Saturday 11 September 2010

Children Of The Corn - Ill Flow

"I hit her with the Doug E. shit right there, you see it?.."



The thing about the Children Of The Corn unreleased songs mixtape compilation cd thingy is that, although I Remember When and A Star Is Born are some of my favorite unreleased joints from that era (everyone else always seems to prefer American Dream as far as C.O.C choonz go just because Big L is on it but never me... never me) which I would've been all up on like Jim Jones at a TK Maxx clearance rack of rhinestone Ed Hardy belts had they come out back in 1995, a lot of the songs on the cd are either generic mid-nineties NY boom-bap or potentially amazing but such turgid quality that they're near-unlistenable (somebody really needs to find good quality versions of Don't Sleep and Watch Your Back). Ill Flow was nestled inbetween a string of generic and barely audible songs on of the version of the C.O.C cd I copped off eBay in 2003 so I'd always skipped over it until the journey to see The Expendables a few weeks back (talk about an anti-climax after years of hype : little more than an average action flick which isn't even playing the same sport as Rambo 4 and Bad Boys 2) when one of my whiggas told me to leave it playing and, whoa, what on earth was I thinking all those years I left you lonely, Ill Flow?

Children Of The Corn - Ill Flow



Though C.O.C often get billed as "Big L's sideproject group", he's a peripheral figure for most of their output with Bloodshed, Cam'Ron, and Murda Ma$e taking centrestage and McGruff turning up for a quick 16 here or there. C.O.C's in-house producer Digga was responsible for Ill Flow and on it Bloodshed manages to reference Richard Kuklinski, indulge in a little casual racism a la Fat Ronaldo at the 2002 World Cup in Japan, and rhyme "caveats" with "gats" and "glocks & macks" all within the space of a minute, Ma$on does his hilarious "grimey" Murda Ma$e voice but he kinda rips this shit (though I maintain my position that Feel So Good, 24 Hours To Live, and I'm No Killa were his artistic pinnacle), and while Mr Cameron Giles was rapping love letters to MobStyle on I Remember When, here he administers MobStyle's Pretty Tone Capone as his blueprint in the same way that Big L assumed Lord Finesse as his own prototype. In short : they all kill their verses, the song goes hard, modern NY rap would be far more interesting if its rappers looked to Pretty Tone for inspiration, the best C.O.C tracks really should've come out as an EP back in 1995, and Lifestyles Ov Da Poor And Dangerous would've been a much better LP if American Dream, Watch Your Back (Bloodshed's verse is particularly nasty), and How Will I Make It? had made the final tracklisting.

Did all y'all ever see the video to C.O.C's Harlem U.S.A which turned up unannounced on Youtube earlier this year? Well, I say video, but I'm not sure whether it's a proper promo or just an outtake scene from that French documentary about Harlem which C.O.C were in :

Children Of The Corn - Harlem U.S.A



If you're incredulous about watching 8 minutes of a French documentary then Cam sporting a Speedo t-shirt and Bloodshed as an actual living person rather than a blurry photo/the R.I.P tribute mural in various Dipset related videos are worth suffering zee annoying Frog overdubbing for :

6 comments:

P said...

BISCUITS AND BANGERS IS THE ONE, BRO

H.L. said...

Dope post. Does Digga = Lord Digga?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

No, a different one. Some around the way Harlem guy they had making their beats. Dunno what happened to him.

Should've known you'd prefer the most RZA-ish shit on there, P.

scjoha said...

Interesting interview with Digga: http://biglonline.com/index.php?showtopic=2161
He claims C.O.C. his group, along with Cam and bloodshed (Mase obv not a core member), and also him being the co-founder of Diplomats with Cam, not Jim Jones. And he obv had plans to release more C.O.C. material.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Nice one, Scjoh'. Knew he did stuff up to S.D.E with Cam but didn't realise he went on to do stuff for Jay plus hits like Can't Stop, Won't Stop.

Fav' non C.O.C beat by him has gotta be Losin' Weight part 1.

Big L really should've hit him up for beats back in the late 90s.

James said...

Never heard any of the COC stuff other than "American Dream" before.