The magic number # 2

^^^ This fucken' guy, eh? The only way to cleanse one's mind of what Cee-Lo has become (a castrated Solomon Burke knocking Xmas albums of Amy Winehouse and Paloma Faith cover versions) is to go in hard with ATLanta-rap all day today, so throw on Soul Food and Still Standing to remind yourself of happier times, break out the Triflin's Da Word tape by Triflin' Pac and T.I's Trap Muzik, reminisce on that golden-era of those few months back in 2006 when the Laffy Taffy dance was the prevailing goal celebration of fútbollers and footballers alike, and join with me in a celebration of 3 slept-on Dungeon Fam' related songs as we ponder the identity of the ATL rapper who "got caught in the Range Rover with the boy" :

Bubba Sparxxx - Disappear (2003)



Since it's unlikely America's black citizens will ever receive reperations for slavery, at least its most powerful record producers/label figureheads like Dr Dre and Timbaland can humiliate their white employees by forcing them to bleach their hair and frolic with farmyard animals in pig shit as mild forms of retribution. Could it be that Timbo completely mishandling the way Bubba Sparxxx's Deliverance album was promoted also chalked up another gold-star for black power at the expense of a cracka-ass-cracka, because that's the only conceivable theory I can come up with for the perplexing choice of singles from Bubba's sophomore effort, and why Disappear, apparently originally intended as the album's first single, ended up as a European-only bonus track here and a promo 12"-only cut stateside when it sees Bubba handling one of Timmy's most jittery productions with a flow that's measured yet still dexterous enough to navigate its antsy, almost JB's level rhythms.

Rock D The Legend ft. Big Boi - DDT (That Hoe) (2007)



The problem with a lot of rap songs which make specific reference to wrestling in their titles is that they'll then utilise the subject incidentally in the song itself; Ric Flair by Cam & Vado, for example, only features Vado rhyming Flair with pair and doing a WOOOOOOOO! during the chorus and thus misses out on the opportunity of Cam wearing a white wig in the video, likening the classic Dipset lineup to the 4 Horsemen, or bragging that his Air Force One IDs cost more than his enemies houses. This Halloween theme-sampling ATL dance record which came out during the peak of the Crank Dat trend by Purple Ribbon weed carrier Rock D (mostly notable for appearing on Kryptonite) and the P.R boss Big Boi, however, helps redress the balance somewhat since it includes acknowledgments of Hogan, Ricky Steamboat, and coming off the top-rope. Tragically, it didn't become a hit or inspire a whole wrestling-inspired-trend of answer-versions throughout ATLanta, which means we were robbed of Scott Hall (Dat Hoe) by Young Dro or Stone Cold Stun (Dat Hoe) by Fabo ever existing when the latter could've been blessed with a looped video of that time Austin stunned Stephanie McMahon.

CunninLynguists ft. Khujo & Killer Mike - Georgia remix (2009)



There are numerous reasons to detest the whole 4 elementz of hip hop philosophy - the sight of grown men "battling" by gurning as they roll around on the floor together aping moves they saw Frosty Freeze do in Style Wars, and how it's become slightly embarrassing to admit to enjoying a once-innocent pasttime like shopping for records because of Norwegian backpacker vinyl purists and irritating internet presences like Wicked22 being the two most obvious examples - but if there's one positive we can take from a concept created by Charlie Ahearn and relentlessly pushed by various members of the ageing Bronx cartel as their pension plan then it's the ethos Afrika Bambaataa had of searching out certified bangers from the most unlikely of artists, and never has this practice been more apparent than when a couple of palookas like the CunninLynguists finally dropped a genuinely great song a couple of years back with this remix which thankfully declines to let either the black guy or the whiney white douchebag who magically appears with tall tales of how CunninLynguists songs helped cure the worldwide Foot-And-Mouth disease outbreak of 2001 whenever his name is mentioned online rap on it like they did on the well-intentioned but mawkish original. When CL have roped Dungeon Family members in on their songs previously the results have always sounded a little too 3 Freaks for my liking (as in, a white backpacker producer's idea of what a distinct regional rap song should sound like rather than what a real one actually sounds like), but this has the feel of one of Witchdoctor's more reflective cuts and my only quibble with it would be that the good 'doctor isn't present here. Yo, if I ask what song this samples does that mean I run the risk of DJ Kno turning up here to patronise me because I've never had the chance to rock village fête stages in Antwerp and Utrecht?