Generic list post: July 2022

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when male music critics embarrassed themselves by pretending to enjoy and have serious earnest opinionz about Beyonce albums again.

Cam'Ron ft. Lil' Cease - Hustler (1999)
Timbaland & Magoo ft. Attitude - Leavin' (2003)
Mac Dre & Zion I - Roll On Out (2007)
Stunnaman02 & DrewBanga - Wit' A Twist (2022)
Duke Deuce - I Get Crunk (2022)
Mr. 2-17 - Still Spaz'n (2022)
Z Money - Lyin' On Oath (2022)
Burna Boy ft. J Hus - Cloak & Dagger (2022)
Beabadoobee - The Perfect Pair (2022)
The Chats - I've Been Drunk In Every Pub In Brisbane (2022)

Other notables: GloRilla's Tomorrow is more like the B-Side to FNF (Let's Go) than it's follow-up single; here I was thinking we might get a Doja Cat X Homeboy Sandman collaboration and instead we got Lizzo X Quelle Chris & Chris Keys.

Further reading: me on my top 22 songs of 2022 so far, on why New Yorkers are terrible guardians of their own Rap galaxy, and on how a certain INXS song inspired a certain Prince song. Plus there's Party Sparty on the best Giallo soundtrack cuts. Oh, and then there's me again on my favourite TV show ever coming to an end.

I Wonder If Heaven Got A Cul-De-Sac In A Fictional Suburb Of Australia?

This is worse than when Michael Owen got those two late goals in the 2001 F.A Cup final. My favourite TV show of all faded to black forever ever last night and I feel like my dog died in front of me again. What am I to do? I'm crying over Karl & Susan Kennedy and I'm feelin' blue. Other than Rap music and football, Neighbours has been an only constant in my life since 1988. Why couldn't God have taken Eastenders or Home & Away instead?

Neighbours was famed for being the Aussie soap opera which was bigger in Britain than its homeland, and for introducing the world to Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Dale, Natalie Imbruglia, Holly Valance, Margot Robbie, Jesse Spencer, the Hemsworth brothers, and that bird who played Annalise (but not Iggy Azalea!) And every last one of them should all be thankful for Neighbours because without the show they'd probably be shearing sheep or advertising Vegemite for a living instead. But for me, Neighbours was deeper than that: Australian ex-pats who live in Britain are the W.O.A.T, but Australians in Australia are an entirely different proposition - the temperature is Californian, but their temperament is British, and so this weird cultural identity crisis with its own unique customs and slanguage has been best expressed in music like Bon Scott-era AC/DC and The Chats, movies like Wake In Fright and Idiot Box, and TV shows like Round The Twist and Underbelly. Neighbours was a more wholesome expression of this dicthomy, and in its teatime TV slot acted as chewing gum for my eyes and comfort food for my soul AT THE SAME DAMN TIME!

Any old prestige HBO TV show can be engaging, entertaining, and emotionally-involving for five or so series. To be all that & a bag of Macadamia nuts five days a week for 37 years? David's Chase and Simon could never. And that is why Neighbours was proper ritualistic Transcendental Television™. It's the end of an avvo for Paul Robinson's neighbourhood. Pour out a little Aussie beer of your choosing for the show I loved so much I could even forgive it giving cameos to Lily Allen and Russell Brand.

How had I been watching Neighbours so long but only just found out the bloke who played Doug Willis is Jason Donovan's IRL dad?

Saturday Knight Fever

"F*ck a Suge Knight, I'm tryna have a good night
I'm tryna hit this n*gga Drew - you in the 'hood, right?"

Stunnaman02 & DrewBanga - Wit' A Twist
(From It's Big album; 2022)

Stunnaman02 · Stunnaman02 & Drew Banga - Wit a Twist

F*ck a Suge Knight, I'm tryna have a good night are words to live by. Roll Wit' It is my jam from Stunnaman02 & DrewBanga's EP, but I got love for Wit' A Twist too. NorCal Rap needs more Flamenco-guitar type Dreganomics.

Mac Dre - Dreganomics
(From Ronald Dregan album; 2004)

R.I.P. Mac Dre · Mac Dre - Dreganomics

When some brick shithouse bouncer ejects you from the bar for throwing Skittles at the DJ because he's playing multiple Drake songs in a row that's a f*ck a Suge Knight, I'm tryna have a good night moment. Follow me now, let me lead the way, if you gon' believe in somethin', believe in NoDrake. It's only civilised that we can live our lives without hearing a whiney Canadian guy, nights out royally spoiled by that nonce's music, NoDrakeganomics.

My Mind Spray 4

This picture of Mac Dre in Hawaii was a physical manifestation of his "I want my own Island, betcha ima get it" lyric.

I thought Flo Milli was in danger of becoming into the new OMB Peezy: a young Alabama upstart who got brainwashed into making boring Spotify playlist fodder. Turns out she's #actually the new Beastie Boys: as the bratty belligerence disappears, so does the magic. Her new album got a couple of jams, but she's mostly lost what made her unique: that she was a hoodrat Angelica from Rugrats.

Tired: CD reissues of every every mediocre regional '90s G-Funk album. Wired: CD reissues of no-DJ versions of Max B's late '00s mixtapes.

Another reason why New Yorkers are such terrible authorities on their own Rap music: they've been bodied at documenting their own '80s history by a guy from Virginia.

If some music critic writes a Wasn't Timbaland brilliant? article and doesn't mention any of the Timbaland & Magoo singles then, to misquote Magoo himself, that music critic got no taste, we fart on your thinkpiece. Yeah, Magoo has a funny voice, but so does Kendrick Lamar and some of you ponces swear he's The Most Important Artiste Of This Generation™.

If the clothes really do maketh the man then these jeans explain why 70th Street Carlos' music is such a confused mess nowadays.

DJ Vlad and Joe Budden have made me hate Rap gossip, but I'd still love to hear the full unedited version of Mad Skillz Ghost Writer. Scandalous when it dropped, it's one of my favourite Rawkus Records singles and 22 years later it still works as a Rap industry cryptic crossword even though some of the blanks have been filled in.

Mad Skillz ft. DJ Fusion - Ghost Writer
(From Ghost Writer 12" single; 2000)

Zero Dark 40 · Mad Skillz - Ghost Writer

What a Div'

Three Times Dope - Funky Dividends
(From Original Stylin' album; 1988)


It's thanks to the sample from Delagation's Oh Honey that Three Times Dope's Funky Dividends is one of the G.O.A.T summer day songs which isn't #actully a summer day song. Funky Dividends begins as a postscript to Spoonie Gee's Love Rap and ends as a precursor to Sporty Thievz' Cheapskate (You Ain't Gettin' Nada). Top 10 Philly Rap single of all time or wot?

Generic list post: 22 from 2022

22 songs from 2022 which are too hot like Coolio and the current weather. Basically, this is my slightly belated best songs of the first half of 2022 list. No particular order of preference, and contains 2 British Rap songs and 3 songs with no rapping.

Monaleo - We Not Humping
Seiji Oda - WAKE UP
Hitkidd & Glorilla - FNF (Let's Go)
Young Jr - Bird Walk
AD - All I Do
Eatem - Lil' Phat Flow
Tony Shhnow - Sometimes
Duke Deuce ft. Glorilla - Just Say That
Homeboy Sandman - Fruit Day 1
Ezale - Ironic
Consequence - Blood Stain
Asian Doll ft. Bandmanrill - Get Jumped
Yuno Miles - Road To Riches
A-Wax - Streets Callin'
Stunnaman02 ft. Lil' Kayla - Roll Wit It
Young Bleed - Dat' Water
Westside Boogie ft. DRAM - AIGHT
Benzz - Je M'appelle
Knucks ft. SL - Nice & Smooth
Cookiee Kawaii - Fly Away
Mr. Fingers - Coastline Paradox
Real Lies - Dream On

Favourite movies of 2022 so far gotta be Boiling Point, Brian and Charles and The Innocents. Hopefully catch Hatching and Crimes Of The Future soon.

Febreze the beat

Mr. 2-17 - Still Spaz'n
(From YouTube; 2022)


Revisiting some classic Mr. 2-17 got me checking out what he's been upto recently. Turns out he's been bobbing and weaving between the past with Soulja Boy tributes like Crank Dat Dance and the future with Jean-Michel Jarre Prog-Swag instrumentals like Still Spaz'n. Mr. 2-17 reckons this one is a #YeatTypeBeat; me, I'd prefer #AnyoneButYeat on it and would rather he lets the beat breathe as an instrumental forever ever.

Bonus beats: My pick for G.O.A.T instrumental which exists only on the producer's YouTube page because nobody's ever bought it? Gotta be this Trel Itz A Hit beat where he really let his nuts hang. Oi Trel - you came up outta that Bayou like a muskrat on this one.

Trel Itz A Hit - South Louisiana Swag
(From YouTube; 2015)

New York Strait Talk

Don't you hate when New Yorkers try to discredit Rap music from other regions like "we don't listen to that here"? California and Tennessee must have been devastated that the city who bought multiple albums by Das EFX and Drag-On didn't give any play to Suga Free's Street Gospel and Project Pat's Ghetty Green. Ironically, New Yorkers tend to have terrible taste in their own Rap music let alone Rap music from other regions. Lest we forget that New Yorkers prefered Fat Joe to the rest of D.I.T.C and anointed Mos Def as the savior of Real Hip-Hop™. Lest we also forget that New Yorkers put their industry weight behind the likes of Mims and Maino when Max B was hiding in plain sight. And these are the authoritarians whose taste we're supposed to defer to? LMFAO.

In hindsight, it was obvious that New Yorkers were unreliable authorities on their own Rap music when they ignored Whodini's I'm A Ho and The Showboys Drag Rap and left it to California and New Orleans to recognise the brilliance of both songs. If we can pinpoint the moment when New York's superiority complex became a worldwide laughing stock it was 2012 when the city decided A$AP Ferg made music which was remotely listenable. After that, Rap fans only looked to New York to see what was poppin' there and then ran in the opposite direction. I bet that makes New Yorkers real mad, don't it? But I bet New Yorkers can't find a single lie in this post.

BTW, no shotz @ Maino. He wasn't competition when him and Max B were contemporaries in the late noughties, but he did have three undeniable jams back then: Role Model shoulda been the Broken Language of 2008, Hi Hater transformed Money (Dollar Bill Y'all) into some post-Jigginess, and Rumors is the G.O.A.T Dead Perez gossip song of that era. "I was readin' the daily news where they said they had flicks of Lloyd Banks havin' sex with a hairy dude" is a helluva lyric.

Maino - Rumors
(From Real Recognize Real mixtape/DVD; 2005)


Pity nobody has ever identified the sample on Rumors because it sounds like it comes from the nastiest Spaghetti Western ever.

Don't you wish that you could wake up and find Z Money soundin' irregular again?

Z Money - Lyin' On Oath
(From Back 2 The Blender album; 2022)


Turns out that Z Money over a Playboi Carti Type Beat™ is everything I want. As an O.G Z Money fan who hasn't been too into his new music since he lost the sense of humour + the J Neal production, I'm pleased to wake up and find out that Lyin' On Oath is his least regular shit since Dope Boy Magic.

Z Money - Dope Boy Magic
(From Dope Boy Magic single; 2014)


No love for Trap beats, they smell like cocks.

My Alphabets Part 2

"M is for the Money, E is for the Evil
The other M for Memphis, the P is for the People
The H is for the Hoes and the I is for Ice
The S is for your Soul, it can come with a price"

Duke Deuce - I Get Crunk
(From CRUNKSTAR album; 2022)



It's a testament to how timeless LL Cool J's I Need Love is that it's already inspired two remakes so far this year. DJ Fresh & J.Stalin's I Need A Plug is a nice little requel, but Duke Deuce's I Get Crunk is bigger and deffer enough to qualify as a legit revamp. This shit needs a proper video where Duke can strut his half B-Boy/half D-Boy stuff. Off-beat and on-beat, old skool like Beat Street, Duke got more funk than Popmaster Fabel's feet.

True story: as I was writing this post the universe aligned with the algorithm and YouTube recommended me a documentary about LL Cool J's Bigger And Deffer album. Let Marty lead you away from drugs and petty crime, lead you away from Memphis beats and rhymes, lead you to that ticket line so you can watch 11 minutes of LL in his prime.


If LL doesn't shout out Duke like he did Peewee Longway then we riot.

Cam Du

Cam'Ron ft. Lil' Cease - Hustler
(From The Rough, Rough, Rough album promo CDr; 1999)


Sum shit I just found out: Cam'Ron had a Hard Knock Life-core song on the promo version of S.D.E. Flipping So You Wanna Be A Boxer from Bugsy Malone with Lil' Cease bouncing the hook. Easily the best Hard Knock Life-core track which wasn't produced by The 45 King.

Craig Mack and Big Scoob went to the 45 King for The Wooden Horse and Can Du respectively, and while neither of those tracks blew up, they were far better Hard Knock Life-core choonz than Jay-Z's own hard knock-off Anything or whatever Busta's shitty song with The Ugly Duckling sample was called. Latter song is such a quack it was the first flop single of Busta's solo career.

New old Dre, who dis?

Seiji Oda & Lil' Ricefield dropped yesterday's best birthday tribute to Mac Dre. Best because it captures the thrill of gettin' your dome blown within the comforts of your own zone to Dre's music, and best because it put me onto a Dre deep cud I'd never heard before. Bass on this shit is bigger than E.T's head and makes me wanna roll out like Missy Elliot's queen size waterbed. My summer slumpah of 2022 is here!

Mac Dre & Zion I - Roll On Out
(From Too $hort & Friends' I Heart The Bay compilation; 2007)


May I continue to find old-but-new-to-me Mac Dre songs for many years to come.

My Alphabets

INXS - Need You Tonight
(From Kick album; 1987)


My m8 Tomo is a Prince mega-fan and recently edutained me with an interesting anecdote about two of the best pop singles of the 1980s. The story goes that Prince was simultaneously hugely impressed and hugely infuriated by INXS' Need You Tonight: hugely impressed by it as a song because he was already an INXS fan after What You Need blew up in America a couple of years earlier, but hugely infuriated by someone else having a massive hit which was drenched in his own DNA. So he decided to rework an acoustic demo of his into something which was, essentially, Need You Tonight with an even bigger boner. Hey presto - Prince's last great single of the '80s was born.

Prince - Alphabet St. (single version)
(From Lovesexy album; 1988)


Of course, whether Alphabet St. is a better song than Need You Tonight is entirely subjective innit. But what isn't up for debate is that Alphabet St. trumps Need You Tonight in Prince's mission statement of sheer Big Boner Energy™. Job's a good 'un - the best example of Prince living up to his The Purple One nickname or wot?

While this anecdote isn't quite Prince's equivalent of James Brown's Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved) swaggerjacking David Bowie's Fame, both instances prove that colonial cracka artists can occasionally spur black 'Murican artists to greater heights. Game recognise game, bro's do too. Pour out a little liquor for all the lost lads.