Wednesday 30 March 2011

Lip-sing more

3 reasons why Mystikal's performance of Y'All Ain't Ready Yet on Soul Train in 1995 (his first National TV appearance according to whoever uploaded the video) totally rules even though he's lip-syncing and doesn't even get to the last verse. Fast-forward to 0:30 unless you feel compelled to watch a commercial for some gaudy Louisiana-based brand called BR 225 who've done a range with Webbie called - wait for it - Jigg City Clothing :


1. A leopard-print dress sporting Stacey Dash giggling after she announces the title of the song and then M.C UGK-ing Mystikal by introducing him as a "super-talented rap crew".

2. Mystikal finally redeeming himself for using that timeworn "bad like Michael" line in the mid 90s during the 2nd verse by whipping his flannel shirt off and launching into a dance-breakdown of M.J moves right after the words spill from his lips.

3. Ending the performance by ripping his wifebeater apart like he's Hulk Hogan. Nicki Minaj should really conclude all her TV performances the same way; Rick Ross, on the other hand, needs to keep his fucking shirt on as much as possible in future.

9 comments:

done said...

I really need to see Mystikal live before I die. Videos deadly, dunno why a th hypemans required if its lip-synched though. this heres great imo and manages to bypass my aversion to backing bands and radio versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=petbyChApoI

That super high vid with Currensy and Wiz with all the close-ups of Rawse's moobs is up there with that Prince album cover wher hes naked on a winged horse in cringe-terms. Preferred the OG anyways, which coincedentily starred Dash. Her voice alone would have me whipped.

The CritIQ said...

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2010/08/new_orleans_rapper_mystikal_on.html

More recently, Mannie Fresh says he's producing the album....

Mystikal was pretty much the only No Limit artist I genuinely liked (as opposed to the so-bad-it's-funny tolerance of Master P et al shit-straining on stage uuuuuuuuurgh!)

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I assume you've seen the video of Mystikal sitting in Mannie's car listening to his beattape, CritIQ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_mrzAGBBLo

You not a fan of Young Bleed laconic charms on his Balls And My Word CD on No Limit?

Done, Stacey's voice is the equivalent of sitting on a cloud being fanned with palm leaves by princesses.

Asher said...

You know, I'd never really gotten around to early Mystikal, but here at least he sounds like a more on-beat version of slightly-prior-to-his-commercial-prime Silkk The Shocker. Note the trademark variations between really loud and really quiet, with his voice trailing off into a whisper. I have to say, though, that it's more gimmicky and fun when Silkk does it. With Mystikal it's just a stylistic thing and it seems totally in control, with Silkk it's like, wow, this guy's deranged. A great example of the LOUD/quiet dynamic in Silkk's work is his verse on "What They Call Us," with gems like, "see, my whole world is revolved around rounding up a fucking tight hoe, I'm like a time bomb, I be cool one second, but you never know WHEN I MIGHT EXPLODE!!!"

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

And the explosion sound-fx, just so we know that he really might explode.

That Snoop Dogg presents.. series on Priority really need to put out TRU 2 Da Game this year because the remastered version of Ghetto D sounds so good.

Asher said...

Yes, a Tru 2 Da Game remaster (with the "lost" original songs) is virtually as essential as a proper Blu-Ray, with cut scenes rediscovered, of The Magnificent Ambersons. But you know, the Warner Archive is killing shit. I mean, in successive weeks, they've put out Tourneur's Stars In My Crown, Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While The City Sleeps, Minnelli's The Cobweb and Tea and Sympathy, and Two Weeks In Another Town. I mean, Jesus. Those six movies right there top the entire previous decade's cinematic output, more or less. Tea and Sympathy in particular really is up there with the top Sirks. I watched it on my laptop and I was pausing it every second, marveling at how Minnelli color-coordinated his actors' clothes with the surrounding curtains.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I still really need to see Some Came Running, Two Weeks In Another Town, and The Courtship Of Eddie's Father by Minelli, but The Cobweb is awesome and has some of the most amazing interiors I've ever seen.

Never really paid much attention to Tea And Sympathy, but reading about it now it sounds kinda great and this colour coordinating you speak of is the sort of stylisation I'd definately trip out over.

Asher said...

I think Some Came Running just might be the most sheerly enjoyable film ever made. It just keeps coming at you. Like the first scenes between Sinatra and Arthur Kennedy are pure genius and if the movie had kept going in that direction it would easily be a top 3 50s suburban Technicolor movie. But then, along comes Dean Martin, and all of a sudden we're in this beautifully realized world of dive bars and crappy apartments. And somehow he ties it all together, and the whole thing adds up to this grand statement about how colossally fucked up 50s society is, in both its privileged and underprivileged strata, but never in a tendentious or cynical way, like some Sirk is; rather, it's such a humane and compassionate and understanding film, one in which we come away feeling sorry for everyone. I don't know why that's not on everyone's top ten list. But yeah, Tea and Sympathy, everyone shits on it because the censors didn't let him make the kid gay... I just can't see why that matters. And really it only adds to the poignance of his closetedness that even the film itself can't acknowledge it. Anyway, it's such an amazingly stylized film, there are scenes in it that look like some kind of lurid nightmarish comic strip about prep school life. There's this amazing scene where the kid's going out to lose his virginity to this prostitute-waitress who works at a place simply named 'The Joint,' and on his way out he looks out his dorm room window, which heretofore has not afforded us a vantage point of said joint, and all of a sudden, you can see the joint's blazing red neon sign from his window, it's just been projected there, there's no way there was any real geographical contiguity on the set. And it just WORKS, like somehow it seems so fitting that you've never been able to see that thing out his window until now. It's like, through the complete fakeness and constructedness of the mise en scene, there's this whole range of expression that wouldn't be possible otherwise, and also, there's something so affecting about the fakeness itself.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

it's such an amazingly stylized film, there are scenes in it that look like some kind of lurid nightmarish comic strip about prep school life

^^ Totally sold it to me. Gonna order it later.