Generic list post: September 2017

Oh Well They Made Me Do It 🤷🏽‍♂️#ForThePussyChallengePT.1 #5thWardWeebie & @blaqnmild All The Way Back Outchere New Music On The Way #5thWardWeebieWednesday Get Ready ‼️#YesLawd #CarterV @SnoopDogg @Tmz

A post shared by 5thWardWeebie (@5thwardweebie) on Sep 27, 2017 at 7:39pm PDT

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when J. Cole thankfully refrained from taking part in the #ForThePussyChallenge. Way too many new recruits to the Death Fresh Crew this month - pour out a little booze of your choosing for Gary Warnett, Frank Vincent, Harry Dean Stanton, Gee Money, and my mate's dog Rocco.

Dru Down - Gangstafied (2002)
Rich The Factor ft. The Popper - Aristocrat (2016)
Rich The Factor - 1000 (2017)
Queen Key - Kung Fu (2017)
Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Complex (2017)
70th Street Carlos - Bag It Up (2017)
70th Street Carlos - Ding Dong (2017)
The Brat - High School (1980)
The Brat - Leave Me Alone (1980)
Tove Lo - Disco Tits (2017)

Other notables: genuinely thought Boosie's Get Ya Mind Right was some Gangsta Musik-era deep cut I'd slept on until now; Yhung T.O's Slidin' was the song which sold me on him as a solo artist until the slight Drakeisms of some of his phrasing began to irk me; prefer this video to those two new OMB Peezy tracks; Post Malone & 21 Savage's Rockstar is everything I dislike about 2017 Atlanta rap in one song.

If we sacrifice Hetty Douglas to a volcano can we get Gary Warnett back?

Fuk Hetty D and anyone that love 'er!

R.I.P to the infamous Gary "Gwarizm" Warnett - a proper kindred spirit. Ageing British blokes who truly GET rap music in toto are few and far between, so it was a pleasure to come across someone like Gary who also knew a thing or thousand about movies and clobber, and who shared a similar sense of humour.

It's fitting that the last post Gary wrote on his blog was about a movie memorabilia auction featuring Jack Nicholson's cardigan from The Shining and Jonathan Ke Quan's trenchcoat from The Goonies because Gary was a true fountain of knowledge on garms without being a ponce about it like practically every other #menswear blogger on the planet. It does him a great disservice to paint Gary as merely the internet's foremost expert on shoes/streetwear because he could pontificate about everything from James Spader's 80's yuppie movie outfits to Chopper's zoot suit to EPMD's Hobie Alpine jackets to Kirkland basic white tees to Donkey Jackets as an unfortunate symbol of British culture to the Real McCoys reproductions of Travis Bickle's wardrobe to Shirt Kings TV footage to online auctions of Deadwood's costume department to the fur-lined leather jackets Max B & Jim Jones wore to 80's Heshers like the human pretzel James Vance.

Nobody connected the dots between music, movies and #menswear with such an eye for detail as Gary and that's why he's utterly irreplaceable. I hope Heaven got a Harajuku where he can cop Champion reverse-weaves and Visvim M-65's in western sizes on the cheap. This one's for you, lad.

Agallah - Rockin'
(From Doomsday mixtape; 2004)

"Whenever it's Tha Row & Murder Inc, it's a deal when we link!"

Before G-Unit came pwnin' and the cops came runnin', there was a brief alliance between Irv Gotti's Murder Inc Records and Suge Knight's Tha Row Records where both labels planned to form like Voltron with Rap-A-Lot's J. Prince and create hip hop's first black-owned distribution network. 'Twas a grand vision doomed to fail, but there were a few random cross-label Inc/Row collaborations before shit fell apart, the most notable being the Baby remix where Crooked I played a Bit of Rough to Ashanti's Hot Stuff.

Ashanti ft. Crooked I - Baby (Remix)
(From Irv Gotti Presents The Remixes compilation; 2002)


Not a patch on the O.G Ashanti solo version, but still the only R&B video to feature a cameo from Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff - yet another reason why Ashanti is more important to The Culture™ than Beyonce.

Bounce, Hubba-Rock, Skate, Roll

Mac Dre - Mac Dre's The Name
(From Young Black Brotha EP; 1989)


From Adventure of Super Rhyme by Jimmy Spicer to Adventure of Cuddie Crime by Vallejo's conman Don Juan. It could be argued that Mac Dre's The Name is Furl's most underrated song given that it's never appeared anywhere other than his first EP - not any of the numerous Dre compilations nor any official streaming service. Guess Khayree doesn't wanna shell out for that Vaughn Mason sample?

Leslie Phillips back!

70th Street Carlos - Ding Dong
(From YouTube; 2017)


Less retarded than previous collaborations, but still unmistakably a 70th Street Carlos & Trel Itz A Hit track. Carlos can't find a decent fitting shirt to save his life, but he stays the real driving force behind the WNC camp - not hard when the crew's star Whop Bezzy has spent 2017 making corny Auto-Tune shit over Atlantaficated trap beats.

Also, Bag It Up has grown on ya host recently. Like Carlos says on the song, I'm kinda slow because some shit just hits my brain late:

70th Street Carlos - Bag It Up
(From YouTube; 2017)

Slap Caviar

They never saw me comin'! Did you see wot I done? Updated my favourite jams of 2017 playlist with some songs by Ralo, Tay-K, Queen Key, and Rich The Factor & The Popper. Inspired the whole town, taught bloggas there's enough #CuratedContent to go round.



I dunno why Audiomack no longer shows which artists the songs belong to when you embed playlists. Click the damn thing for the full credits innit.

Reasons why I love Instagram # 1

Because it's the only site with priceless footage of The Rock & Slick Rick in the studio together recording Pie:

Welcome to Rick's bakery... @therock #fbf

A post shared by Slick Rick The Ruler (@therulernyc) on Sep 15, 2017 at 9:12am PDT

Oi Uncle Ricky - where's that priceless studio footage of you & Dana Dane layin' the Smackdown over Godfather's Ho Train theme?

Why couldn't God have taken Frank Bough instead of Frank Vincent?

"You're hot as a pistol, man, hot as a pistol..."


Pour out a little Lambrusco for arguably the greatest character actor of our lifetime, and the man with the best rug in any movie or TV show he ever graced with his presence. His ultimate legacy will, of course, be the shinebox - just look up any clip or interview with him on YouTube and the comments will be 80% shinebox jokes.

Always wished Scorsese had given Frank more of a role in Taxi Driver or a role as one of the mobsters in After Hours. Also always wished he'd have appeared in more rap videos after Hype Williams drafted him in for Nas' Street Dreams. Imagine how the video for Kool G. Rap's It's A Shame could have been improved with Frank's mug up in it as the mafia plug.

Damn, amico. Who'd have ever thunk Dominic Chianese would outlive James Gandolfini and Frank Vincent? Protect Uncle Junior at all costs.

Suga Druga

Best believe ya host is on a mission to locate every slapable Dru Down deep cut. Already ticked off the list are the pre-Relativity Records joints like Weak Move, Dru Rules and Bigger Than What You Think, plus the Can You Feel Me-era victims of sample clearance like Assassinated and In Jail. Now it's onto the sporadic highlights of his 2 early '00s albums, the 2nd of which was supposed to come out on the reborn Death Row Records in 2002. File Gangstafied under ‘Slapp & Roger-core songs which Suga Free really shoulda guested on.’

Dru Down - Gangstafied
(From Gangsta Pimpin' album; 2002)

Birds In The Kitchen

Sacramento been had Birds In The Kitchen, but not like this. Who's a pretty boy then? OMB Peezy apparently:

Somebody look at dis shit 😂😂😂😂

A post shared by MOBILE.ALABAMA. /G\ (@omb_peezy) on Sep 9, 2017 at 1:57pm PDT

Best music criticism of 2017 thus far.

Born to Audiomack: Biz Markie's Converse promo cassingle

13 years before Jay-Z gave away his first and only mixtape with those Reebok kicks of his which turned into Keith Richards' face after a couple of wears, Converse teamed up with Warner Bros Records for a free Biz Markie promo cassingle which came free with every pair of blue-on-white Cons basketball hi-tops in 1990. Nothing for the radio, just 2 tracks of exclusive prime-era Diabolical: Off The Top Of My Head is Biz's version of DJ Cool V's To My Boys, while Non Stop Rockin' is a historical curiosity given that it's a precursor to Biz's Nas demo + the sample-source for Biz's own Studda Step. Catch the vapors below:

Kickin' tinny rap songs off the Earth

"Kickin' n*ggas off the Earth
You a bird, I'm a flirt, I'm a jerk
Kickin' n*ggas to the curb
What's ya purpose? Ima get what I deserve"

Queen Key - Kung Fu
(From Your Highness 2 mixtape; 2017)


F*ck a table, you can't sit on the same planet as this lass. Bass on that, eh, lads? Basically, the great tragedy of 2017 rap is that there's far too many songs with basic bass, and not enough songs that'll turn the interior of your automobile into a air pocket of low-end.

(Via Bout To Blow.)

Dru Barbered

Dru Down - Weak Move
(From Fools From The Street album; 1993)


Tales from the 'hood: Dru Down's criminal exploits in Funktown edition. God bless Ant Banks for findin', freakin' and fanutin' that Blackbyrds sample so cleanly.

Not a lotta people know this, but Dru Down's Explicit Game album from 1994 was a rejigged reissue of his 1993 independent album Fools From The Street. Someone should hire Doctor Who to travel back in time and fire whichever A&R at Relativity Records thought it was a good idea to remove Dru Rules, Bigger Than What You Think and Weak Move from the tracklist of the reissue version. You just don't consign vintage Dru Down slaps with Ant Banks to the dustbin of obscurity like that.

Here at The Martorialist we want to live in a world where Dru Down deep cuts are considered equally as important as the deep cuts by east coast rappers like AZ or Grand Puba.

The Factors >>> The Kids

Pleasantly surprised that the remix of Yo Gotti & Nicki Minaj's Freaky Tales-inspired single features the highly unlikely presences of Kansas City's Rich The Factor & his semi-protégé The Popper. Far more impressed, however, by Rich & Popper's own current single Aristocrat - the mannishness is brand new, the mobbishness is retro, the scritch is scratched if you're just after some no-frills K.C slap.

"I'm too tired, in deez streetz dress sharp as new knives
I move wise and don't hang with n*ggas who act they shoe size"

Rich The Factor ft. The Popper - Aristocrat
(From Whale Mafi 2 album; 2016/YouTube; 2017)


Summer is officially over, but it's always Funk Season in Kansas City - rest in peace Fat Tone, free Young Devi D, stay safe Yung Cat.