Generic list post: march 2014

As with january and february, here's a generic vanity list of songs I've been feelin' this past month.

K Camp - Oh No (2014)
YG - She A Model (2008)
YG ft. Kendrick Lamar - Really Be (Smokin' N Drinkin') (2014)
Lil' Boosie - Ride Home freestyle part 1 (2014)
S.B.E - I Feel Like (2013)
Young Lox - Legion Of Doom (2014)
Sage The Gemini - Bad Girls (2014)
Sage The Gemini - Don't You (2013)
Ampichino - Drug Lord (2008)
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy (2014)
DB Tha General - Execution (2013)
Uncle Murda - Anybody Can Get It (2008)
Uncle Murda ft. Keyz - Same Way (2014)
D-Lo - Choppa Dance (2013)
Max Minelli - Share My Drugs (2014)
Kevin Gates - Movie (2014)
Giftz - Movie (2014)
Speaker Knockerz - Erica Kane (2014)
Mic Terror - N.W.G. (2014)
Mic Terror ft. DJ Gant-Man - Get Off My Dick (2014)
The Lox - New York City (2014)
Lil' Chris of M.I.C - 2 Fake (2014)
TeeFlii ft. 2 Chainz - 24 Hours (2014)

I dunno why K Camp's Oh No isn't blowing up because it's the 2014 Danny Glover for those of us who use rap music to purge our brains of any antisocial impulses which might otherwise spill over into real life (ie. 99.9% of all people who listen to rap music.)

This is the voice of the Rappin' Rons

Bruh, DB just made a song which sounds like the weird incidental music we'd hear whenever The Mysterons appeared in Captain Scarlet. Started seein' spaceships on Brookfield again?

DB Tha General - Say Dat
(From YouTube; 2014)


The Captain Scarlet vibe might even be intentional since DB takes multiple bullets to the chest like it ain't nothin' in Say Dat's video just like Captain Scarlet did during the show's opening credits.

Reasons why I love YouTube #55

This is the post where I conclusively prove that the Shot-Caller rock remix of It's All About The Benjamins is a top 5 rock song of all time via a clip of Puffy & co performing it live on what looks like an episode of the Keenan Ivory Wayans show. Puff didn't even have to call in Nirvana's 3rd best drummer, Rob Zombie and the other 2 less famous blokes who played on the studio version for this performance to be better than the entire Pitchfork 1997 rock albums list:


The rock remix of Benjamins was never officially released unedited, but some dude on YouTube called Alto9315 has spliced together the explicit acapella from the original version with the rock remix instrumental and come up with THIS. If you see Alto on the internet, salute him.

Martin Fry in the house

"Mr Magic on, Sergio jacket
Yeah we wore shiny suits, but that put us in a new tax bracket"

The Lox - New York City
(From YouTube/t'internet; 2014)


Shaun Deezy has just texted to let me know he's spent the entire morning constructing a coat out of Kit Kat wrappers, so it looks like the Martorialist crew is off to see The Lox live this evening! Reports suggest that they've been performing a 32 song set on this tour comprising of their various singles, solo classics, and guest spots so it sounds like it'll be the best show in town tonight as long as we turn up late enough to miss all the British struggle-rap support acts.

But will the yossers from Yonkers find space to accommodate You'll See, I Got The Power and the cameo verses from Thumbs Up in their set for da rele headz who know all their moves from when they were back-up dancing for Ma$e in the Feel So Good video?

"Tiiiiiime will tell!"

What's a goon to a gobbling?

Have you ever been to the Magnolia Projects and heard a brother play the mandolin? If not, you're obviously unfamiliar with most romantic rap song about blowjobs of the noughties. What's Your Brains Like? by Juvenile, Wacko & Skip is like a condensed version of the Disney musicomedy Enchanted, with New Orleans and Houston recast as the mythical land of Andalasia & New York City, and the UTP lads & that Devin The Dupe bloke who delivers the hook cast as the quartet of fairytale heroes who are all attempting to serenade Princess Giselle. Prince Charming is dead, darling -- meet Prince Chirpsing instead:

Juvenile, Wacko & Skip - What's Your Brains Like?
(From UTP's The Beginning Of The End album; 2004)



This shit definitely should've been a single so it could've had a shot at following in Slow Motion's footsteps. Did white/Jewish men in suits know the definition of Brains in 2004 or could What's Your Brains Like? have gotten away without being subjected to the sort of brutal editing that Akinyele's Take A Lick endured when it was released as a single?

M.A.A.Dge Bishop

Sage The Gemini weighs in on the great ‘what's the best TV show set in a women's prison’ debate with my new favourite song on his album. Here at The Martorialist we're unashamed Prisoner Cell Block H stans since it ties into Australia's cultural identity as Europe's answer to Rikers Island during the 18th century and gives us a glimpse into the early careers of a plethora of actors who'd later go on to appear in Neighbours and Round The Twist; Sage, however, is clearly more partial to Debra Stevenson larging it up as Shell Dockley in Bad Girls:

"I want a bad girl
I want it bad, girl
I want it bad, girl
Get at me bad, girl"

Sage The Gemini - Bad Girls
(From Remember Me album; 2014)


Anybody with more lucid prose than me fancy describing Bad Girls? It has this wall of synthesizers that sound like they might be from a Paperclip People song and go ZOOOODA ZOO ZOOODA ZOO ZOO ZOO before these other synthesizers appear that are all euphoric like a Eric Morilla sunrise set at Pacha and go BWEEEEEUH-EWEEEUH-EWWEEEUH-EWEEEEEUUH.

Did A$AP Ferg kill bop when he guested on the Fiesta remix?

First Chris & Gwyneth break up, then Lil' Chris goes back to making west side Chicago emo-tune songs like 2 Fake and Keep Your Head Up, now S.B.E of Killin' Shit fame are dropping videos for that track of theirs which sounds closer to somethin' by K Camp than the Kemo Step:

"She can't pronounce that Hermes
Introduce her to my third leg"

S.B.E - I Feel Like
(From YouTube; 2014/I Feel Like single; 2013)



Gonna need a Roxanne's Revenge-type answer record to this by Katie Got Bandz where she scoffs at S.B.E for not being able to pronounce Prorsum correctly when they're up in the Burberry store on Michigan Avenue. Maybe with a cameo from Foxy Brown since Stylin' is still the best rap song about Burberry 12 years after it was released in 2002.

My bank account Queen Elizabeth's just maxin'

(Props to Chris.)
For anyone not keeping abreast of such matters, Chopped Herring Records have now put out two EP's worth of previously unreleased material by J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E. That's two EPs by a group who released two albums but only ever managed to make two songs of note during their career: the first being their classic single Strong Island, and the second being the title track of their 1988 LP Doin' Damage, which really should have been another single so J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E could have raked in some of that crossover loot the Fat Boys made with Louie Louie.

J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E - Doin' Damage
(From Doin' Damage album; 1988)


I thought the whole point of Joey Bada$$ and his ilk was that they existed so ageing boom-bap dinosaurs no longer had to shell out stupid money for limited edition 12"s of crappy studio scraps from third-stringer golden-era rappers?

R.I.P Sage & IamSu just killed the wub-wub

Question: what do you get if you cross Bay Area ratchet with those Predator's malfunctioning helmet type sub bass blurps & splurts last heard in rap on Blood Money & King Louie's Bitch I'm Crazy?

Answer: my second favourite song on Sage The Gemini's album after Red Nose!

"All I hit is c-notes, no Auto-Tune"

Sage The Gemini ft. IamSu - Nothing To Me
(From Remember Me album; 2014)


How long until IamSu finally snaps and goes nutso on LoveRance and Sage The Gemini because they've scored legitimate hits and he hasn't?

Generic list post: 40 jams from 2004

2004 was an incredible 12 months for rap, but you wouldn't know it from the internet in 2014: the few rap blogs that did exist in 2004 didn't bother making year end lists, most rap message board threads and, indeed, rap message boards from '04 no longer exist, and all Google now throws up is a handful of the most basic ass 2004 song lists you'll ever see in your life.

Do we really want the rap nerds of 2024 judging us from Pitchfork 2004 staff lists or YahooAnswers pages which claim that My Band by D12, On Fire by Lloyd Banks, Roses by OutKast and the Dilated Peoples & KanYe West track were the year's best rap songs? Ya boy David RapS.O.S.A right hurr certainly doesn't, hence a best rap songs of 2004 post felt so necessary right now. Needless to say, this list is utterly subjective which is why you'll find no trace of some of the year's biggest singles like Breathe, Lean Back, Tipsy, Get Low, and Why?, and nothing from some of the year's most critical acclaimed albums like Madvilliany and Purple Haze.

T.I. - ASAP
AZ - Live Wire
Juvenile, Wacko & UTP - Nolia Clap remix
Lil' Wayne - BM J.R
Ghostface ft. Method Man, Streetlife & Trife - The Drummer
Mac Dre - Feelin' Myself
Cam'Ron - Shut The Fuck Up
The Diplomats - Crunk Muzik
Agallah - Gangster
Slim Thug - Like A Boss
Mike Jones ft. Slim Thug & Paul Wall - Still Tippin'
Too $hort - Burn Rubber
Z-Ro ft. Scarface - These N*ggaz
Trae - Same Thing, Different Day
The UN - Mind Blowin'
Crime Mob ft. Lil' Scrappy - Knuck If You Buck
Lil' Scrappy - No Problem
Twista ft. Jazzy Pha - Badunkadunk
Snoop ft. Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot
Nas - Thief's Theme
Cormega ft. Ghostface - Tony/Montana
The Jacka - Barney (More Crime)
Ludacris - The Potion
8Ball & MJG - Memphis City Blues
Turf Talk ft. San Quinn & Mac Dre - Hubba Rock
MF DOOM - Hoe Cakes
KanYe West ft. GLC & Consequence - Spaceship
Common ft. KanYe West - The Food
Consequence ft. KanYe West - Take It As A Loss
Devin The Dude - Briarpatch
Keak Da Sneak ft. E-40 - White Tee, Blue Jeans & Nikes
Sean Price - 60 Bar Dash
Suga Free ft. Morris Day - She Get What She Pay Foe
Big Noyd - Hoody Like That
Young Jeezy ft. Bun B & Slick Pulla - Trap Or Die
The Federation - Go Dumb
Lil' Wyte ft. DJ Paul - Bye 2 Da Bad Guy
50 Cent - Ski Mask Way
C-Loc & Max Minelli ft. Lil' Boosie - Throw It Up
Body Head Bangerz ft. Young Bleed & Lil' Boosie - I Smoke, I Drank
(Nolia Clap remix over Slow Motion 4 life for 2 crucial reasons: a beat which sounded like a Nappy Roots instrumental wasn't a fitting backdrop for the unofficial sequel to Back That Azz Up, and Twista's Badunkadunk was the best rap song about dem asses of 2004.)

Should Ice-T apologise to the blk community for being a milkshark who dumped Darlene for Coco?

Only thing I'm scared of is God and the Feds, lost a lotta bloggers and they ain't even dead

Wrote about Trippin' by Jackie Chain & Rittz and Same Way by Uncle Murda & Keyz for the Deep Cuts weekly round-up on Complex. The latter features a logically sound argument for why selling crack was morally acceptable and a bewilderingly illogical argument against free healthcare over a sample that sounds like it must come from some '70s soul cover version of You Don't Know What You've Got (Until You Lose It) by Ral Donner, who was the Sen City to Elvis Presley's Max B. Anyone identify this version's author?

Uncle Murda ft. Keyz - Same Way
(From Ain't Nothing Sweet mixtape; 2014)

What's it gonna take to a get a properly mastered version of Trippin' by Jackie Chain & Rittz?

You might recall Trippin' as that great quasi-Wavy Jackie Chain & Rittz song I posted about last year which I described as sounding as if it were recorded by Madame Fanny from 'Allo 'Allo. It's just been given the visual treatment and, staggeringly, the video's sound quality is even worse than the MP3, as it now sounds like it was recorded inside Madame Fanny's fanny!

Jackie Chain ft. Rittz - Trippin'
(From Youtube; 2014/Bruce Lean Chronicles 2 mixtape; 2013)


"WHATTA MISTAKE-AH TA MAKE-AH....TWICE!"

NYC MIXTAPE RAPPERS NEED NOT BE MORAL! (PART 2)

Remember that ridiculous 2008 Uncle Murda banger called Take Care Of The Witness I posted last year? Turns out it went on to be retitled Anybody Can Get It and then appear on DJ Green Lantern's radio station in the 4th GTA game. Here's the tagless full CDQ version:

Uncle Murda - Anybody Can Get It
(From DJ Green Lantern's Grand Theft Auto IV Liberty City Invasion (OST); 2008)


I could never quite fathom out why a handful of bargain bin Tom Breihan type rap writers made such a kerfuffle about Jon Caramanica's "the avant garde need not be moral" line in a Cam'Ron review. Surely if there's anything to take Caramanica to task about then it's the time he called A$AP Ferg "the most sonically curious rapper since Nicki Minaj, and the possessor of an unusual, winning blend of artistic integrity", no?

Shout outs to Salvador!

2014 is turning out to be a good year for rap songs by the name of Movie; first Giftz and now Kevin Gates. Could be wrong here, but this might be the first rap song to treat a c-section as a procedure that happens to one's missus when giving birth rather than just a scar on the stomach of a lady of the night in a low-rent strip club (never forget!):

Kevin Gates - Movie
(From By Any Means album; 2014)


Other than Gates managing to summon up the exact right balance of romanticism and pragmatism a track like Movie requires, I'm not sure how to adequately describe it without lapsing into the sort of corny music writing 101 that eats away at one's soul (note: anytime you use the word Woozy to describe a song, 5% of your soul vanishes never to return and an African child dies). No problemo, though, as longtime readers may recall we faced similar problems with Jae Millz's Sober and Jackie Chain's Molly that were solved with our special machine which translates sound into image. There was a rumble-jumble, 5 minutes it lasted, and then this JPG emerged from said machine as Movie's most accurate match:

Yo wassup, this ain't Marillion, we rap!

Yo YG, I'm happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Boosie already made the best rap song ever about angrily jerking off in a jail cell!

My Krazy Life is probably gonna end up as the best "ridin' in a Fiat, lookin' for a biatch" CD of 2014, but it pains me to see YG & DJ Mustard get caught up in the cockamamie notion that all rap full lengths now have to subscribe to some sort of highfalutin artistic narrative that sacrifices songs like When I Was Gone, I'm 4rm Bompton, Fuck You, and Sprung just because they don't fit into the grand AlbumOrientatedRap theme of "a day in the life of YG".

It's admirable that YG & Mustard have aspired to make a modern correlative of Doggy Style, and while it's unfair to compare the practice of putting albums together in eras that are separated by a 21 year gap and vast technological changes in the way music is consumed, there is no way in Hell that Dre & Snoop would have ever let two songs as good as I'm 4rm Bompton and When I Was Gone end up being relegated to bonus tracks. YG not having a posse cut with his homies like When I Was Gone on the non-deluxe version of My Krazy Life is akin to Doggy Style with no For All My N*ggaz & Bitches, and that's why all the forthcoming reviews of My Krazy Life which praise it for its "artistry" and/or "narrative" can suck a big fat dick.

Still, that 5 song run from Left Right to Do It To Ya, huh?

Nothin' Serious (Just Buggin') by Whistle was the first Hyphy song!

Question of the day: how come nobody ever told me there was a good Jerk-era YG song with the same Bugger Groove sample made famous by Whistle's Nothin' Serious (Just Buggin')?

"Can I hit that, get that, run that, and lick that?
Since you say you're a dime, can I flip that?"

YG - She A Model
(From the internet; 2008 or 2009)


Couple of other YG questions for the road: is My Hitta the most godawful clean edit since the video mix of Ice Cube's Steady Mobbin'? And can you guess which professional rap journalist once claimed that Ty Dolla $ign's hook on Toot It And Boot It was about "farting on a girl & kicking her out his house" in a message board thread?

Thank you, Lucky Dog

Shorty, you ain't 'pposed to post about the same song more than one time and I ain't posted about the same song twice since in 2009 until Get It Back by Mouse On Tha Track & Level went almost completely unnoticed by the rest of the internet last year, forcing me to give it another outing, which may or may not have just been an excuse to make a joke about Level looking like the lovechild of Dallas Penn & Julienne Shepherd in the song's video.

Ya boy Pellion J Kee has been bumpin' a dutty YouTube rip of Get It Back complete with the "Mayn, fuck them Louis Vuittons, mayn" interlude for the past 6 months waiting for a proper MP3 of the song to surface on Mouse's next full length, completely oblivious to the fact that it had turned up on Level's Unsupervised album back in december until Frankie reviewed the Level album today. Hands down, my favourite song outta Baton Rogue last year:

Level ft. Mouse On Tha Track - Get It Back
(From Unsupervised album; 2013)



BTW, support Frankie's cause! What's the world comin' to when a blogga can't even harass a DJ/producer with floods of messages across various social media platforms every day?????

Really on ya blog with the pistol

The only Too $hort song u know is Blow The Whistle, ya female fruitflies all look like Billy Crystal.

Oi YG, why'd you keep doin' I'm 4rm Bompton dirty like this? That shit is thee best solo track you've ever recorded, ergo it would have been a much better album opener than BPT and it deserves so much better than just being some extra track on the deluxe version of My Krazy Life.

YG - I'm 4rm Bompton
(From Just Re'd Up 2 mixtape; 2013/My Krazy Life deluxe album; 2014)



Don't mind me, I'm just pissed my guy from the local HMV is lettin' me cop the YG album a couple of days early this afternoon but they probably won't have any of the deluxe editions in stock. Props to YG for managing to release a good CD with cameos from Drake AND godamn Schoolboy Q on it. Can't do nuttin' for ya man about the Schoolboy Q song, but if you subscribe to a strict ‘No Canadians Plz!’ policy with regards to rap music like we do here at The Martorialist, you can avoid any rule violations by just pretending Drake's verse on Who Do You Love? is Kirko Bangz.

Shortland Streetz is watchin'

"Rooftop like we bringin' '88 back
Bring the hooks in, where the bass at?"

Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy
(From Fancy single; 2014)

)
First Antipodean since Jaz to be aware of The Rooftop? Ayo EttelThun, does a mention of The Rooftop mean that this Sheila is eligible to be featured on Unkut now?

Iggy Azaria out here with Fancy really making a mockery of my ‘Marmaloid is the only Sheila from down under with a rap pass’ rule right now. Shit slaps like the Human League turnt Function music and Iggingbottom's Yank accent on this is more convincing than her countrywoman Holly Valance's was when she appeared in Prison Break, tbh.

(Edited because I thought Iggy was from New Zealand not Australia. It's all just Down Under to my dumb arse.)

Suga Buga

Sugar Bear only ever recorded two songs, but one's a club classic that always works best as an entrée to It Takes Two, while the other one's such a generic golden-era B side that even the sort of gormless random-rap obsessive Borks who think Years To Build is better than Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em couldn't care less about it; ergo Don't Scandalize Mine is an absolute shoo in for the remarkable songs by unremarkable rappers canon, innit?

Sugar Bear - Don't Scandalize Mine
(From Don't Scandalize Mine 12" single; 1988)


Thank you Based Bear and the track's producer Shabazz for sampling that good bit from Once In A Lifetime so I've only had to sit through the original Talking Heads song a mere once. Give me Sugar Bear's proto-Tim Dog vocal stylings over David Byrne's poncy ‘wacky’ vocals all day, every day. Let's not even try to bullshit each other here, folks: everything Talking Heads did on their Remain In Light LP in 1980 was done a billion times better by Peter Gabriel on his So album in 1986.

Blog you up

Top 3 worst things rap music glorifies: True Religion denim, handshakes between men who are forever standing around posing with their hands on their nuts, drinking syrup. I wrote about the latter in my Deep Cuts entry about Speaker Knockerz's Erica Kane which is sort of doubling as a tribute post. Unsurprisingly, Complex cut the last sentence where I suggested the world would be a better place if Yung Lean had died instead of him.

"I took his hoe and then beat up the kitten
She give me brain, I'ma pay her tuition
I'm at the top so I guess I'm the villain"

Speaker Knockerz - Erica Kane
(From Erica Kane single; 2014)


Ya boy MC Renato Pagnani had posted Speaker Knockerz music when he was still breathing and already planned on Deep Cuts-ing Erica Kane this week after noticing it on DJ Day Day's Audiomack page last thursday, so I'm not the Speaker Knockerz equivalent of one of those ghouls who suddenly pronounced themselves Doe B experts after he died despite the fact they'd never once mentioned him prior to his death, honest, guv!

Greatest movie scenes ever: Lord Jamar vs. Marlon Wayans Twitter beef edition

Was this now-deleted Tweet in jest or did Marlon Wayans have a point during during his Twitter spat with Lord Jamar? One For All is a top 5 New York rap album of all time, but does it contain a single verse by Jamar that manages to nail the racial complexities of being a white rap fan in AmeriKKKa like this scene from White Chicks did?


"YOU TELL ME!!"

I'm tired of these suckas and they jive stories, I'm just tryna put my mother in a 5 storey

I will never ever get bored of ersatz-Jacka melancholy mob music with mad sensual Sade samples. Never ever? Never ever ever ever ever ever EVER:

"Yo, I'm tryna cope with the pain, hop in the black Maverick
With a scope by my Hanes, goin' backpackin'
Movin' coke in the rain, now that's traffic
I think I'm goin' insane, but I ain't mad at it"

Young Lox - Legion Of Doom
(From Illest album; 2014)


Can't imagine any of these guys pay sample clearance so I do wonder if Sade is aware that her music has become a constant backdrop for drug dealers from the Oakland/Kansas/Akron/Fort Wayne cocaine/MDMA trafficking circuit to rap about pain and pistols over?

Ended up writing about this for Deep Cuts on Complex.

R.I.P Speaker Knockerz

AKA the rap game Richard Beckinsale. Let's remember the kid for recording Check, Lonely, and Freak Hoe in the same way we remember Richie B for playing Lennie Godber in Porridge, yeah?

"When I dropped out I said fuck all of y'all
Imagine pullin' up to your school in the best car"

Speaker Knockerz - Lonely
(From Lonely single; 2013)



"I ain't tryna cuff, yeah, I'm tryna fuck, yeah
You ain't tryna fuck, yeah, pack your stuff, yeah"

Speaker Knockerz - Freak Hoe
(From Freak Hoe single; 2013)



I'm not kidding like Jason either since Lonely is a legitimate 9/10 Emo-Tune jam and Freak Hoe is catchier than the O.G Tetris theme, plus I was planning on Deep Cuts-ing his latest single Erica Kane next week. Dude was a promising rapper/producer/songwriter auteur, and we all love the idea of auteurs in rap, yeah? Damn.

Ayo God, why couldn't you have taken that Chicago rapper who killed his own mum for her life insurance money instead? Failing that, Termanology would have done.

No NORE

"She let me beat it, Mike Jackson
N*gga, we eatin', you snackin'
Lately been feelin' like a tennis player 'cause, n*gga, I just got them racks in"

K Camp - Oh No
(From the internet; 2014)


Is it socially acceptable to opine that you think K Camp's Oh No is light years better than Money Baby? For best results bump Oh No in a car and try to replicate its bassline with your mouth on some Husalah at the end of Fighting The Feds type shit.

(One last Mic Terror post)

Are you familiar with the story about Puffy gettin' head from Naomi Campbell and then failing to reciprocate when she asked him to go down on her? Looks like Mic Terror is judging by the song No Panties. Fear not, though, feminists and faux-feminists 4 hire whenever a thinkpiece opportunity is available because Lucci Vee is on hand for the second verse to break hearts by finding fellas, fucking fellas, and then forgeting fellas. Read about No Panties on Deep Cuts here.

Mic Terror ft. Lucci Vee - No Panties
(From Fresh Prince Of Darkness album; 2014)


Ain't gon' lie, ya boy Jenn Pelle Pelle right chea is very disturbed by rappers like Lucci Vee and Young Thug bowling around town with septum piercings. C'mon, folks, there is nothing cool about looking like '80s anarcho-punx or '90s raver crusties.

"Cut it out!"

"Wake up, Hatch, pack your bags!"

Lil' Boosie - Free At Last
(From 4 Walls To A Cell mixtape; 2010)


Free Max B, HD, and Pussy Riot!

Don't free South Park Mexican, Ian Watkins, and Big Lurch!

Lock up all 3 of those sex offenders from Das Racist!

R.I.P the BoosieJustice Facebook page!
EDIT: Boosie freestyling in the car on his way home from Angola last night, taking it back to the TRILL street DVD days:


It can't be a coincidence that Boosie got out of prison a mere fortnight after CJ De Mooi got his own quiz show/agreed to rejoin Eggheads.

Betcha can't blog like meeeee, betcha can't blog like me

It looked like M.I.C's Lil' Chris had consigned himself to the one-hot-song-in-your-career junkpile after he'd abandoned the melancholia of Same Shit Different Day to make half-arsed jaunty Bop songs that don't behove a 4'9 gentleman who looks like he was made out of the spare parts God discarded when putting Lil' Cease and Jadakiss together, but I'll be damned if his new single 2 Fake isn't a reprise of his Same Shit Different Day's style, so I wrote about it for Deep Cuts on Complex. Read that shit here.

Lil' Chris of M.I.C - 2 Fake
(From YouTube; 2014)

On the ones and twos

"Talkin' about how you tryna get up in the Treated Crew
Boy, we both rap, what the fuck you want me to do?
Versace instrumental that you say you wrote a heater to?
Go find a corny motherfucker you can Tweet it to"

Mic Terror ft. DJ Gant-Man - Get Off My Dick
(From Fresh Prince Of Darkness album; 2014)


Get Off My Dick's vital statistics: the second Mic Terror song instructing you to Get Off his jock; the second Mic Terror song with low-end slap that sounds like someone trying to recreate the bassline from Ice-T's Drama with Super Ping Pong on the Sega Genesis; the second Mic Terror song to flirt with Juke music production; the first Mic Terror song that's a two-trax-for-the-price-of-one bargain since it climaxes with a near-two minute frenzied Jukin' breakdown courtesy of DJ Gant-Man.

Blame Juicy for me referring to Sega's Mega Drive as the Genesis, when Jaz Rignall was editing Mean Machines magazine, man, he couldn't picture this. Anyhoo, other great Chicago rap songs with basslines that sound like the sound FX from some Pong-redux game on a long-defunct sixteen bit video game console: Band Nation by King Louie, Gimme That Cash by Gzus Piece, and Probably Nu It by TREE. Any others I'm missin'?

A Mic Terror compilation 4 u

Mic Terror's official debut retail album Fresh Prince Of Darkness is out tomorrow so here's a quick primer compilation from my current go-to regular-guy rapper whose music falls somewhere in the rap nexus between cocky, cock-centric, and conscious.

Mic describes himself as the "the evil Will Smith" which is an excellent snappy soundbite and not entirely inaccurate, but I see him as the '00s Chicago equivalent of Positive K if he'd grown up on pre-College Dropout-era KanYe instead of Masters Of Ceremony-era Grand Puba. Plus, he's a big fan of old Ice-T shit, which makes him one of the 3 people on the planet under the age of 30 familiar with the pre-Tank Girl oeuvre of one Tracy Marrow esquire.

This compilation isn't intended to be a definitive Mic Terror collection or anything, just some of my own personal favourites from his catalogue; you have the anthems like Juke Them Hoes and Rodney King, a couple of concept tracks with If God Was Mic and Habibi, two of his rap-de-rap records like Get Off and Cold As Hell, some macked-out Chicago shit with The Heauxs Love Me, a couple of his syrupy sex-jams like Going and My Bitch Tonight, and even a dis track to some ageing Chicago struggle-rapper with the song Dickey Simpkins.



Mic Terror - The Micberg compilation

Juke Them Hoes (2007)
Cold As Hell aka Mixtape Shit (2007)
Get off (2008)
If God Was Mic (2008)
My Bitch Tonight (2010)
Going (2010)
Dickey Simpkins (2011)
Habibi (2011)
Rodney King (2012)
The Heauxs love me (2012)

~~> DOWNLOAD HERE <~~

Scuff Daddy & the family

The New Style were the group formed by Treach, Vin Rock & DJ Kay Gee in 1988 before they changed their name to Naughty By Nature in 1990, and their 1989 album Independent Leaders is pretty forgettable other than Scuffin' Those Knees and its front cover where Treach busts a prison-pose, Kay Gee resembles a Big Daddy Kane back-up dancer who'd have probably gone by the name of Shagg Lover, and Vinnie sports the sort of cardigan that Fred West probably wore when trawling the streets of Gloucester looking for girls to abduct in the '70s:

The New Style - Scuffin' Those Knees
(From Independent Leaders album; 1989)


Not sure if Kay Gee was responsible for the beat since the entire album is vaguely listed as being "produced by The New Style", but whoever put Scuffin' Those Knees together deserves credit for saving Mantronix's King Of The Beats from an eternity of being known solely as an instrumental B side cut beloved of AZN turntablists and German breakdancers.