(From the internet; 2014)


How did this record happen in 2014? How is it this good? How has Psycho Les not hopped on it yet? How is Anthony Fantano dancing so freely in jeans that are pulled up to 2 inches below his nipples?

Reasons why I love YouTube #54

Whistle - (Nothin' Serious) Just Buggin'
(From (Nothin' Serious) Just Buggin' 12"; 1985/Whistle LP; 1986)


Shame on me for forgetting (Nothin' Serious) Just Buggin' by Whistle in yesterday's generic list post. Not only is it a key entry in the remarkable songs by otherwise unremarkable rappers canon, but it's also a pivotal song for ya boy Julianne EscoBeedaWeeda Shepherd right chea since it was a big hit in the U.K in 1986 and consequently played a huge part in me falling in love with teh rap muzik as a snotty little brat.

(Nothin' Serious) Just Buggin' was pretty much the year zero for stupid fruity crazy swag-rap, and no matter what certain revisionist hip hop historians and rap game Geir Hongro-type idiots like Wicked22 try tell you, novelty dance records have always been a crucial component of rap music. Here's Whistle performing it on Top Of The Pops in all white everythang and matching raccoon pelt Davy Crockett hats that were probably made from unsold toupees. Fall back, PETA!

Generic list post: shinola songs by shit rappers

One of the great things about Rap music is that even some of the biggest hacks have at least one good song in them. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule like Immortal Technique, Pitbull, any rapper from Canada, Termanology, Yung Lean, Theophilus London, Mykki Blanco, and Joe Budden, but it generally holds true that every unremarkable rapper will record at least one remarkable song in the course of their career.

So here's 25 great songs by 25 rappers who are otherwise not so great. Some of these rappers were/are fine in groups or guesting on other people's records, but as solo artists they're hacks of the highest order whose recording careers deserve to be flushed down the toilet rather than go down in the history books.

Loon - This Ain't Funny (2003)
Young T ft. Treal Lee - Work Dat Lumba (2009)
E Money Bags ft. Nature & Kool G. Rap - Friend Of Ours (1999)
1090 Blok Boyz - Nikki (2010)
House Of Pain - Shamrocks And Shenanigans (1992)
Jae Millz - Sober (2009)
The Show ft. Mannie Fresh - Enough About Me (2009)
L Fudge - Liquid (1998)
Huey ft. Bow Wow & T-Pain - Pop, Lock & Drop It remix (2007)
Kaos - Court's In Session (1987)
Gorilla Zoe - Lost (2008)
A$AP Rocky ft. A$AP Twelvy & A$AP Nast - Trilla (2011)
Chingy - Wurrs My Cash (2006)
Begetz ft. Half-A-Mill & AZ - Cold Outside (2007)
Willie Northpole - Body Marked Up (2008)
Lupe Fiasco ft. Stack Bundles - I Keep It Gutter (200?)
Tyga - Rack City (2011)
Stalley - Cup Inside A Cup (2013)
Jason Fox ft. Hood Presidents - Aunt Jackie (2007)
Milano - Rep For The Slums (1999)
Consequence ft. KanYe West - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (2004)
Kirko Bangz - What Yo Name Iz? (2011)
U God ft. Leather Face - Wildstyle Suppafreak (2003)
Lil' Chris of M.I.C - Same Shit Different Day (2012)
Big Shug - The Jig Is Up (1999)