Celly Cel - Heat 4 Yo Azz
Celly Cel is a rapper known for being one of the few Sick Wid It Records artists who wasn't a blood relative of E-40 and for once recording an awfully good song with UGK which is pretty much the ultimate car jam. Beyond that, the title track of his 1995 debut Heat 4 Yo Azz with legendary Bay production duo Mike Mosley and Sam Bostic (who did various tracks for C-Bo, 2pac and various old Sick Wid It rappers from 40 Water himself, down to the likes of Little Bruce) on the beat is also pretty special and I'd hate for you to go to your deathbed without hearing the song if you're not already familiar with it.
Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde - Freshest Rhymes In The World
I've managed to feature pretty much every Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde single on here over the past year and a bit this blog has existed, so it's high time something from their one and only 1985 LP Champagne Of Rap finds its way into this series. As a far of bizarre tangents and movie references in rap, Dr Jeckyll starting his verse by being abducted by Darth Vader and taken to a foreign planet where he meets various Star Wars characters before using some fancy phaser gun to turn Vader into a squirrel is pretty much an absurdist-rap wet dream. The trademark Jeckyll & Hyde flossin' is restored in the final verse as Mr Hyde chills on his yacht with Jack Costeau watching cable tv, but the bizarreness is kept intact with Hyde being dragged into the ocean by a talking shark who instructs him that they're going to play a game of Russian roulette.
Max Minelli - My First Verse
I've already posted about Max's Baton Rogue semi-classic as part of Lay-Lo and mentioned him in another post about Concentration Camp era Boosie, so it's about time he got his own solo entry into this series. Taken from his '03 set I'm All I Got, this is solo country-rap par excellence and it features some pretty killer usage of "___ ass n*gga" phraseology years before Hotstylz turned it into a viral sensation.
Akinyele - Problems
Akinyele & some wannabe Lil' Kim - Love My Bitch
Akinyele's Anakonda LP is one of those early noughties Koch Records albums from a previously dope nineties rapper which was key in establishing the label as a resting home for the creatively spent to put out shitty releases with some of the worst production this side of a post-Primo Jeru album. Not hatin', though, because any LP which is the soundtrack to some low-rent Ak' directed porn flick called Benny Ill (anybody actually seen it?) is a-okay with me and it did have 4 good songs. Problems is a demonstartion on how a rapper should rap-rap-rap ("'cause you got shorthands like stenography/Ak's guns go auto like biography"), while Love My Bitch is an exotic Lord Finesse produced sex jam with a particularly du'tty chorus for Ak' to drop a quick verse and then let one of the many stripper-turned-porn-actresses/condom-carrier femme rappers that appear on the LP to spit some saucy Lil' Kim styled verses he'd written for her.
Let's also take this opportunity to remind ourselves that Akinyele's collection of unreleased tunes liquidates Nas's vastyly overrated The Lost Tapes set into vagabond piss as far as albums of officially unissued material by rappers who appeared on Live At The Bar BQ go. Ak's shit has banger after banger, while Nas's shit is audio valium save for No Idea's Original.
8 comments:
...and 'Doo Rags'. Just saying.
Don't understand the hatred for Lost Tapes but glad you've started doing these again.
Doo Rags is definately one of those songs i just don't get.
What about 'Purple'? 'Doo Rags' starts out strong but ends pretty sappy and lame-brained, and then there's the part where he goes political on us and then not-so-cleverly explains, "it's like a cycle!" I don't know, Lost Tapes is one of those albums I have a high opinion of but then I go back and realize I only like two songs on it. Then a couple weeks later I'll forget and go back to having my high opinion. I'm already starting to fall into a similar cycle with The State vs. Radric Davis.
you should have had 'yellow panties' from the jeckyll & hyde too
Purple is okay, but give me a QB piano track by CNN or Mobb anyday.
Nas's voice and midtempo piano beats aren't a very good combo.
I've never really gotten/understood/agreed with the "Nas has a snoozy voice that needs lively beats" critique. I actually think he has one of the best voices in rap, he just chooses some of the worst beats in rap.
Can't disagree with either point, and i ended up listening to Purple 3 times in a row after the mention on here, but Lost Tapes is just too overly dreary for me.
I like my moody mid-tempo NY rap to be more trife and/or sinister.
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