Here's ten great real instrument rap songs which inexplicably bucked the curse of the replay by some sliver of luck, and ten of the worst real instrument rap songs which turned A grade source material into Z grade session-musician shite.
Too $hort - The Ghetto (1990)
Treacherous Three - Body Rock (1980)
Dr Dre ft. Snoop, Kurupt & Nate Dogg - Next Episode (1999)
The Fearless Four - Rockin' It (1982)
UGK - Chrome Plated Woman (2007)
Eric B. & Rakim - Move The Crowd (1987)
Lil' Wayne ft. TQ & Big Tymers - Way Of Life (2002)
Curren$y - Famous (2010)
Super 3 - When You're Standing On The Top (1982)
HD of Bearfaced - No Pretendo (2013)
Sugar Hill Gang - Apache (Jump On It) (1981)
AZ ft. SWV - Hey AZ (1998)
Nas - Disciple (2004)
UGK - Cocaine In The Back Of The Ride (1992)
Treacherous Three - At The Party (1980)
Scarface - Mind Playin' Tricks '94 (1994)
Eric B. & Rakim - To The Listeners (1988)
KanYe West - Hey Mama (2005)
Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5 - It's Nasty (Genius Of Love) (1981)
Elzhi ft. Royce Da 5'9 & Stokley Williams - Life's A Bitch (2011)
Peep Cormega's Raw Forever (disc 2) if you want some truly tepid recorded-into-a-casio sounding ass live instrument replays.
ReplyDeleteChrist, yeah, I forgot about that.
ReplyDeleteE-40 - 1 Luv. Not sure which column Dredio falls in though.
ReplyDeletesmh @ that Cormega album. T-Mix and Sean T were right cunts for ruining/reminding you theres a better version.
Basically the only time Ive heard rappers sound good over REAL MUSIC is Mystikal cos hes more like James Brown than any comparable rapper anyways and Quik cos so many of his beats were just the sound of someone mad they werent born 20 yrs earlier. And even still no ones tryna hear that.
Ive remember hearing where a producer kept doing that good a job copying he was getting sued so started making them worse rather than prove it every time. Very sad story.
Neptunes NERD album shits on Spymob one.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with Mind Playin Tricks 94?
ReplyDeleteBen, it sounds like it's being played by Jamiroquai's backing band.
ReplyDeleteN Brown, good call.
Done, Dredio is definitely column A.
The good: Ghostface & Adrian Younge 12 Reasons to die. The Bad: Any of DJ Muggs's non sampler work. The Ugly: That snowgoons/MOP album. Can't stand shitty general midi sound module preset reliant bitches. There are good live/played music rap acts tho.
ReplyDeleteJonzun Crew and Newcleus both used real instruments on their early classic shit/in their live performances.
ReplyDeletei always thought 'chrome plated women' was built around an actual sample of 'hercules,' just beefed up via additional instrumentation as per the usual pimp c process.
ReplyDeletethis is probably the first time i've listened to any of the bernie bismark hard to swallow remixes in however many years it's been since i got a clean rip of southern way. that shit is absolutely pathetic. when i interviewed bun he said that he and pimp never even heard those mixes until they had a manufactured copy of the album in hand.
i've never been totally clear on the chronology but if "the message" is in fact an interpolation of panache's "every brother ain't a brother" and not the other way around then it's definitely the frontrunner choice for column a. http://www.whosampled.com/sample/41083/Panach%C3%A9-Every-Brother-Ain't-a-Brother-Grandmaster-Flash-Grandmaster-Melle-Mel-Duke-Bootee-The-Furious-Five-The-Message/
ReplyDeleteand the synthy replayed retail version of jay electronica's "exhibit a" is superior to the sampled original imo.
ReplyDeleteYou know there's a promo version of that Nas track that wasn't replayed (or at least sounds lot more like a sample) ?
Also, I like Mind Playing Tricks 94.
Yeah, I've never been able to find out for certain whether The Message preceded Every Brother Ain't A Brother or vice versa either.
ReplyDeleteThat's reminded me of a(nother?) blatant early omission here: Spoonin' Rap by Spoonie Gee, although I guess it was probably played by the same guys from Cloud One's Patty Duke.
Chrome Plated Woman sounds a tad cleaner than Hercules to me.
Yeah, Step, the O.G Disciple was great. Shitty replayed album version is the biggest chief offender of the noughties, though.
ReplyDeleteToo Hard To Swallows no great #4080 tragedy when in 2014 you can just combine Southern Way w Pregnant Pussy, Muthafucka Aint Mine, Feel Like The One Whos Doing Dope, Pocketful Of Stones and Im So Bad onto one cd.
ReplyDeleteUltramagnetic's 2nd album is the worse example imo. Especially when you consider their producer was one of the goat sample geniuses.
Isn't the bassline on the original Paid in Full an interpolation? So is the Wayne track an interpolation of an interpolation?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Paid In Full a straight loop of Don't Look Any Further?
ReplyDeleteUnpopular opinionz: Pumpkin & co's replay of Man Machine on Rockin' It sounds even more futuristic than the real thing.
ReplyDeleteToo $hort's "Get In Where You Fit In" album is another good example of live rap instrumentation done right. So is most parts of the Dangerous Crew compilation that came out a year or 2 later.
ReplyDeleteThe corniest sample interpolation/reproduction is Ghostface Killah's "It's over." https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FuqBWW6sSq4
ReplyDelete