The grillz dat pay da billz

Blahzay Blahzay - Ice Grillz
(From Buzy Blahzay 12"; 2000)


I never had much time for either part of Danger, Pain I Feel, Blah Blah Blah, Good Cop Bad Cop or anything else from the Blahzay Blahzay LP in 1996, but this indie-era cut 12" on Fat Beats from four years later had me scrambling through the flotsam & jetsam who'd stand around in legendary defunct London record store Mr Bongo on a saturday afternoon getting in the way when I was trying to browse for old Beatnuts singles to get to the counter and ask what it was after hearing it there sometime around summer 2000.

The Blahzay lads do their thing ("when we war, your blood'll bubble when you bleed/n*ggas actin' funny when I'm with the momma of my seed"), but I'm sure even their nearest 'n' dearest would be willing to concede that P.F. Cuttin' is the star of the song with his spooky production giving the song a feel of narrow-eyed staredowns on the Brooklyn train and the scratched hook of that Busta line from his joint on the Madd Rapper album where D. Dot Rapped like a non-limp wristed Kweli being the soundtrack which always plays in my head when giving the evil-eye to teenagers in the cinema who are contemplating coming to sit near us on the back row. Shoo, back down a few tiers you fucking feral rubes.

P.F. Cuttin' must've really dug whatever the sample is on this because he reused it again 7 years later for the intro on Sean Price's Jesus Price Supastar album. P's the better rapper, but Ice Grillz goes way harder as a song.