Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Jimmy Spicer is the best rapper to have never dropped an album

Because why bother dropping an album when your first single found you rapping in at least 4 different voices (including the most convincing Transylvanian accent since Bela Lugosi!) and traveling across space & time for 14 minutes to hob-knob with Frankenstein's monster, Howard Cosell, Aladdin, the Genie of the lamp, and Superman?

Jimmy Spicer - Adventures Of Super Rhyme
(From Adventures Of Super Rhyme 12"; 1980)


When Spicer claimed "Planet Rhyme-on is my place of birth", it's not so much a boast as an explanation of how he appeared ex nihilo in 1980 with Adventures Of Super Rhyme as rap's first eccentric on wax. Third single Money (Dollar Bill Y'all) is rightfully lauded as Jimmy's masterpiece, but it's on his debut single here where he really styled on motherf**kers - making labyrinthine storytelling rhymes sound like off-the-dome stream of consciousness, and making clearly improvised ad libs sound like they'd been pre-planned to within an inch of their life.

In summary, Jay Elecwho?
at

8 comments:

  1. Eel Ham3 March 2015 at 21:07

    This is pretty wild.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kelvin Mack10zie4 March 2015 at 09:56

    Jimmy's Dracula impersonation = the official birth of horrorcore.

    ReplyDelete
  3. bradley 2.04 March 2015 at 11:30

    great write up

    "bubble bunch" gets underrated

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kelvin Mack10zie4 March 2015 at 20:22

    t's interesting to me how most of the best rap records made between 1979 - 1981 weren't from the O.G Bronx crews:

    You had complete outsiders (Rapper's Delight; Funk Me Up + Monster Jam by The Sequence; Pump Me Up by Trouble Funk).

    And Harlem guys (Spoonin' Rap, Love Rap + New Rap Language by Spoonie Gee; The Body Rock + Feel The Heartbeat by Treacherous 3)

    And Queens guys (this Jimmy Spicer track; Christmas Rappin', The Breaks + Hard Times by Kurtis Blow).

    ReplyDelete
  5. SE5 March 2015 at 04:42

    Bananas. I know very little about this era *fillin in the gaps*

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kelvin Mack10zie5 March 2015 at 09:55

    The Wild Style OST is essential if you don't know that.

    Top 3 essential Harlem cuts from 1982:

    Fearless Four - Rockin' It
    Dr. Jeckyll & Mr Hyde - Doing The Do
    Super 3 - When You're Standing On The Top

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oli5 March 2015 at 13:00

    Never heard this before but heard lines from it on so many other songs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. David5 March 2015 at 23:25

    i always heard this record (& records like it) in the context of dance music ... in chicago house dudes would throw stuff like this into the classics sets, and when i caught up w/ all this it was like thru the mantronix comp on soul jazz or the perfect beat compilations on tommy boy

    ReplyDelete