Tracks & Deets:
The Bizzie Boyz - Brainstorm (1988/2011)
Lord Finesse - Inconsiderate Females (1989/2012)
Spice 1 - Killa Days (1992/2014)
Camp Lo - Camp Lo (Bust Ya Down) (1995/2016)
G. Dep - Blak N*gga (1996/2016)
Mac Dre - Pawns In The Game (1997/2014)
Juvenile ft. Big Tymers - Cash Money Gorilla (1998/2017)
Sean Price - I Shot Tha (2005/2014)
Max B - Take A Flick (2007/2013)
The Jacka ft. Dru Down - For Real (2009/2015)
MF DOOM & Madlib - Avalanche (2009/2016)
T-Pain & Lil' Wayne - Listen To Me (2009/2017)
The finale of this cheap nostalgia-fest. 30 Legit Jams™ from the year of the Gucci Mane blog post comment section wars. Bit of an anticlimax after the 1989 and 1999 lists, but a not half bad if you're willing to accept that 80% of everything good in 2009 was now on the internet or from some obscure independent album.
Honourable mention of sorts goes to T-Pain & Lil' Wayne's Listen To Me: supposed to drop in 2009 but didn't see the light of day until 2017. G.O.A.T use of the Oompa Loompa song or wot?
You knew this was comin' after the recent favourite Rap songs of 1989 list, right? 30 Legit Jams™ from the year when da machinez didn't all implode at the stroke of midnight on december 31st.
There's at least 4 songs here which have been rinsed to near-ruination by bait DJs, but they're still such 5 star general choonz that I can't bring meself to snub 'em: Simon Says, The Next Episode, Hip Hop, and Be Faithful. Pains me somewhat to snub Mobb Deep, Mac Dre, B.G., 8Ball & MJG, and Nas but none of 'em released a song in 1999 that I like as much as anything in this list.
'99 is also notable for being the year when the absolute worst Rap song of all time dropped. What's more horrific: the sight of 2 birds drinking scat in 2 Girls, 1 Cup, or the sound of Mos Def doing his dibba-dibba-dinosaur scat-singing on Umi Says? (FYI, I never watched 2 Girls, 1 Cup meself. I did, however, watch the Bun B reaction video.)
Turns out Queen Key's Ha wasn't the final frontier of Chicago sub-bass, that'd be her new single Ratchett. Alas, that isn't a compliment this time around because the low-end on Ratchett sounds like it was mixed & mastered by the ghost of Helen Keller. True story: if you slap Ratchett through a proper pair of speakers you'll suffer the same fate as Lost Boy Dwayne.
Who'd a thunk there'd be such a thing as too much bass?
It's 2019, do you know what that mean? It's now a decade since the YouTube video of Treal Lee & Prince Rick dancing to Get Off Me Now with Mr. Hit Dat Hoe in their Dallas neighbourhood was uploaded. Word around town, this video is so HIP HOP that it cured Kool Herc's kidney stones - well, that's what Herc told his sister after all the donations from the PayPal account she set up mysteriously disappeared and his kidney stones miraculously cleared up overnight. Not tryna suggest that Kool Herc is a dishonest motherf**ker, but when he played Liverpool back in 2000 he pretended to be doing the beat-juggling on Fusion Beats Vol. 2 himself.
Treal Lee & Prince Rick ft. Wideframe - Mr. Hit Dat Hoe
(From YouTube; 2009)
Anyhoo, it's a bit unfair that Treal Lee & Prince Rick are only remembered for Throwed Off (Fuck Everybody) innit? Here at The Martorialist we've gotta lorra lorra love for their ode to Mr. Hit That Hoe, Get Off Me Now, Fresh Fo Sho, Shoes Up, and Transform. Treal Lee & Prince Rick had a nice little run of songs between 2009 - 2012, but it's probably not a coincidence that they fell off after they switched from Levi's to True Religion. You can't be Dallas cowboys if you've got Eurotrash jeans hanging off your arse.
Always thought the grainy black & white Fresh Recordspress releases were the only photographic evidence of late '80's Craig Mack in his O.G Rap incarnation as MC EZ, so colour me surprised to find some multi-shade flava for ya eye. Yung Mack wearing what look like Troop high-tops circa the MC EZ & Troup era:
Bonus beats: Mack's Please Listen To My Demo remake has so much more pathos than the EPMD original. Erick & Parrish kept it philosophical like the Greek man Plato, but Mack made it spiritual/educational like the German word Bildungsroman.
Craig Mack - Please Listen To My Demo
(From The Wooden Horse 12" single; 1999/The Mack World Sessions album; 2017)
"And her lil' juvenile 'll set it off behind her
And her sugar daddy buy her nothin' but designer
But her main n*gga, he the real shiner
He the Birdman, he a real Big Tymer"
Eat Em & Spitta - Side N*gga
(From Industreets The Mixtape; 2018)
1989: the number, another summer, the sound of Funky Drummer & other James Brown breaks becoming less prevalent. 30 Legit Jams™ from the year of ya host's personal favorite James Bond movie.
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