The annual Grand Puba post

While the noughties saw Grand Puba go into terminal decline, this is a Rapper who deserves eternal credit for making a group as irredeemable as Ugly Duckling almost listenable in 2004, and who still had the occasional flash of brilliance in him throughout the decade with the Pete Rock remix of Issues, his appearance on Beanie's Bread And Butter alongside Datty X, the Let's Go track from the Top Shelf '88 compilation, and these here 2 album cuts which nobody other than Wicked22 and his ilk gave a fuck about :

"One of the best at this, n*gga, case closed
because your style been exposed like assholes in toilet bowls"

Brand Nubian - Brand Nu Hustle
(From Time's Runnin' Out album; 2007)


A cut recorded in 1998 for The Foundation which then didn't see the light of day until their odds 'n' sods album of late 90s recordings in 2007, Brand Nu Hustle stands as the best O.G line-up Brand Nubian song since 1990 because it finally delivered what we'd been craving for 17 years : the 3 Nubes effortlessly spitting hot sauce about chickenheads and their microphone skillz over a simple Funk loop. Lord Jamar's last great hurrah before he was forever pwned by an egg allergy in OZ.

"Now she had a big future ahead of her, a big ass on back of her
had a man all he started doin' was just smackin' her"

Grand Puba ft. Tiffini Davies - It Is What It Is
(From Retroactive album; 2009)


In which we meet the unlikely feminist Grand Puba and a wailing Poundland Mary J. Blige for a story about meeting a breezy at the mall who turns out to be a stripper on a song which falls somewhere between What's The 411? and Slow Down in the Puba canon. Glad I finally gave Retroactive a whirl earlier this year because It Is What It Is might end up being Puba's valedictory solo classic, although his "caught up in the Desert Storm, girl, without a Clue" punchline isn't half as Maxwellian as Blind Fury's legendary "you need to do what Lala did, homie, and get a Clue!" zinger.