Marvin Gaye - Ego Tripping Out

If you thought the awful Unity by Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown was the first instance of r&b singers hijacking the rap bandwagon then you've obviously never heard Telephone Bill by Johnny "Guitar" Watson from 1980, where the Texan Bluesman who inspired Gangster Of Love by the Geto Boys weaves an amusing narrative about unpaid bills in a style which is more comparable to the proto-rapping of Lightnin' Rod than it is to Sugarhill Gang or even The Fatback Band on King Time III. If you really want to hear the very first example of an r&b singer trying to rap akin how to any of the original Bronx groups or Sugarhill Gang rapped, however, then you need to go back to Marvin Gaye's 1979 single Ego Tripping Out which surfaced a couple of months after Rapper's Delight blew up, where Marv' gets his Big Bank Hank/Grandmaster Caz on for the first quarter of the song over some typically lush late 70's disco backing. Well, sorta; here's where things get particularly interesting from a historical perspective : Ego Tripping Out began life as a demo for Marv's scrapped Love Man album sessions in late 1978 which means it predates even King Tim III, so, not only was Marvin Gaye a pioneer of the R&B Singers Chris Browning Their Hoes movement alongside Ike Turner, but he also accidently invented recorded rap musik in 1978. Who knew? Here he is miming Ego Tripping Out as he concentrates on grooving around in a snowblinded haze on some tv show :

Marvin Gaye - Ego Tripping Out



Despite his drug addiction, spiralling Tax debts, and lack of a hit single since 1977, Marvin was still bringing home the bacon via royalties off his back catalogue and live appearances in 1979, but after the failure of Here, My Dear the previous year he was becoming known as Marvin The Cokehead Who Stumbles Out Of Limousines Dripping In Diamonds And Wearing The Finest Silk Suits Money Could Buy Into The Arms Of A Bevy Of Beautiful Disco-Sluts At The Blue Parrot/Studio 54, rather than Marvin The R&B Singer. Thus Ego Tripping Out was a self-reflective way of poking fun at his public persona and letting people know that he was in on the joke too before providing us with a cautionary reminder that there is a comedown from the high-life and that drugs are as bad for the soul as they are for the body in the last verse. Since I'm somebody who prefers Let's Get It On to What's Going On (Inner City Blues aside, Marvin wasn't exactly Curtis Mayfield as far as socio-political commentary in songs go goes, eh?) I use Ego Tripping Out as a straight-faced demonstration of nouveau-riche flossin' and a celebration of the hedonism which occurs under the disco lights with a thudding closing warning that some touchy-feely, beaked-up wanker constantly yammering on in your ear about seeing Unkle live at some shitty festival/his t-shirt line/how he's totally wrecked/trying to sell you liquid MDMA which is 80% flat Dr Pepper will inevitably end up putting a dampner on your evening.

Anyway, Ego Tripping Out was released to a "Huh, What?" response from Marvin's hardcore fanbase and it didn't even chart on the Billboard Top 100 so Berry Gordy quickly pulled it from stores due to lack of sales to try and save face, and the song was forgotten about until Motown included a 7 minute version of it on the 1994 reissue of Marvin's 1981 album In Our Lifetime and all subsequent issues of the album like the double disc set from a few years back which included the original Love Man version and all the other songs from those aborted sessions on the 2nd disc. Since it isn't a song which benefits from an extended interpretation like, say, the 12" variants of I Feel Love by Donna Summer, Strictly Business by EPMD, Ghost Town by The Specials, and pretty much every Prince single released between 1979 to 1991, that's the definitive original 5 minute odd single version in the video up top.

Not a bad tune to play out if you're looking for something to provide a bridge between Moody (Spaced Out) by ESG and Biz's Let Me Turn You On as I've found out recently, but it's yet to be sampled according to the-breaks.com. After years of grumpy mediocrity De La can't be trusted to make a suitable sequel to Ego Trippin' Part 2 at this late point in their career, but DOOM rapping like he did on Gazzillion Ear or Batty Boyz last year would be a more than capable suitor for the task and Ego Tripping Out would just be the perfect song to loop up for it. If the internet could Beetlejuice-Beetlejuice-Beetlejuice multiple DOOM and Ghostface collaborations like those album tracks DOOM did for Fishscale plus More Fish, and the likes of Charlie Brown and the original Angelz into existence then this can surely happen too.

"Young Rick The Ruler, my mouth's a mess"

AZ - Feel My Pain



Why did nobody tell me that AZ shot a video for this until that 2DopeBoyz post with his new Nothing Move song the other day? I'm glad he did because it's one of my favourite cuts to emerge from the big apple in the past couple of months (plus verification that I'm Ill wasn't just a fluke after a couple of years where AZ was looking completely washed up) and it fits in nicely with the great-viral-street-singles-by-nineties-leftover-NY-rappers movement this year alongside Canal Street by Raekwon, Thug Planet by CNN et al, Figure Four by Sean Price, and Ric Flair by Cam & Vado. Though, if we've not had viral bangers by Black Rob, Royal Flush, Snagglepuss, and Keith Nut by the end of october it'll all have been a waste of time.

Not a bad video considering it probably cost less than $20 to shoot (though, I can't imagine those Feel My Pain slogan tees will be as successful around Brooklyn as Maino's Hi Hater tees were, tbh), with the old pictures and video footage serving to remind us that HE'S DONE SONGS WITH NAS!!!!/BEEN IN VIDEOS WITH BIGGIE AND JAY-Z!!!!, and that he's also hopped on the sequel bandwagon in response to the complete apathy to his last few albums and DOE OR DIE 2 IS COMING OUT SOON!!!!!! I can't work out whether Doe Or Die 2 is a new album or a repackaged version of the original with all the remixes and a few new tracks, though. 'Sup with that?

Quick demonstration on why rap is the bestest music evah

When it comes to the Vagina Diner, do you visit the establishment with the same "last to enter, first to leave" philosophy which Anna Wintour subscribes to for fashion industry soirees? Or do you treat it like you're the magic remote-control assisted Rabbit "The Ravisher" in the Spaghetti Pig Out episode of Round The Twist?



Hold your tongue and that thought for one minute. During a disasterous gambling spree a decade ago, I came to the conclusion that my bad fortune had nothing to do with a complete inability to pick horses and was, instead, a byproduct of the negative karma I'd brought about on myself by listening to lots of violent rap, which could probably only be rectified by me taking a hiatus from listening to zee rap musik for a while until my karmic levels had risen to an acceptable plateau. I lasted 5 days (in which I sneaked a few listens to old De La shit because, y'know, De La aren't like those other rappers) and it was a truly miserable period when I came to the realisation that I just don't feel as passionately about the likes of Kyuss, Isaac Hayes, Madonna, Bernard Herrmann, Prince, Black Flag, Funkadelic/Parliament and the Rocky 4 soundtrack as I do about my favourite rappers because other genres don't deal with important subjects in the forthright manner that rap does.

Take the subject of cunninlingus, for instance. Rock bands will tackle the subject by beating around the bush, and feminist singers you'd never want to eat out in a million years will either skirt around the issue or sing about it in the most cringeworthy way imaginable, but only rappers will tackle the subject with any sort of candor which is relatable to those of us who actually have to eat the salmon sandwich, whichever way our tastebuds may tingle.

DJ Quik - Can I Eat It?



"Well my n*gga, you ought to save yo' self some grief
If it ain't worth havin' a little hair in ya' teeth
Ya cuz you'll come up sho't
With a full pair o' nuts and a lump in ya throat
Cuz even though she's screamin, she don't want ya semen
She just want a tooounge to keep her ass creamin'
But Im'a let her know baby doll I can't do it
Not in here and fuck cuz all coochie got a taste to it
See I don't know who been digging you out
And licking ya down
I aint the first girl so I can't clown
But instead Im'a tell you how its done
You gotta tell a ho 68 and I owe you 1"

The Beatnuts - Lick The Pussy



"In and out with the tongue, ain't another brother finer
Cause I can dunk like that fuckin Harold Miner
After I see you here now you're in for a suprise
My lips are suction cups in a fucking fat disguise
Rise up off the bed in a twist
I make your head spin like the fucking Exorcist"

So there's your irrefutable proof that rap is the greatest genre in the history of recorded music, even with the downside of the inevitable This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things moment when we end up with My Neck, My Back by Khia, which just ruins the party for everyone. Serious L-O-L at Khia's record label keeping her as far away from the video as possible :

Khia - My Neck, My Back

Greatest movie scenes ever # 30

Sorry already, Done. Warning : if you've never seen White Heat and you plan to see it one day, then, please don't read any further or just scroll right down to the Juvenile song at the end. Well, unless you don't like Juve, I guess, but if you're not down with Mr J-u-v-e then, sheesh, what's wrong with you?



I dunno if a sizeable portion of directors who worked throughout the eighties all attended the same film school where they were endlessly shown White Heat as an example of great movie-making, but the decade was a particularly fruitful era for villains literally going out in a blaze like Cagney's Cody Jarrett on the gas storage tanker : Freddy usually exploding into flames at the climax of every Elm Street flick; various shady government agents and punk hoodlums left as nothing but pairs of smoldering boots after opening the trunk of the '64 Chevy Malibu in Repo Man; James Bond temporarily distracting the petrol soaked Franz Sanchez with a question before lighting his ass up in Licence To Kill; vamps getting Guy Fawkesed in The Lost Boys and both Fright Night movies; the cackling alien Fourth Of Julying himself all like "You, kill me? Whigga please!" in Predator; all the Gremlins bar Stripe going up in smoke as they were trapped in the cinema after their screening of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs was rudely interrupted in Gremlins; and MacReady blowing up the creature, taking the base with it, and thus that ensuring him and Childs would spend their last days on Earth freezing to death in The Thing. I'd have gone with the Rather Let The Thing Assimilate Me And Fly His Ship Back To His Home Planet option, personally - at least alien spaceships would have home-comforts like heating, electricity, and a working toilet.

If you were as underwhelmed by Public Enemies as me last year (though I've never really been a fan of Micheal Mann and there was no way it was ever going to rival the 1973 Dillinger movie with Warren Oates) then rewatching White Heat, which arguably shares more traits with Film Noir and the Western than it does with your traditional American Gangster movie encumbered with social commentary about them poor immigrants forced into a life of racktereering, was the perfect remedy to yet another Mann movie which consisted of one good lead performance and a handful of amazingly well done scenes strung together with an otherwise fairly boring hour or so. Oh, and a terrible turn by Christian Bale proving once and for all that he's really bad at doing stern and understated.



As a blackout suffering gang boss with overwhelming mother issues which affected his relationship with his wife, David Chase freely admits that Cody Jarrett was a key inspiration when he was sketching out the character profile for Tony Soprano, while Scorsese once noted in an Empire interview that homicidal mamma's boy Jarrett was the precedent for Pesci's Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas. That's all hunky dory, but if only Virginia Mayo's performance as his moll Verna Jarrett could be as influential to the modern British woman. Sure, Verna didn't actually love Cody and, yeah, she was guilty of infidelity, being involved in the murder of his beloved ma' and conspiring to have him killed on two seperate occassions, BUT she was the original "she talk dirty, but her mouth clean" broad who'd spit her gum out before kissing her man and you really gotta respect such class in this uncivilised age where every wench in this country has a fag permanently hanging from their gob and at least 5 seperate, possibly septic tongue piercings.


Bonus beats to Fire Walk with :

Juvenile - Juvenile On Fire



From the Hot Boy$ era when various forms of pyromania were a ubiqitous motif for Ca$h Money Records rappers. Handily, this is my favourite song on Juvenile's 400 Degreez and if you've never wrapped a towel around your head into the shape of a solja rag as you rap along to anything by Juve in the shower then we'll never be anything more than vague acquaintances. Can we pinpoint Wayne's Fireman as officially marking the end of the Hot Boy$ era? That original line-up reunion with Mannie production is never going to happen and, although I'm sure Baby & Slim will put togrther a Hot Boy$ 2.0 with Drake, Tyga and Jay Sean replacing Juve, B.G, and Turk, I'll pretend it didn't happen like The Next Karate Kid in 1994 and the recent Jaden Smith reboot.

Let's condense AG's crappy The Dirty Version LP into a classic D.I.T.C EP

Runaway Slave was a fine album ('s all about More Than One Way Out Of The Ghetto and He Say, She Say rather than any of the singles), but I'd offer both Party Groove/Soul Clap and Full Scale as proof that the EP was the format which best suited Showbiz & AG. If you're still not convinced (and please don't even try and tell me that Goodfellas is their best release) then the Live Hard digi-7 tracker they put out a couple of years ago is further evidence that even at this point the duo can still knock out a pretty effective project together within the framework of an EP, because the title track is quintessential D.I.T.C.

Inspired by the news that Fat Beats NY and LA are set to close, I've spent the past few days digging out records bought on visits to the NY and Amsterdam stores, including AG's The Dirty Version LP from 2000. I'd not listened to this in a good 5 years now, but, yep, my feelings about it from a decade ago still stand : a handful of absolute joints, but like so many other albums by old man NY rappers around the same period it suffers from too many ill advised attempts to ape Bad Boy/Jay-Z and a plethora of unneeded weed-carrier verses. Still, at least we were spared the inclusion of that song he did with Mancunian trip-hop hack Aim, eh? Man, remember those dark days in the late nineties when you'd have British producers being interviewed in HHC talking about how Stunts, Blunts And Hip Hop was their blueprint for making music and how they'd secured AG and YZ guest spots blah blah blah so you'd check their stuff out and, without fail, it'd sound like fucking Howie B or some Skint Records shite like REQ?

Since it seems a shame to let those handful of classic D.I.T.C moments get lost inbetween a myriad of faux-jiggy tracks, shitty Ahmed beats and Wali World guest verses, let's send this album to the sauna to sweat off its flab and emerge as a lean classic AG EP. Drop It Heavy with KRS & Pun is a D.I.T.C classic (and one of the last bearable KRS verses) but it's disqualified because it was already on Full Scale; I used to really like the Diamond D produced No Where To Go but I'd rather listen to the old Money Boss Players track from Ghetto Chronicles Daily which used the same sample nowadays; and I really like We Do That Too but accept that it doesn't really fit into the classical D.I.T.C mold I'm going for here. That leaves us with these to collate into a 4 track affair :

AG - All Eye Seeing



While AG's attempts at recreating LOX songs yielded some pretty appalling results, his stab at Whoa was much more successful. All you need is some Buckwild production which goes Du-Du-Du-Du-DAH-DAH-DUH-DAH, a recurring phrase to use as a washing line to hang your lyrics on and, et voilà, you have AG's best solo song that Just Blaze admitted "inspired" (translation : was completely ripped off for) Saigon's The Letter P 5 years later. This one is a cheerful reminder that back in 2000 there was very little difference between the various sub-genres of NY rap, with D.I.T.C jams, Jay's harder cuts, Bad Boy anthems like Whoa or Bad Boyz, street bangers by M.O.P and Screwball, and more esoteric tunes by Godfather Don or Scaramanga all happily co-existing together on Stretch Armstrong radio shows. That line where AG informs us that he's "seen The Matrix" on an LP released months after its cinema run sounds so quaint now in the era when we get Slim Thug's thoughts on Inception mere minutes after the credits have rolled :



AG ft. Ghetto Dwellas - Muddslide



AG ft. Ghetto Dwellas & Fat Joe - Underground Life



Show was absolutely killing it with the production during D.I.T.C's indie golden-era from 1997 - 2000 so, as is always the case in a genre as haphazard as rap, his one beat on AG's solo was absolutely terrible. Like, worst-song-on-the-entire-album terrible and this was an album which included Rude Awakening (props on whoever uploaded the video to this for sneaking titties onto Youtube, btw). Thankfully, Lord Finesse came to the rescue with a couple of beats which became Ghetto Dwellas posse jams, with the latter also being the home for some vintage Joey Crack rapping from when Armageddon was ghostwriting for him. Neither are as good as Who's The Dirtiest? as far as AG & Ghetto Dwellas songs go, but they're both pretty great nontheless. R.I.P to Party Arty - I wonder if heaven got a Youtube comment section where anyone drops you a "actually, Arty won this" remark in that Smack DVD battle against Murda Mook video?

AG ft. Guru, O.C & Party Arty - Weed Scented



On an album which included a man almost convicted of homicide (Show), an obese man with arteries rapidly turning to concrete (Fat Joe), and a host of weed-carriers who were probably knee deep in crime (Wali World, Hehdkrack, Mr Mudd) how cruel is it that Guru - Guru! - is one of the three guest rappers from it who's no longer with us a decade later? Anyway, remember when even formulaic, slightly flat Primo beats were still brilliant? This shit is so good that I can even forgive O.C his "this verse here's better than your whole cd" line which at least 4 people had used already since Craig Mack first spat words to those effect on the Flava In Ya Ear remix.

Keak Da Sneak - Maxi Pads

What we have here is another illustration of Bay producers looking back to the sounds of the eighties to reinterpret into something that's thoroughly NOW. A song which summons up the image of a mid-blob sanitary towel chaffing up against Biffin's Bridge really shouldn't make you wanna Shake It Like Louise Woodward, though, huh?

"T-t-t-t-touch mo' ass...
I touch mo' ass than maxi pads"

Keak Da Sneak - Maxi Pads



Much like Gucci Mane, Keak is a rapper who I can only listen to in small chunks due to his, ahem, unorthodox voice grating on my nerves after about 3 songs in succession, but, gosh, he really knows how to come up with an anthemic slap every now and then, and I'll concede that the rap game would be a much better place with more rappers who sound like BOB from Twin Peaks and fewer rappers who sound like the current incarnation of B.o.B. Rappers strumming on acoustic guitars like Tracy Chapman or some busking faggot belting out Razorlight numbers in front of the bank need to get done like the Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine did The Bushwackers.

Really didn't think DJ Fresh could top that Baserock Babies beat (essentially a 2010 take on Celly Cel & UGK's Pop The Trunk) this year, but this MIGHT be even better. The verdict is out until we've given it a road test on the way to see Piranha 3D on friday night. That movie best provide more splatter than a used jam-rag bin in a public toilet or da streetz are gonna troll IMDB demand blood, blud.

Big K.R.I.T's Adidas 1's In Da Club (2005)

Back in the twlight of 2009 I promised myself I'd never buy another pair of Adidas again because my poor wittle pinkies deserve better than to be shredded by their narrow toeboxes and living oop north it's near-impossible to disassociate the 3 stripes with provincial Gallagher doppelgangers, Madchester casualties, and every male Scouser under the age of 50 (uninteresting fact of the day according to my pal Graham at Adidas : they sell hundreds of pairs of the reissued P.T Trainers a week in Liverpool); basically the worst people on earth. The boycott remains steadfast 8 months later, and if I could resist those gorgeous suede vulcanized Campus highs in wine red from earlier this year then it'll be a doddle to resist anything else Adidas care to throw at me in the future.

Maybe the kid Big K.R.I.T feels my pain because he's been wearing Nikes in every picture I've seen of him since his post-K.R.I.T Wuz Here internet hype this year, but way back in 2005 he was all about extolling the merits of venturing out to his local Mr Ritzies in those horrible techy Adidas 1 runners which came out that year. Adidas 1's In Da Club isn't a classic of the genre like Raekwon's Sneakers, My Adidas by Run Dmc, T.I & P$C's My Air Forces, Read These Nikes by Geto Boys, The Pack's Vans, It's The Shoes by Curtains, Busy Bee's Converse, Air Forces by Jeezy, Schoolly D's Put Your Filas On and Footlocka Crew by Little Bruce; but it's worthy of a place somewhere in the best-of-the-rest category alongside the likes of They Call Me Puma by Seeborn & Puma, Do The Fila And The Peewee Dance by M.C Boob AKA Steady B, Sleepin' In My Nikes by Seagram & Scarface, and Yukmouth & Jeezy's Air Jordans.

Big K.R.I.T ft. Jay-O - Adidas 1's In Da Club



I heard this somewhere back in 2006 (maybe streaming on Myspace or some random Yousendit link) around the time I Got Me Some BAPES by Soulja Boy and Vans by The Pack were poppin', and Dunks by Yung Joc and the aforementioned Curtains tune were bubbling on the 'net/mixtapes/radio playlists, so I figured that we were in for an era of regional non-Air Force 1 specific sneaker themed tracks by new rappers looking for a breakout hit. That didn't quite happen (sure, Wale had Nike Boots and Mickey Factz had I Like Your Supras in '07 but it never quite blossomed into a full scale trend with legitimate hits or Mook-B from D4L making Fresh Ta Def In My Makavelli Brand AF1 rip-offs) and I hadn't the foggiest idea who'd made Adidas 1's In Da Club until that recent issue of XXL with the Big K.R.I.T feature where he was talking about how it was his first regional hit in '05 which he then spent the next half decade struggling to follow-up and then escape from under.

A pattern emerges here with K.R.I.T, Lil B and Curtains all gaining notoriety for footwear fetish songs in 2005/2006 and then undergoing a creative rebirth to become blog darlings by 2010. Does this mean that Treal Lee & Prince Rick (who are great, btw) are set to reappear in 2014 with an ambient album of Pimp C pastiches delivered in Puba-esque personas that Brandon Soderberg is going to declare even better than Donuts, which will then spawn a myriad of omnipresent viral video singles on WSHH.com? Does this also mean every currently hyped new southern blog-rapper has an obscure regional hit about footwear recorded when they were teenagers out there somewhere? Is the world really ready for World War Y3 by Jackie Chain, Umbro Do Me by Pill, and Superga Lover by Freddie Gibbs?

Bonus beats :

Little 7 & Haas C-B - Sneakers



Recently discovered and tracked down a copy of the 12" of this one after the Fat Lace homies mentioned it. If you've ever wondered what might've happened if lil' Les from the 2 A Gangsta's Fairytale intros or Jeff from De La's The Mack Daddy On The Left and Brainwashed Follower skits (both of whom had way more swag than proper child rappers like Superkids era Tragedy, Chi-Ali, either of the shorties from Illegal, or Wayne circa True Story) and a friend had made a song in 1986 about athletic footwear with the "Bobos they make your feet feel fine, Bobos they cost a dollar ninety nine.." taunt that Bobbito talks about in his Where'd You Get Those? book then, well, here's your answer.

Lil' Wyte - Ice White Soljas



Really wanted something by the token cracker protege from the Hypnotize Minds camp in my Great Rap Songs By Caucasoids post but figured the southern-rapper quota was already full with the T-Bo & Mike Da Hustla, Bubba Sparxxx, Paul Wall, and Yelawolf choices, so this is an excuse to finally post something by Lil' Wyte with his tribute to coke-white Reebok runners AKA the second best song on his sophomore Phinally Phamous cd after the awesome By 2 Da Bad Guy with DJ Paul. Wyte refers to his Reeboks as soljas because they put in work with him running from po-po, stomping people of either sex and making love to a lady of undisclosed origin on a day trip to the seaside, but I've ever been able to assertain if he means Reebok Classics as in the crappy plastic eighties model favoured by proles here in the UK or those hideous nineties models Juve and his boy Lil' Solja were waving about in the air in the Solja Rag video?

Martorial elegance # 37

Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized



Attention 98% of hardcore scene girlz in washerwoman bandanas after seeing a picture of Dita Von Teese sporting one/reading a post about Bettie Page on Jezebel/spying Kat Von D wear something similar in whatever terrible tattoo show she's in currently - please refer to the chick from the live scenes in the Institutionalized video by Suicidal Tendencies for how the look should be done properly :









Top 5 video chick of all time alongside any of the birds in Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love video and the one who looks like a perma-sarcastic Brandy in the video for Feel So Good by Ma$e.

While we're on the subject of Suicidal, the whole Mike Muir look with Raiders caps/bandanas, flannel shirts with the top button done up, 501s, and Vans Eras/Slip-Ons is played already. It's time to start looking to Rocky George as the Suicidal Tendencies member we should be taking our sartorial cues from :



Here at The Martorialist we've already got black shirts galore and can switch up the smart black trews game with those black GoodEnough pants from a few years back we stocked up on during the sale at Hideout, so all we need to do now is procure a black bomber jacket from our local Army & Navy store, cop an old Pittsburgh Pirates pillbox cap from eBay, find some Generic Surplus Winos from wherever (no offence but we'll pass on the white M.J socks, Rocky) and it's officially on. If this becomes the default look at the gigs of Vicecore bands like Flats and dubstep raves then please remember who brought the look back first.

Bonus action :



Mike's mom from the Institutionalized video : prime I Don't Care If You Wouldn't, I Would fodder? Possibly has a penis lurking under that dress, but every man wants to be seduced by a domineering Mrs Robinson-ish mother and you imagine that she'll probably pull some mean Fuck Faces during sex judging by some of her gurning in the video :

Can't Talk Too Long On The Telephone by Pretty Tone Capone

Colin Farrell as Jerry Dandridge in the upcoming Fright Night remake? This can't be life.

So, after asking if anybody out there had an mp3 of Can't Talk Too Long On The Telephone from the Def American Records 1992 promo tape the other day, I finally found it myself.

Pretty Tone Capone - Can't Talk Too Long On The Telephone



"Slick as a fox, knockin' chumps out the box
I rock fat gold chains, blow brains like snot
those who try to front get stuffed in my trunk
I rip off necks and leave bodies in dumps
stash the pump, roll a blunt, go to lunch
wax the Benz when I'm done watchin' the Brady Bunch"

Wonder if Tone was a Carol or Marcia kinda guy? Carol would've had the proverbial Wizard's Sleeve after squeezing out 3 kids so it's gotta be Marcia all day, every day. Obligatory crudity outta the way, P.T.C delivers exactly what I want for a song with that title, his WHAT! adlibs were proto-Nore/Stone Cold Steve Austin, Nautilus samples are always a good thing (hell, even The Dream Warriors were almost listenable over Nautilus), and the scratched "can't talk too long on the telephone" and "hop in your rover, come right over" Tone vox snippets from Gangster Shit on the hook are both used to excellent effect. Two thumbs up.

I 'spose it's only right to up the other notable P.T.C track from his meagre catalogue to round these MobStyle posts off. Across 110th Street is baller-baller, but neither Gangster Shit Part 2 and Sexy (fuck that later unreleased horrorcore track G-Spot from 1995 completely) are not at all a baller, nor do they have have any particular historical relevence aside from the latter being a preferable alternative to the other main MobStyle cringeworthy love-jam Play 4 Keeps. Thankfully Tone doesn't do the Paulie Walnuts voice he used on Marked 4 Death for Across 110th Street (both songs come from the same EP, y'see), and his last verse on it is some of my favourite rapping by him. Impressively trife for a song recorded sometime around 1991 or 1992-ish.

Pretty Tone Capone ft. J-Nitti - Across 110th Street



"Last but not least, another Pretty masterpiece
I get dough, blow up like yeast
on the streets I walk, I'm the king of New York
up-north I rip soft n*ggas with a fork
use a knife and spoon in the Temple Of Doom
slung down, low-down, showdowns at noon
pack your bags or get smacked with the Mag'
the Mob is deep in the Saab and the Jags
rag-top, fuck a cop, you can't stop this
sissy soft faggot n*ggas I'ma knock quick
don't you jock this, yo, I'm blastin'
puttin' pussy mens in a casting
traction coma, you're a blood donor
Pretty Tone got a homicide diploma
you can't school me, I blast toolies
from yours truly *mwah*, diamonds and rubies
n*ggas are booty, soft like shit
I swing with kingpins but I'm legit
pass the brick, Pretty Tone want a hit
park your Benz if you don't got a kit
tell your friends, make ends meet
you better roll deep when you pass One-Tenth Street"

Attention rappers : unless you're armed with nothing more than household cutlery to fight the abominable heathens who reside in the Temple Of Doom on some Richard IV taking on the might of the Turkish army with a small fruit knife in series 1 of Blackadder type shit, then, please fall back.

MobStyle weekend # 1 : the N.W.A beef

MobStyle weekend # 2 : the videos

E-40 as a yout'

Shamelessly gaffled from Celebrity School Pics.com.



E-40! Young! Thin! With a Gumby! Wearing Cortez! Let this snapshot of Earl before he bloated-up due to guzzling 40s and Cam'Ron's 40oz-a-day-when-he-was-younger fuelled I.B.S be a lesson about the unfortunate physical effects of cheap malt-liquor.



'40 on the left and B-Legit on the right. I had a knee length mack in 1991 myself but, truthfully, it was as inspired by J.D in Heathers as it was by Ren in the Alwayz Into Somethin' video.

Apropos of this being an E-40 post, let's reminisce over some of his early noughties Rick Rock slaps. Rick Rock's robo-funk was the perfect antidote to the tepid sub-2001 style production (2001 itself is obviously amazing, it's just all the dry knock-off versions of it which suck) so many other west coast rappers were using at the time (and still are), and Earl deserves endless kudos for making a song with Afroman where Kevin Smith's mate rhymed "creativity" with "positivity" on it which somehow managed to be decent. Anyway, here's the 3 best '40 Water and double R jams from Charlie Hustle.., Grit And Grind, and Breakin' News according to me.

E-40 - Ballaholic



"I wear these glasses so that I can look like a square/
but if you ever see me in a fight with a bear, n*gga, don't help me - help the bear"

E-40 - It's All Gravity



"Too many chiefs but not enough Indians/
see, everybody need to play they position"

E-40 ft. Turf Talk - Gasoline



"Couldn't say they ABC's backwards? It's over/
shoot, I can't say my ABC's backwards when I'm sober"

Bonus Youtube action :

E-40 ft. Fabolous - Automatic



Another classic Earl and Ricardo moment with the main single from Grit And Grind. This is also notable for being one of the few examples of a non-contrived early noughties bicoastal collaboration (Fab' kills this shit and him and '40 have great chemistry), and for the lingering presence of Nu-Metal in west coast videos with a cameo by everybody's least favourite whigga-extrodinaire Fieldy from KoRN.

Martorial elegance # 36

No the John Wayne rumour in Repo Man, but in theory I'm feelin' my man here on his experimentation with female clothes : male fashion has regressed so much over the last 100 years or so to the point where all we're left with is a handful of perfunctory basics and I feel extreme surges of Patrick Bateman-esque jealousy at the sheer volume of choice women have with attire, so, on one level I can only applaud a dude who takes a stand against this monontony and repression with his regalia.

But deciding that your motif of protest is gonna be a pair of Uggs, a boot originally worn by Australian male surfers which strongly resemble those insulated suede boots that manual labourers wear, is like throwing a paddy over an internet deadpool which includes a deceased mate of yours when you've made light of dead prostitutes for tv comedy shows and a friend of yours runs a ghoulish Shearings Holidays type enterprise ferrying tourists around Miami and California to see where Versace got his wig twisted and Anna Nicole Smith Overdosed. You smell me?

Ice-T - Bitches 2



Speaking of Ice-T, Thomas over at 100 Grand On My Wrist, Yeah Life Sucks recently made a post about a couple of joints by NhT Boyz currently poppin' in the Bay (Slidin' is great) which reminded me that they were the group who remade Ice's 6 In The Morning earlier this year.

NhT Boyz - 6 In The Morning



That "and I catch a n*gga sleepin' put his life in the scope/now he takin' off his chain like his bicycle broke" line FTW.

MobStyle weekend # 2 : the videos

The reason that Youtube is The Goose Which Keeps On Laying Golden Eggs has less to do with finally knowing the gruesome answer to what would happen if a monkey skull-fucked a frog or clips of teenage girls dancing to We Want Some Pussy by 2 Live Crew which prove that the old cliche of Hot Girl With Fat Friend even extends to the internet, and more because old rap videos I never knew existed just keep appearing on there month after month after month. Who knew Nobody Move by Poor Righteous Teachers and Lacville '79 by Devin had videos? Not me until the invention of Youtube. What really gets my G-Spot tingling, though, is when ridiculously obscure stuff which you'd never have imagined would've ever had a video just appears on there out of the blue. Nothing by MobStyle the group has turned up yet - please please please let there be a promo for Wanted By - but old Azie and Pretty Tone Capone videos have, and this is something we should celebrate.

If MobStyle were the original Dipset - and they almost certainly were - then they had two Cam'Ron's in the group with Azie as group leader/businessman Cam and Pretty Tone acting as Lord Of Ig'nance stylized rapper Cam. I suppose that would make Gangsta Lou a combination of Juelz et Jim, and Whip Wop Freaky Zeeky. Gangsta Lou, who isn't particularly fond of one Joseph Guillermo Jones II, will kill me if he ever reads this post and sees that i've called him MobStyle's equivalent to Jim Jones. This is entirely possible because I'm currently emailing Mello-T's manager to try and arrange an interview with The Godfather after he replied to my post on the Mello-T episode of Louis Theroux, and Mr Low Kash recently replied to my post about Play Time Is Over by Mr Low-Kash 'N Da Shady Bunch on Fat Lace, so if you're reading this, Lou - totes sorry, bruv.

Azie - What's Going On, Black?



Long before the likes of 2pac, Nas and Bone Thugs were rapping over Phil's shit, Harlem dudes were all up on the tip : DJ Brucie B used to play various Phil C jams at The Rooftop, Doug E. Fresh was being backed by Ill Phil samples in '88, and Azie used an "oh lord" from In The Air Tonight for the main single from his 1991 solo tape Street Wise. The difference between this and rappers cosying up to Coldplay is fairly uncomplicated : In The Air Tonight was as state-of-the-art as anything by Kraftwerk and as bleak as anything by Joy Division, while Coldplay are just a bitchmade version of Radiohead, who themselves were just a wetter version of Talk Talk minus drugs, Jesus and a copy of Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas soundtrack. To make it even simpler, when Coldplay get together with the black ppl we get pure-uncut faggotry like this, but when Phil parlays with his African-American pals moments of sheer genius are born.

Anyway, I wonder if Azie paid for this sample, and if he did, what Phil thought about his music being used to soundtrack a song by a former drug dealer about multiple real life murders where Azie is already beginning to point fingers of suspicion at members of their crew for Rich Porter's murder? Since Dipset are back together again, they should keep that old Uptown flame for Phil alight and get whatever Myspace producer who does their stuff nowadays to sample one of the "IIIIIII"s from I Can't Dance by Genesis. It could be either totally Bomb Squad-ish or totally RZA-ish and I'm sure you'll agree that either of those possibilities are a better option than being fucking Arab Muzik-ish.

Pretty Tone Capone - Case Dismissed



I have no idea who directed this, but it's almost as if they trepanned their way into my head and extracted my fantasy of what a Pretty Tone Capone video should look like, and I'm amazed that this apparently used to get play on The Box back in 1992 according to the Youtube comment section gallery. The scene where P.T has his boys bumrush the barbershop with their guns drawn and then strolls in with his dame to have the workers attend to his chest hair and cuticles was pretty much the zenith of all rap videos until Code Name by White came along.

Bonus beats :

MobStyle - The 80s



That Azie solo Mobstyle cut with their original producer L.G which he put out to help co-promote his Game Over book in 2008. Couldn't find any working links for it anywhere so I thought I'd throw it up for archival purposes.

So Azie didn't die when he was shot nine times in 1987, but perhaps him living was a sisyphean punishment where he's doomed to spend the rest of his days putting out projects (albums, documentaries, movies, books) which everyone on the planet are oblivious to, bar the residents of Lenox Avenue, J-Zone, and white 30-something Europeans like me.

MobStyle weekend # 1 : their beef with N.W.A

We're aiming for them Avatar numbers in Hungary and Lenox Avenue in Harlem over the next couple of days because it's officially MobStyle weekend here at The Martorialist, but if you can't find anything about the MobStyle vs. N.W.A beef online which suits your needs then you might as well just write it yourself.





MobStyle - Gangster Shit



In some ways this was the original east coast vs. west coast spat which even predated Tim Dog's atrocious attempts at baiting N.W.A; MobStyle, who we can pinpoint as the first proper NY thug rappers (G. Rap hinted at it, yes, but he wasn't really a full on thug rapper at that point), took exception to N.W.A describing themselves as gangstas and tossed a couple of subliminals at "fake gangsta mc's" on their first album The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. How Eazy and the boys even picked up on some vague disses from an obscure independent NY tape release I don't know (having said that, both N.W.A and Eazy solo dissed Romeo & Master Rhyme after they were mentioned on a local west coast record called Crackerjack so it perhaps wasn't too suprising in hindsight), but pick up on them they did and Eazy returned fire on Real N*ggaz :

"Back, the good, the bad, the ugly - see?
A lil’ streetwise n*gga, you know me
Rollin’ with some real n*ggaz playing for keeps
but you muthafuckas know who run the streets"

N.W.A - Real N*ggaz



It's rumoured that MobStyle tried to step to Ice Cube at his infamous first NYC solo show at The Apollo in 1990 but hometown-hero Chuck D and his Nation Of Islam cronies managed to convince them to chiiiiill as Ice Cube was a changed man who had nothing to do with N.W.A anymore. N.W.A themselves weren't so lucky during their Apollo show in early 1991, however, when a wolfpack of Harlem goons led by Pretty Tone invaded the stage mid-show and the Most Dangerous Group In The World quickly got the fuck out of dodge. Azie and Pretty Tone then both issued solo releases in 1991, 1992 and 1993 which included explicit dis tracks aimed at the boys from Compton.

Azie - Don't Dis Nobody (taken from his 1991 Street Wise tape)



"N.W.Gay" and "N*ggaz With Activators" - HAHAHAHA! Thankfully, it gets better with Azie holding counsel as he compares Eazy's squeaky tone to Michel'Le's voice, instructs them to suck a dick with Aids (was this an Ebert getting cancer after Gallo wished it on him self-fulfilling jinx type situation where Azie put a voodoo hex on Eazy?), proposes that Ice Cube left the group when he found out the other N.W.A members were homosexuals, issues threats of violence so their trademark Locs will be a neccesity to cover their black eyes, compares Eazy's jheri-curl to Al Sharpton's shag 'doo, and promises to throw stuff down Eazy's "chim-a-ney". Add in a wah-wah loop with two choice vocal samples and you have Azie's best solo song, like, ever. Not tryna be a contrarian, but I actually prefer this to No Vaseline as far as N.W.A disses go.

Pretty Tone Capone - Kidnapped (taken from his 1992 Case Dismissed 12")



Pretty Tone's first dis to Eazy came a year later, opening with a skit where P.T runs up on "that faggot ass n*gga" Eazy and kidnaps him. The rest of the song is then used to detail the various torture methods Tone has in store for Eazy and some kinda dodgy rape fantasies when he adds "stuck up bitches" Michel'Le and Tarrie B to his stash of Ruthless Records employed hostages. I was really hoping Tone would have an accidental "that goes for yo' mama and yo' sister too/and if I'm locked down in jail that shit might go for you"-style moment to AYO! in this, but, nope, he keeps his threats strictly based around beating the shit of Eazy, save for the taunt that he plans to finger-fuck Eazy's neice at his funeral.

Pretty Tone Capone - Marked 4 Death (taken from his 1993 Across 110th Street 12")



I wonder if there was ever any Rick Ross/Freeway Rick Ross type beef between Ghostface and Pretty Tone Capone over Ghost using the Pretty Tone handle? The intro on this even sounds like a proto-classic Dennis Coles rant. That intro is my favourite part of this as I'm not overly fond of the beat when the actual song kicks in, but it's an extention of Kidnapped with a caboodle of other trajectories thrown in including an airport receptionist getting bucked, some self-mythologizing, P.T now adding Death Row, Digital Underground and all "humpty-dumpty broke ass country" west coast rappers to his sights, and that fantastic "dosie-doh, yo, n*ggas don't know" line.

Bonus plea :

Anybody have an MP3 of Can't Talk Too Long On The Telephone by Pretty Tone Capone from the 1992 Def American Recordings preview tape? That's kinda my holy grail mp3 right there. Okay, so no Pretty Tone album on Def American ever actually materialized because Tone probably wasn't the most corporate-friendly person to have hanging around the Def American offices (best mental image ever : him and Glenn Danzig making chit-chat in the corridor), but how amazing is it that Rick Rubin signed Pretty Tone to his label and put him on a sampler tape alongside songs by Slayer, Trouble, and Brummie metal-hogs Wolfsbane? If only there could've been a Pretty Tone Capone and Andrew Dice Clay collaboration.

Martorial elegance # 35

Is CJ a victim of the rolled chino trend? Does Daphne wear skirts or trousers with those M&S blouses? Do Kevin, Chris, Barry, and Pat ever turn up in shorts during hot weather? Has Judith got a decent body on her for a GAILTF?

These are the questions which plague every Eggheads fan who spends too much time pondering what our Herculean tv quiz team are wearing under their desk as we twist and crank our necks into flesh pretzels to catch a glimpse of their outfits that split-second when you see them stand up before it cuts to them sitting there grimacing in the question room.

The newest issue of Radio Times with the Eggheads feature finally clears one of these pertinent issues up as we learn that Judith doesn't look too dumpy for a 67 year old and that her footwear of choice are... Chuck Taylors?



Can women of pensionable age wear Converse? Were the clues there all along with her being an expert on the Rolling Stones during the music rounds? Aren't Cons Jack Purcells, Pro-Keds Royal Los and those recent Nike premium All Courts (the tan suede ones in particular) all better alternatives to Chucks in the same price range if you want some kicks with a white rubber toebox? Is going from making posts about why Judith is the most alluring tv quiz show member of recent times to obsessing over her footwear in the space of two years a symbol of my spiral into hommedom?

J-Zone - Q&A

XXL's making of Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted Re-Up

The (Bruce) Rioch Gang in full effect.

After the post I made about it back in June a few people asked if I could scan the entire thing properly. Of course, it'd be breaching copyright laws for me to do such a thing, but I just happened to chance upon some scans, y'know, elsewhere so I'm reposting them here. Click on the images to read them full size.









Ice Cube - Who's The Mack?



There were two singles released from AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, but out of the two, Who's The Mack (the other was the title track) was the only one afforded a video. Kinda bad decision making on all fronts from Cube and Priority Records there because You Can't Fade Me, Once Upon A Time In The Projects, and A Gangsta's Fairytale would've made much better singles/videos. Musn't grumble, though, because O'Shea's wearing a fly black Lench Mob t-shirt in it and any video footage of him with his jheri-curl should be cherished.

Rappin' 4-Tay - She's Hooked

Rappin' 4-Tay - She's Hooked



Back to the west today with Rappin' 4-Tay's introduction to the rap game, taken from Too $hort's independently released first The Dangerous Crew compilation LP in 1988 which also introduced Spice 1 and Ant Banks to the world.

If you sometimes have difficulty drifting off to sleep at night because you're too busy wondering what would've happened if Spoonie Gee had tried to remake Girl (Cocaine) in the style of something from Life Is... Too $hort then here's your answer.

The synths at 4:59 to 5:19 are absurd.