Hoggin' in my old school

J-Zone is perhaps the finest renaissance man in rap of the past decade and change : patron saint for those of us who base our life decisions on Eazy E lyrics, creator of the best indie-rap albums not made by DOOM, Count Bass D or R.A, producer of bangers for the likes of Akinyele and R.A, mixtape compiler extrodinaire, ig'nant gang$ta-rap tastemaker, HHC and Fat Lace column writer (I'm sure Robbie over at Unkut would admit he's borrowed liberally from those columns over the years) and a pretty fine blogger to boot judging by his posts on Dante's site.



So back in 2006 I greeted his collaboration with Celph Titled as the Bo$$ Hog Barbarians with trepidation. Oh sure, Celph killed the 'Zone tracks he guested on on $ick Of Bein' Rich like Steady Hoggin' and Eatadicup, but at that point Celph Titled was just some humourous punchline rapper dude whose 12"s I'd always see gathering dust in Bongos, who was primarily known for getting into fights with turd burglers like Cage. Was he really worthy of holdin' down a full album with 'Zone? Turns out he was, but the biggest suprise of their combination was that Celph had beats himself. And not just any old let-the-other-guy-pad-out-the-album-to-appease-his-producer-aspirations beats, but that ol' robotic, futuristic, George Jetson sounding Bay type shit that E-40 was rockin' from, like, '98 - '02. Dayum, these shits are lethal :

Bo$$ Hog Barbarians - You Got Mail



Bo$$ Hog Barbarians - Dog Show Pageant



Not one to be outdone by his compadre channeling other producers on his own shit, 'Zone managed to summon up the spirit of Just Blaze for Celph to go all Akinyele on Celph Destruction which outdid any of the discordant bollocks or lazy beatjacks one Justin Blaze esquire dropped that year, bar Dynomite by Rhymefest or I'm Talkin' To You by T.I, which basically is standard Just Blaze circa '06 discordant bollocks but good standard Just Blaze circa '06 discordant bollocks that you makes you wanna reenact scenes from Hard Boiled and Hard Target.

Bo$$ Hog Barbarians - Celph Destruction



'Zone needs to make some new music, and someone needs to mention to Celph's that there's a guy called Turf Talk who'd sound pretty, pretty good over his beats if he still has any in the same vein as You Got Mail and Dog Show Pageant lying around his crib.