Generic list post: February 2023

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when I found out that Jeff from De La Soul's The Mack Daddy On The Left later guested on their Bionix album under the name of Philly Black. How did I not know that? Rest in peace to Plug Two.

Tung Twista - Back 2 School (1992)
Children Of The Corn - Fair One Part 2 (1995 or 1996/2023)
Me & My Cousin - The End Tho (1996)
Day Day Sustaaa ft. Eatem - Get Somebody Else To Do It (2023)
Luh Tyler ft. Trapland Pat - Can't Move Wrong (2023)
Trapland Pat ft. Luh Tyler - Backstreet (2023)
Kookei - So Icy (2023)
Mic Terror - Take My Soul (Mic T-Mix) (2023)
Real Lies - Valentine (2023)
Donae'o - Let There Be Light (2023)

Other notables: played Nef The Pharoah's Back Of The Class freestyle a buncha times; for some bizarre reason the biggest U.S Rap song in the U.K right now is Goated by Amani White & Denzel Curry.

Other stuff: Okay Player ran a great piece on how Above The Law #actually invented G-Funk; Party Sparty did a Desert Island Disc movie list which has inspired me to have a go at it too; the artist formerly known as Juiceboxxx did a great interview with the director behind the We Were Hyphy documentary and all I'd add is that Mac Dre's Hy Phy and Off Tha Rictor are the two songs on which the foundation for Hyphy was built.

My Mind Spray 7.5

When Grand Daddy I.U died recently, someone suggested he was Kid Capri's ghostwriter for The Tape album. Never caught wind of that rumour before but I can definitely hear imprints of I.U's flow in Capri's words and how they're delivered. The Tape is a very enjoyable album, and finding out that Grand Daddy I.U possibly contributed to it only adds another layer of enjoyment for me.

My favourite non-2023 Rap song discovery of 2023 so far has gotta be B.A.N.P by Day Day Sustaaa. It's possible I'll find another non-2023 Rap song that's better than B.A.N.P but unlikely I'll find one that's harder.

Someone needs to ask Devin The Dude why Yo' Ho got cut from the retail version of Just Tryin' Ta Live. What possible reason was there to shelve a bonzer Dr. Dre production which was beggin' to be the album's main single?

Life's a bastard when I've become a big Homeboy Sandman fan, but the only U.K show on his current European tour is in London. Would recommend catching him live because his 2019 Liverpool show with Edan was a blast and had me going back searching out the older songs he performed like America, The Beautiful and Talking (Bleep).

I thought Jim Jones' 2007 Simon Cowell lookin' ass bootcut jeans were the nadir of rapper denim, but those bellbottomed skinny distressed jeans rappers are wearing nowadays are a new low.

Operation C.O.C Block

"I had a fight with a 7 footer, he wouldn't drop
Pulled the glock, left him frozen like a pudding pop
My laughter couldn't stop"

Children Of The Corn - Fair One Part 2
(From the vaults; 1994/Welcome To The Dangerzone CD; 2023)


Ya host had totally slept on Fair One Part 2 until I copped the recent deluxe remastered Children Of The Corn CD; a big mistake on my part because it's far superior to Fair One Part 1: better beat, slightly different lyrics, and Murda Ma$e all up in the mix not sounding like he was auditioning to join Onyx. The USP of C.O.C's best songs is that they were the rawest Harlem group since Mob Style, and Fair One Part 2 definitely ranks alongside A Star Is Born, I Remember When, American Dream, and Harlem U.S.A (Harlem version) as one of C.O.C's best songs. If I ruled the world, all 5 woulda dropped together on one killer EP in 1996.

Fair play to Dope & Dust Recordings for the job they've done on the Children Of The Corn CD. Sounds great, looks great, and the two booklets feature contributions from the Rap Internet's Werner Von Wallenrod and Big Sleep.

Cam'Ron sure loved that Schneider's One Day At A Time line of his during the C.O.C era, huh? He used it almost as many times as Busy Bee kicked his line about the stickball bat.

I'm tryna get in where I fit in, what's your throat size?

"You the type of n*gga catch a body then go get baptized
I don't know what the f**k it is but I hate fat guys"

Kookei - So Icy
(From The Incredible Hulk album; 2023)


Like I said, Kookei makes his best music when he picks beats which slightly deviate from yer standard boring interchangeable Michigan Rap formula. What makes So Icy hit just a little bit different is that bass which sounds like it was programmed by Juan Atkins. It's all luv to the basic bloggers who love generic Michigan beats, but here at The Martorialist we're tryna hear some Detroit Rap that's designed for cosmic cars.

Because it's 11:30 and the club is Jukin', Jukin'

"She fakes it when y'all sexin' it
You ain't know your girl was a thespian?
When she with me she a lesbian
Her and her girlfriend let me hit it
I hit it out the park like Joshua Gibson
Kinda thick yellow skin like she off The Simpsons"

Mic Terror - Take My Soul (Mic T-Mix)
(Break My Soul beatjack; 2023)


**DJ Kay Slay voice**
ONLY CHICAGO RAPPERS CAN DO HIP-HOUSE LIKE THIS, YO!!
Yeah, hittin' the G-Spot is cool, but have you ever hit the Juke spot like Mic Terror? Mic T understands that smut-rap songs are a framework for comedy & zingers the listener can use in their own sexploits, not in-detail wank fantasies for a rapper's own weird kinks. I'm reliably informed Take My Soul is a beatjack of some 2022 Beyonce single, but since I'm not a gay guy or a Pitchfork poptimist I've not heard the original and hopefully never will hear it. In my head, Take My Soul will always be a Mic Terror song just like Cold As Hell will always be a Mic Terror song.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When Doves Fly: R.I.P Trugoy

"Just as a reminder from the last step
Negative ones are lost in the footsteps"

Tell me what's more frequent: the deaths of goldfish, wrestlers or rappers? Generalist music fans get sad about boomer singers from the 1960s and 1970s dying off nowadays; try being a Rap fan where it seems like long-time favourites and promising young talents die every other week.

And so we bid farewell to Dove from De La Soul as he hops aboard the Chattanooga choo choo to Rap Heaven. The biggest compliment you can pay a rapper like Dove is that he rhymed shit no other M.C could or would have ever thought of saying. Dove had a problem... seriously: he was almost too good a fit for soulmate brother Plug One Posdnous because their partnership in rhyme was the gold standard for Rap duo chemistry during De La's peak. I am I be a British bloke who's been a fanatic of the DLS words since 1989 so their music really does Hit Different™ for me: they changed in speak what Rap could sound like, flipped the script on what rappers could look like, and inadvertently tapped into the spirit of Acid House's second summer of love here in the U.K. Ain't hip to be labelled a hippie, though, thus De La were masters of reinvention which left square listeners lost like high school history.

Since so much of The Discourse™ around De La Soul in recent years has been little more than basic bastard Rap fans moaning about De La's music not being on DSPs, here's one of their best B-sides which you can only currently stream on my Audiomack page. Peace out, Plug Two - I hope Heaven got a buncha bitties in the B.K Lounge.

De La Soul - What's More?
(From Me Myself & I 12"; 1989)


Personal highlight: bumped into De La in Manchester on the day of their 3 Feet High And Rising show circa 2014 and hit Dove with an "alright, Dave?".

Take it day by Day Day

Day Day Sustaaa ft. Eatem - Get Somebody Else To Do it
(From Get Somebody Else To Do it single; 2023)


I'll return to this song properly when the full music video drops. For now, all I'll say is that Day Day Sustaaa versus Eatem on the SAME DAMN SONG is catnip for us mavens of modern Baton Rouge Rap.

Biannual post about a new Donae'o single

Donae'o - Let There Be Light
(From Let There Be Light single; 2023)

Donaeo · Let There Be Light

I'll get back to Rap music next post, today I need to sing the praises of Donae'o's new single. Donae'o has the swag of a youth club team leader, but he's recorded more good songs than all of his trendier washed-up peers from the Wot U Call It-core post-U.K Garage/proto-Grime era. Let There Be Light has gotta be the most feelgood song since Max B's Lemonade - some joyous Gospel Garage shit which he could perform on Songs Of Praise. Friday thru sunday, we singin' this shit like Aled Jones.

My Mind Spray 7

I'm starting a petition to ask MF DOOM's wife to release the shelved 1994 video for KMD's What A N*gga Know. That shit has to be the only footage of how Zev Luv X & Subroc were acting and dressing after their heel turn for the Black Bastards era.

Dear regional Rap reissue labels, please do a deluxe remastered CD of Boosie's Bad Azz Mixtape Vol. 2 with liner notes from Frankie Tha Lucky Dog. One of the best mixtapes ever or wot?

I wish Kookei would do some more songs like Incredible and Toknight because I much prefer him over those two beats than I do over them boring interchangeable Michigan beats which sound like every other boring interchangeable Michigan beat ever.

That said, I should be careful what I wish for. In the last My Mind Spray post I hankered for Ezale to do summat more longform than music videos, and now he's dropping loadsa stupid YouTube clips of him & his m8s watching UFC instead of releasing new music.

Grown men who buy Rapper toys are the absolute worst, but I couldn't resist a a Mac Dre Ronald Dregan bobblehead when I last visited Oakland, and a couple of days ago I pulled the trigger on that new Slick Rick figure. My justification: they're not toys for adults, they're Pop-Art ornaments!

Real Lies Shit

Real Lies - Valentine
(From Various - RIFT Two compilation; 2023)

Real Lies · Valentine

The thing about Real Lies songs is that what you take into them is what you get out of them. And so, to me, Valentine is a surrender to emotions; being sobered by feelings; what would happen if Giggs were a sad lad who fronted Everything But The Girl; the perfect companion to Everything But The Girl's actual new single where Tracey Thorn sounds a dead ringer for Holly Johnson. Real Lies sanger Kev Kharas did a brief guide to Valentine video and it turns out that what I get out of the song kinda tallies up with what he took into the song when he wrote it. Consequently, it felt like I was part of something 4 real.

Bonus beats: shout out to Larry-O & K-Def and all the lads.

Breakfast At Twista's

Tung Twista - Back 2 School
(From Runnin' Off At Da Mouth album; 1992)


Crazy visions, BOOM: Back 2 School shoulda been the main single from Twista's first album with a video which flipped & bounced the G.O.A.T Chicago movie The Breakfast Club. Picture the cameras rollin' in 1992: Tung Twista playin' the position of Judd Nelson, DJ Quicksilver Cooley playin' the position of Emilio Estevez, Common Sense playin' the position of Anthony Michael Hall, and a couple of fit local lasses playin' the positions of Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy. Have cameos from Paul Gleason and John Capelos reprising their respective Breakfast Club teacher and janitor roles, and Twista woulda had the best Rap video set in a high school since De La's Me, Myself & I. Amirite or am I right?