Sunday 3 April 2011

Rakim's definitive moment of the noughties

I refer not to his verse on The Watcher 2 or the Ayatollah produced banger A Cold Feeling from 2001, but the viral commercial he did for the now sadly defunct GoldTeethUSA.com site back in 2004 where his mouth joined his third eye in shining like jewellery. The video split hip hop purists into 2 distinct camps of precious souls, consisting of those who couldn't watch it "out of respect for the God M.C" and those who watched it through their fingers before comparing it to a hostage video where middle eastern terrorists had a spotlight shining into the R's face and a glock pointed against the temple of his wifey offscreen, but here at The Martorialist we interpreted the clip in an entirely different light altogether with Rakim Allah just helping a fellow Godbody out by getting in front of the camera for his mate Dave's grillz website after they'd spent a night down the pub relaxing with Pep together and making himself a little much-needed loot after his Aftermath deal went belly up :

"Tell 'em Rakim sent you, man. They ain't gonna give you no discount, but what they gonna do, they gonna give you the right joints, you heard me?"



Cheap gold-fronts have been known to cause dangerous dental problems requiring surgery and gingivitis so mean you'll be bleeding burgundy, so it's a pity there was no recreated, reincarnated, updated Grillz for Dummies follow-up video where the R explained 'fronts hygeine/etiquette for GoldTeethUSA's tens of customers. Brothers tried and others died to get the formula, but don't sweat the technique because Baby came through to teach the chil'ren last year :

"You gotta get that shit cleaned, dog, if you don't, you fucked. All them n*ggas....man. Ask them n*ggas in Texas how they mouths all fucked up, fuckin' with that Johnny's shit got them n*ggas mouths all fucked up. If you playin' with yo' mouth, you gotta go to the proper dentist, you gotta go where that shit sanitized right, you gotta just do that shit right, dog.."



BONUS BEATS :

Eric B. & Rakim - Hypnotic (1990?)



There's a reason why this and Everything's Cool are by far the best of all Rakim's unreleased tracks, and it's because they both hail from the Eric B. & Rakim era. The latter was snipped from Don't Sweat The Technique due to sample clearance, and the story goes that Hypnotic was recorded for Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em by Large Professor but ended up on Eric B's cutting room floor along with the fabled bars from the title track due to the "I don't sniff no 'caine/Kane to get raw" line since Rakim and Big Daddy Kane had squashed their lingering beef after sending subliminals at each other on Set It Off and Microphone Fiend previously. It all seems so quaint when you consider this was around the same period when LL & Kool Moe Dee and Ice Cube & N.W.A were trading fairly explicit dis tracks, and it's a pity their petty squabbling didn't carry over to 1992 because Rakim could've got some major zings in at Kane's expense for keeping his leopard-skin undies on when he was romping with Madonna and Naomi Campbell in Madonna's SEX book. Bet he's the only goon nucca in them tiny pants.

11 comments:

hl said...

Wow. I've never seen this commercial.

done said...

Ha thats mad, never knew that about grillz. That include carnie/Rodney P-style replacements too?

I think you may be forgetting the r-a-w banger that is Bring It. Am I the only person who thinks the God was just about to make his best album circa 94-5? Even if his style was a bit simplified and he didnt Large and em for beats, Livin For the City/Once upon a Rhyme/Shades of Black/Tryna Write Rhymes all couldve made for a classic imo.

in 94 i dont go on tour I go to war

Boothe said...

Not sure where the rest of planet rock stands on this, but I HATED Rakim's verse on The Watcher 2.

Everytime I hear it, I it reminds me (his flow) of Mac 10. I actually thought Dre's verse was better than Ra's.

My Melody came up on the shuffle yesterday, and I had to stop listening to Hip Hop for the rest of the day. It just wouldn't be fair to the other rappers. It's so good.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Done, I Get Visual too, although that did become When I'm Flowin' on The 18th Letter.

Boothe - I'm doing my The Rock raised eyebrow to paragraph 1 + 2 of your comment.

done said...

Nah that one was always a bit too rappity rap nonsense for me, When Im Flowin's beat was nice though.

Boothe its not my favourite or anything but id say your probably on your own with that one.

Boothe said...

"I'll take Unpopular Opinions for $500, Alex"

done said...

Boothe you ever seen this?

http://danteross.com/blogs/jzone/2009/06/29/j-zone-10-unpopular-hip-hop-opinions/

Hes on the egotrip blog now too.

Boothe said...

yeah, i actually participated in that post (check #62 & 68).

done-y, check your email.

done said...

Ha no way, small world/blogasphere

Check yours.

Thun said...

"done said...
Nah that one was always a bit too rappity rap nonsense for me, When Im Flowin's beat was nice though."

"I get Visual" is definitely a rhyme nerd straight from the notebook wit no attempt to smoothen the edges kind of rappity rap song, but Rakim is the best in the world at doing that. He makes it seem cool and even appealing to the ladies to rap like that, now that's power. Don't subtract points from the God just because folks like Dilated Peoples made this style into a boring cottage industry.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

^^ This is the the truth.