Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when Maine Musik of Social Media Gangsta fame went viral because of an Instagram video where he threatened to kill Donald Trump and then claimed he was working for ISIS.
Other songs: Kid Ink's new single with Jeremih & Spice ain't the cross-genre Body Language I was hoping for, but it's good to hear Amazing Grace use the word "arse" on a rap song; Sage The Gemini's Hands is mostly notable because it led me to find out that D.J Jimi's mum did the vocals on Bitches (Reply); YG's new song with The Canadian & Kamaiyah was a complete dog's dinner and I'm worried Still Krazy is gonna be stuffed with shitty and/or unsuitable guests.
Chi Ching Ching - Nacho
(From Nacho single/YouTube; 2016)
It's been claimed that Jim Jones stole his look from Dancehall artists, so maybe Chi Ching Ching is striking a dem blow of revenge for Dancehall artists by stealing Funkmaster Wizard Wiz's wardrobe?
Rittz ft. Mike Posner & E-40 - Inside Of The Groove
(From Top Of The Line album; 2016)
Yes, I'm really posting a Rittz song featuring Mike Posner. Yes, Mike Posner absolutely kills this shit by practically using his eunuch manchild voice to recreate the infamous weird Dolphin sound sample beloved of Oakland Rap producers. Yes, this is exactly the sorta song I wish Twista would drop every june. Yes, this is a better 2016 summer jam than most of the songs destined to duke it out for that position. Yes, Rittz is no longer the rapper who looks closest to one of the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock now Key Loom is all up in the game.
The year is 2016 and Webbie's got himself a problem: in the past 5 years since the release of his Savage Life 3 album in 2011, he's dropped more good interviews than he's dropped good songs. Luckily TRILL ENT still has a problem solver by the name of Mouse On Tha Track and he's equipped with that computer-age Bounce for cosmic cars and old schools alike. Easily Webbie's best tune since his last single with Mouse in the boiler room, probably the best pairing of Webbie & Boosie since that unreleased 2009 track with Foxx which surfaced in 2014.
"N*gga, we solve problems
We come to your do'
Knock-knock, chop-chop, here we go"
Webbie ft. Boosie Badazz - Problem
(From Savage Life 5 album; 2016)
In much the same way that there's long been a thriving market of Hispanic Rap & Bullshit singles featuring guest rhymes from Baby Bash, there's now an emerging market of Hispanic Rap & Bullshit singles featuring guest rhymes from Kap G. Carolyn Rodriguez's On The Grind here is the best song of the latter category, and the session-musician 'migo who played guitar on this one clearly got to live out all his Carlos Santana fantasies. Oye ComoVato, vato.
"Win or lose, I'm tryna get paid
I'm tryna get blazed, I'm tryna keep faith
I got my Jesus piece, I'm tryna get saved"
Carolyn Rodriguez ft. Kap G - On The Grind
(From On The Grind single; 2016)
Real talk, if Jennifer Lopez doesn't record a remake of Feelin' So Good with Kap G and Baby Bash in the place of Big Pun and Fat Joe, she's a traitor to her Latin roots. Straight fugazee, no Fugazi.
Ice-T: wearing questionable studded-leather vests a decade before 'Pac.
Not only was Ice-T the first west coast gangsta rapper, he was the first rapper period to release one of his album as a VHS tape. Warner Brothers had tested the market in 1989 with the release of The Iceberg Video, but rather than it being the full Ice-T album of the same title on VHS, it was a 30 minute interview interspersed with live footage, the 1988 videos for Colors, High Rollers and I'm Your Pusher, plus new videos for the album's 2 singles Lethal Weapon and You Played Yourself.
Presumably The Iceberg Video was a success, because Warner Brothers greenlit a budget for Ice's next album O.G. Original Gangster in 1991 to come out on VHS with video clips for the entire 24 song tracklist, perhaps to cash-in on Ice's then-burgeoning acting career. Most of the videos were fairly standard clips of Ice & his mates posing in various locales around South Central wearing L.A Raiders gear and Ice's own SYNDICATE clothing line, so it was the videos for the album's skits and interludes where shit got most entertaining...
Ice-T - First Impression
(From O.G. Original Gangster VHS tape; 1991)
A video clip which worked as a brief moment of calm between the album's intro Home Of The Bodybag and its first song Ziplock in much the same way as the skit did on the LP? Absolutely. A video clip which confirmed the rumour it was Darlene putting on a British accent and pretending to be a stuffy Guardian journalist seduced by the Power of Ice's music? Afraid not.
Ice-T - The House
(From O.G. Original Gangster VHS tape; 1991)
Wherein Ice's VHS-album really was like a movie. Oh the unfortunate irony of a Zulu Nation member like Ice recording an interlude about the sensitive issue of child abuse given the recent accusations towards alleged serial-pederast Afrika Bambaataa.
Ice-T ft. Evil E - What About Sex?
(From O.G. Original Gangster VHS tape; 1991)
Ice was a trailblazer on so many levels video wise - first he pioneered the act of having wifey all up in their videos dancing, then he went and pioneered the art of rappers having a Cheeky Nando's all up in their videos eating.
Ice-T - Street Killer
(From O.G. Original Gangster VHS tape; 1991)
Question: what do you get if you cross a gumbo of samples by 4 of America's great black artists with a comedy okie dokes which reveals itself to be a pertinent critique of America's bent coppers? Answer: the G.O.A.T Ice-T interlude Street Killer as brought to life here.
Nowhere near as good as this decade's other uses of D.J Jimi's Bitches (Reply) on songs by Travis Porter and Lupe Fiasco & Ty Dolla $ign, but a step back in the right direction for Sage The Gemini after he spent 2015 firing blanks. Forget Sage, though - the real talkin' point here is that someone in the Bitches (Reply) YouTube comments reckons it was D.J Jimi's mum instructing men to "suck that pussy for a porkchop" on the song. I'd always assumed it was just the bird from Lick The Cat doing her best Funky Granny voice, but apparently not:
There's 2 reasons why Asylum Records royally f*cked up when they released Juney Boomdata's Wassup Wit Da Pussy as a CD-single in 2008: firstly, the song was a precursor to John Boy & Shawty Boy's Drug Dat Hoe in the pantheon of deeply unpleasant date-rape anthems by SODMG coke mule underlings; secondly, I Got Hoes was the Atlanta swag-rap Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None), thus it shoulda been Juney's major label single so the kid coulda blown like the Congo nation and earned Asylum a decent chunk of loot. Because ya host is here to correct history's mistakes, I uploaded the full no-DJ MP3 of I Got Hoes and knocked up some artwork for the imaginary CD-single.
"I'm Tiger Woods with da wood 'cause I'm hittin' under par
And if you could then you should be a f*ckin' rap star"
Juney Boomdata ft. Sandman - I Got Hoes
(From t'internet; 2008)
Ice-T - You Played Yourself
(From The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say! LP; 1989)
If Pimp C were alive today he'd have almost certainly called DJ Khaled out for swagger-jacking one of Ice-T's catchphrases in much the same way Wiz Khalifa did to KanYe West over the Max B Wavesgate unpleasantness. It's difficult to imagine that The Gospel of Chad could be contained to 140 characters, so Pimp would probably favour Instagram to Twitter, and his calling out of Khaled may have bore a striking resemblance to one of his classic missives from Tom's old gaff:
THAT HOE ASS DJ WHO DONT SCRATCH AND AINT EVEN FROM FROM MIAMI STOLE "YOU PLAYED YOURSELF" FROM ICE-T WITHOUT CREDIT!! IN YALL FREE TIME I WANT ALL MY PEOPLE 2 @ THIS BITCH ASS BITER @DJKHALED NON STOP AND TELL HIM WHAT YALL THINK BOUT HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Out of the plethora of ampersand-singles Lil' Chris has dropped with local West Side rappers in 2016, Champagne Toast is the only one ya host can raise a post to. Chris gets a pass to recycle the LOX's "You Industry, We In Da Street" mantra as a punchline in 2016 purely because he looks like Jadakiss in one of them Hype Williams fisheye lens videos. True Story, readers, like Terror Squad' 2nd LP.
Me, I don't know shit about no Afrobeats apart from the GhancehallkingShattaWale, but this current wave of music made by various U.K offshoots of Afrobeats like Moelogo, Kwamz&Flava, Mista Silva, J Hus, and New Age Muzik have been droppin' tunes that are right up my road over the past 12 months or so. The British are coming 'ere?
Number one reason why Slick Rick is the undisputed G.O.A.T: he's the only rapper who could ever look fly in a proto-Choppa Suit. Never forget the one zoot which didn't deserve burning:
Rick's weed-carrier/O.G Yak Ballz Dana Dane has a few jams in his catalogue, but his career apex gotta be that scene in the Teenage Love video where he walks into shot with DJ Vance Wright & MC Ricky D. Peak video-swag right here:
Number two reason why Slick Rick is the undisputed G.O.A.T: he has 2 of the top 10 B-sides in rap history. The first is obviously La Di Da Di, and the second is the superior beatbox version of Treat Her Like A Prostitute from the Teenage Love 12" with an uncredited Doug E. Fresh providing the backing. Rumour has it Russell Simmons wouldn't let Rick use this version on The Great Adventures of Slick Rick because he wanted to keep Rick and Doug separated in the public's eye.
Slick Rick ft. Doug E. Fresh - Treat Her Like A Prostitute (Movie Version)
(From Teenage Love 12"; 1988)
A-Wax slyly biggin' up some K.C Husalahcore slap because he doesn't approve of a fellow Blood like Mozzy recording songs withHusalah is too confusing a paradox for the human brain to comprehend - especially when the rapper who recorded the aforementioned Kansas City Husalahcore slap is on video tellin' K.C rappers to stop jockin' Oakland rappers.
To complicate matters further, Yung Cat has a song with Joe Blow from 2014, and Joe Blow's new single with the line about him runnin' K.C which caused the whole kerfuffle was recorded back in 2013 according to the last bars of the first verse. The only straightforward thing about this whole mess is that Yung Cat really does look half man/half moggy.
From me to you this weekend, here's another compilation of songs from the past 4 months (+ late 2015 in the case of Willie Joe's slap) that ya boy is currently feelin'. Never got around to postin' about Uncle Murda's remix of All The Way Up but know this: if you prefer Fat Joe's Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black-level patois on the original to one of the rare occasions when Uncle Murda gets to talk flagrant shit over good production then you and me, we are not the same.
1. Willie Joe - I Wonder (2015)
2. Young Chop & Rado - Migoz N The Hood (2016)
3. Nef The Pharaoh - BMD (Baby Momma Drama) (2016)
4. Max B ft. Wiz Khalifa, Alpac & Joe Young - Silver Surfer (2016)
5. Uncle Murda ft. French Montana - All The Way Up (Remix) (2016)
6. Kap G - Girlfriend (2016)
7. Foxx - Too Old (2016)
8. 5th Ward Weebie ft. S 8ighty & Big Choo - Club Luv (2016)
9. BlaqNmilD ft. 5th Ward Weebie - Ain't Dat Bout A Bitch (2016)
10. Mic Terror - I Don't Call The Cops (2016)
"The po-lice say I got a warrant
I'm so tired of wearin' orange
On my momma, I ain't goin'
Doin' time, it be borin'
Fuck them people, bitch, I'm tourin'
I'm out chea gettin' money each and every day
*I'm out chea each and every day, mannnnneee*"
Foxx - Too Old
(From Realionaire album; 2016)
It's like Foxx heard Smile To Keep From Crying and said to himself "what, y'all forgot I was TRILL's king of the short & (bitter)sweet BatonRougeblues when Boosie was in Angola? Allow me to re-introduce Lightin' Foxxkins..."
That feeling when you realise the 40" boombox DJ Fresh poses with in 95% of his press photos isn't made from cereal boxes and Fairy Liquid bottles on some Blue Peter competition type shit. Not only is it foreal foreal like a certain rapper who STILL hasn't dropped his Tonite Show album which was 'pposed to come out in March, it even slaps the J. Stalin songs Fresh didn't produce with that "crispy pop" Husalah eulogised on Fighting The Feds:
Taken from the liner notes of Egyptian Lover's new 1983-1988 anthology 2xCD:
"I had so much fun in the studio recording the Breaking & Entering soundtrack and Dial-a-Freak along with Yes Yes Yes, I couldn't wait to get back in the studio and do a solo project. Something I could play at the dances to let people know my name, so I called the song Egypt, Egypt - I was kinda vain. It wasn't always gonna be called Egypt, Egypt so let me tell you how that came about.
When I was just out of high school in july of 1981, a couple of friends of mine and I went to a house party. This really cute girl was there and I wanted to get to know her. She was smoking weed and I thought if I smoked some she would like me. So my friend bought some weed from some random guy and we started smoking it. My friend said to me that he had been smoking for quite some time but this one was different (it had been laced with something) so we all agreed to leave the party. Driving home we almost spun the car around in the rain, but finally made it safe to our street. We went into my friend's house with some serious munchies and ate everything we could find. I even used a screwdriver to break old Christmas candy out of a glass jar his mom had on the coffee table.One of my friends passed out on the couch went to his room to sleep. I lived right down the street so I could just walk home. I got up and walked to the door. As I was opening it, the screen door opened by itself and there stood a person who looked like Saddam Hussein and Prince all in one. I guess that's what I thought the Devil would look like, but I knew it was him. He walked with me down the street talking to me and said ‘You are going to be very popular one day and the song you're going to make will be called Beast Beats and you will make a lot of money.’ I walked faster and faster until I got to my gate and closed it fast behind me. He disappeared. I slept and never thought of this again.
The day I was going into the studio to make my first solo record I walked past my sister and mother and told them I was going to the studio. My sister asked what the name of the song was and I said Beast Beats and my sister said ‘You shouldn't play with the Devil like that’ and at that moment it all came back to me. Two years ago he told me just that. So I went into the studio, changed the beat, got out my book of rhymes and put together a new song and that song was Egypt, Egypt. I can still hear Beast Beats in my head but I will never put it out!"
"Saddam Hussein and Prince all in one"? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing Egyptian Lover he didn't meet his future-self circa On The Nile on that fateful july night of 1982:
Alas, Egyptian Lover doesn't mention whether he sold the ASCAP rights for an electro song with the word Beast in its title to Afrika Bambaataa.
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