Young Dro - They Don't Really Know Bout Dro
(From Best Thang Smokin' album; 2006/YouTube; 2026)
A 20th anniversary video for one of the most anthemic album cut on Young Dro's first LP innit. I'm a fan of rappers shootin' belated music videos for a variety of reasons, the main one being that they give new leases of life to old favourites which have long since fallen out of your regular rotation. If bloggin' is a motorcycle, you in my sidecar with these dozen 2006 anthemic album cuts which also deserve 20th anniversary videos.
Ice Cube - Once Upon A Time In The Projects
(From AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted album; 1990/YouTube; 2026)
Examples of AI being aiight: when it's used to create videos for Ice Cube's greatest storytelling songs ever. Cube never shot the video for Once Upon A Time In The Projects himself, so some tech geek Rap fans got the computers 'putin. Damn, this is exactly what I picture in my mind's eye every time I listen to the song. Now do You Can't Fade Me next plz.
Husalah - On The Streets Pt 2
(From unreleased; 200?/Stash World YouTube channel; 2026)
Via the Stash World YouTube channel AKA the internet's number one source for rare and unreleased Mob Figaz music, here's a hitherto-unheard sequel to one of Husalah's best unreleased songs On The Streets. Same beat as the original, but entirely different lyrics. No idea when it was recorded but it doesn't matter because Sob Figaz-core will never get old to mavens of melancholy mob-music.
Never seen before by me: the Beastie Boys performing No Sleep Till Brooklyn and (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) live on MTV's 1987 new year's eve Rock 'N' Roll Ball show. This is #problematic teenage brat era Beasties in their full glory, and the only downside to the clip is that they weren't given more airtime to perform Rhymin' & Stealin', Posse In Effect, Brass Monkey and Slow and Low too. On one hand, I wish I'd been old enough to have seen Run-D.M.C, LL Cool J and the Beasties on their U.K tour in 1986. On the other hand, if I was old enough to see that tour in 1986 then I wouldn't have been watching Children's BBC in 1990 when Round The Twist first hit U.K TV screens.
I do believe this was the first YouTube video for a Rap song from decades past. No Delayin' wasn't a single back in 1989, but it's one of the best songs from Nice & Smooth's debut album, so it made the ideal song to shoot a video for to promote the 2011 remastered reissue of their album. Props for gettin' Big Daddy Kane in to mouth the vocal sample, but it's a pity Greg Nice & Smooth B didn't rock their Dapper Dan outfits from the sleeve of their debut.
Other great Rap album cuts from decades past to get YouTube videos include Project Pat's Gorilla Pimp, Young Bleed & Max Minelli's Better Than The Last Time, Brotha Lynch Hung's Rest In Piss and Juvenile's 400 Degreez. The latter is the best video of the lot and is a reminder that "you see me, I eat, sleep, shit and talk Rap" is one of the most relatable opening lines ever for doz of us neck deep in the Rap connoisseur lifestyle. If you're gonna be obsessed by something, it might as well be something good.
It also has me wishin' Juve would shoot a video for Ghetto Children, which is his own favourite song from 4OO Degreez. Juve is clearly a man of taste just like me because Ghetto Children is my jam from 4OO Degreez too.
There's also been YouTube videos for old Rap singles which never got blessed with videos back when they were originally released back in the 80s. The two key examples of this are Busy Bee's Suicide and the recent 40th anniversary video for LL Cool J's Rock The Bells. These other old school rappers with classic songs celebrating 40th anniversaries in 2025 stay bringing the woodpeckers while LL brings The goods.
LL Cool J - Rock The Bells
(From Radio album; 1985/YouTube: 2025)
Fingers crossed for one video of a Rap song celebrating its 40th anniversary video in 2026. If I ruled the world it'd be a Who Framed Roger Rabbit type semi-animated video for Schoolly D's Saturday Night.
When the Grim Reaper gets on the good foot and sticks his toe in my arse, feel free to have a whip around to pay MC Hammer to dance at my funeral. Please, please, please tell me there's full footage of this Hammer tribute to James Brown?
LARussell & Lil' Jon - Having Like This
(From Having Like This sngle; 2025)
Lil' Jon beats X NorCal rappers is always the proverbial Good Combination™... well, apart from that one posthumous Mac Dre song which was too XXXtra Jonish for my liking. Anyhoo, props to Jon for getting LARussell to commit to a solo song which lasts longer than 2 minutes. This song sounds like it could have come out at any point between 2002 and 2006 which is exactly what it needs to sound like. The future is the past now!
Unrelated: when's the last time I watched the Clipse's $2 Bill MTV concert from 2002? At a guess it was around 2005 before I accidentally taped over it with an episode of Reno 911. Cot damn, Kelis has never looked fitter than her cameo in that concert. If you don't think Kelis was top 5 dead or alive in this clip then ur probably gay, m8.
Clipse ft. Pharrell & Kelis - When The Last Time (live)
(From MTV's $2 Bill concert; 2002)
Young Bari - On My Own Hype
(From Young Bari & J Roc's M.O.B album; 2008)
New favourite Instagram account alert: I'm So Hyphy. Exquisite taste in choonz I do know, and even better taste in choonz I don't know. Picture me not knowing that pre-HBK P-Lo produced Young Bari's On My Own Hype. Plz believe I'm not an anniversary dates bloke, but I gotta appreciate an account which tells me that Beeda Weeda's debut single Turf's Up was released on December 27th 2005.
Beeda Weeda - Turf's Up
(From Turfology album; 2006)
Very impressive that Beeda Weeda could score a Lil' Jon cameo for his debut video innit? The Turf's Up video was uploaded to Beeda's Own channel on February 15th 2006 surely making it was one of the very first NorCal Rap videos uploaded to YouTube.
"Yo, make sure the mics is right, I'm gonna take my mask off and reveal my identity out here... DAMN!"
MF DOOM - Gas Drawls
(live at Wetlands, New York; 2000)
The New York backpack scene was full of irksome, myopic people, but hats off to whichever one of them captured DOOM's third show on video where he removed his mask to perform Gas Drawls. Dome blown in the comforts of my own home at him actually wearing a Stetson hat like Paul C. Hats off to Megalon too who kept his mask on under those nuclear-grade stage lights. The only Rap sidekick to hit the stage lookin' like a Cobra Techno-Viper or wot?
Ramones - M.P.S.C's TV studio performance
(From not in Arturo's Loft; 1976)
Sum shit I just found out: there's a video of the Ramones' infamous 1975 Arturo's Loft performance on YouTube where the audio doesn't take a nosedive in quality after Loudmouth. Sum other shit I just found out: the performance was #actually filmed in some New York TV studio in early 1976 a couple of weeks before the Ramones debut LP dropped. California Sun aside, this performance sounds exactly like the debut LP only rawer and louder - which is exactly what I'm looking for in a Ramones performance video. The problem with live Ramones performance videos after O.G drummer boi Tommy Ramone left is that replacement drummer bois Marky Ramone and Richie Ramone had Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone up their tempo which would leave Joey rushing his vocals to keep up with the music. The result: Da Brudders 2.0 and 3.0 had Joey out there sounding outta the pocket like Blueface.
But there aee always exceptions to the rule. Peep the time they cranked out Do You Remember Rock 'N' Radio? on British TV show Old Grey Whistle Test in 1980. I fuxwit the fancy saxophone & organ Phil Spector added to the studio version, but the song knocks different here without Spector's Wall Of Sound™ embellishments dunnit?
Ramones - Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio? (live)
(From Old Grey Whistle Test TV show; 1980)
And now for the real reason I made this post: who wants to indulge in a game of food & drink-based Ramones puns? One, two, three, flour...
Blitzkrieg Bap
Sushi Is A Headbanger
Beat On The Bratwurst
Creatine Hop
Carbonara Not Glue
Today Your Loaf, Tomorrow The Whirl
Rockaway Peach
End Of The Celery
Rocket Salad To Russia
Sheena Is A Pork Rocker
Cabbage Cabbage Hey!
The CaKe CaKe CaKe Took My Baby Away
53rd & Thirst
Um Bongo Goes To Bitburg
Young MC - Principal's Office
(From Stone Cold Rhymin' album; 1989)
Young Bleed - Give and Take
(From My Own album; 1999)
Gotta love this era of YouTube when old Rap videos I've only ever seen in shitty pixelated rips previously are now being uploaded in grown & gorgeous pristine quality. Here's two favourites by two rappers who are no longer Young. Peep how exquisite the blues look in the Give and Take video, darlings - deepest, bluest like the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Related: someone needs to steal the print of Steve Buscemi & Vincent Gallo's first movie The Way It Is that's housed in NYU and finally release that shit to the public by uploading it to YouTube. You know who else is in that movie? Rockets Redglare AKA the bloke who probably #actually killed Nancy Spungen. Sid Vicious woz innocent and you can't tell me nuffink to the contrary!
Saigon - Come Again
(From Warning Shots mixtape; 2004/Smack DVD vol. 6; 2005)
Saigon recently shooting a video for his 2004 mixtape classic Stocking Cap has got me listening to his old shit like it's new again. Come Again was a personal favourite back then but I never knew there was a Smack DVD video for it with Tru Life playing Puffy and hogging up the entire frame. For better or worse, Smack DVD was a key pioneer of no budget Rap videos featuring goonz waving guns at the camera. Another personal favourite-turnt-actual classic old Saigon song which got blessed with a Smack DVD video was The Letter P featuring Kool G. Rap. Most pre-eminent usage of the alphabet's 16th letter since 2Pac's If I Die 2nite or wot? Very legendary street DVD era Rap moment where G. Rap rolls the Range Rover's window down to reveal his mug.
Saigon ft. Kool G. Rap - The Letter P
(From Abandoned Nation mixtape; 2005/Smack DVD vol. 10; 2006)
Sum shit that's vanished from the internet: Tru Life's Jim Jones dis freestyle where he said "summer in Miami, hidin' from Gangster Lou/tight shirts with the motorcycle jeans, that ain't what gangsters do!"
Fab Five Freddy - Sucker M.C's freestyle
(From ??????; 1983)
Sum shit I NEVER expected to hear: Fab 5 Freddy freestyling with chutzpah over Run-D.M.C's Sucker M.C's instrumental. If only Freddy had rhymed like this on Change The Beat. Better yet, if only Freddy had hit up Davy DMX and copped himself a Sucker M.C's Type Beat™ in the vein of Love Bug Starski's Starski Live At The Disco Fever or Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde's A.M P.M. Freddy's wearing his clobber from Wild Style in this clip so maybe it was some sort of promotional appearance for the movie?
Vincent Gallo's third greatest contribution to popular culture after Buffalo '66 and Palookaville: introducing Run-D.M.C's live performance of Sucker M.C's on Michael Holman's 1984 TV show Graffiti Rock. Davy DMX famously "cut the record down to the bone" and Run-D.M.C & Jam Master Jay followed suit by cutting a live performance every bit as sharp as the record itself. Sucker M.C's is one of those iconic 10/10 classic 80s Rap songs which doesn't have a video, so this clip is the next best thing innit?
A game-changing song for sure, but its impact is much misunderstood by lazy 'Hip-Hop historians' who like a neatly-packaged narrative. I've harped on about this before, but you can't tell the story of pre-golden era 1980's rap by using simple generational shifts and grand Slay Thy Father gestures. Far from wiping Rap's O.G generation out of existence, Sucker M.C's inspired Spoonie Gee, Love Bug Starski and The Fearless Four to hit up Davy DMX & Larry Smith for some Oberheim DMX drum pattern production on their respective comeback singles, and provoked The Furious Five, Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and The Cold Crush Brothers into recording their greatest songs as groups.
Max B - Why You Do That (instrumental)
(From Why You Do That single; 2007)
Via this video, sum shit I read: the production duo Arkatech Beatz made the Why You Do That beat for Jim Jones and arranged a meeting with him at ByrdGang's studio, but then got caught up in heavy traffic and by the time they arrived Jones had left. Max B was still in the studio writing and recording and told the Arkatech lads he'd pass their beat CD on to Jones, so they left it with him. Max listened to the CD, heard the Why You Do That beat, loved it, decided to keep it for himself, and the rest is history innit. Now, I'm a big fan of O.G ByrdGang era Jim Jones, but praise the Lord for New York's heavy traffic that fateful day. A stroke of serendipity which was both fortunate and glorious.
Max B - Why You Do That
(From Why You Do That single; 2007)
There tend to be two problems with live TV Rap performances on Showtime At The Apollo: the first is too-cool-for-skool New York crowd's lifeless reactions to barnstorming performances from the likes of Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince and Run-D.M.C; the second is too-cool-for-skool New York crown holders like Rakim and Slick Rick rhyming over their own vocal tracks and rendering their performances as glorified karaoke sessions.
So we should be thankful for the Showtime At The Apollo performances where the rappers and the audiences are in total synergy as their lose their collective shit together. Best example has gotta be the post-Biggie 1997 Bad Boy roster's medley of It's All About The Benjamins and Mo' Money, Mo' Problems which could only be improved if Lil' Kim and Biggie's ghost joined them onstage to perform their respective verses. Peep the dearly departed Black Rob playing his position on baseball bat swinging hypeman duty.
Bonus beatbox at The Apollo: Doug E. Fresh living up to his title of The World's Greatest Entertainer™ by killin' it from his seat in the audience with a medley of La Di Da Di, The Show and Bel Biv DeVoe's Poison featuring BBD and Tony Rock. A performance so good even the musical input of a backing band couldn't ruin it.
I'm reliably informed this clip comes from Jamie Foxx"s 2012 Showtime At The Apollo remake Apollo Live. Foxx's 2nd best contribution to last decade after his role in Baby Driver.
"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.
Another reason why Seiji Oda is a cool breeze of fresh air: most rappers nowadays can barely be bothered to credit their producers, but Seiji is up on Instagram creating special videos featuring cameos from all the producers who contributed something to his latest single Aero3. He even lists their favourite scran on some "look at all this beautiful food" type shit.
True story: it was this fan-made video which finally made me a fan of Beautiful Food after all these years. Thus, it's gotta be one of my favourite fan-made clips alongside this video for Max B's Where Do I Go?, this video for The Pharcyde's Officer, these two videos for both parts of Ice Cube's Gangsta's Fairytale, this video for Agallah's Crookie Monster, Donal's video for Rated X's Be Cool To Your Girl, and the classic spoof of Juelz & Cam's Dipset (Santana's Town).
Courtesy of Billy Jam's channel and taken from a local Bay Area TV documentary called Rap City Rhapsody, live footage of Too $hort plus an interview where he defends his right to say whatever he wants on his own records. $hort might have had the Shane McGowan teeth during this era, but he also had the supa dupa fly custom Life Is... Too $hort varsity jacket. I've said it before and I'll say it again, old NorCal rappers had the best clobber. Life is... too short to dress square.
Speaking of Billy Jam, there must be something in white mother's waters because all Rap fiend crackas have rocked the Billy Jam hairdoo at some point. Peep ya host Messy Mart circa 1989 probably listening to Run-D.M.C or Ice-T.
Scope the civilian wardrobe. I got my folks to buy me that Nike sweatshirt because it sorta looked like the blue sweatshirt Corey Haim wore in The Lost Boys. Pretty awkward... for a fashion victim.
Positive K - Step Up Front
(From Step Up Front single; 1988)
Finally the decent quality upload of Positive K's Step Up Front video is back on YouTube. Okay, it's not exactly crisp HD TV digital but it's still a billion times better than the unwatchable/unlistenable upload on Positive K's own channel. It doesn't get more 1988 than a rapper & his posse dancing on a rooftop while clad in Dapper Dan clobber and sheepskin coats. The boring but important song deets: produced by Grand Puba, Step Up Front is the first Rap choon to let the Ironside theme sirens ring out, and the 3 Heineken Technique remix where Pos' trades verses with King Of Chill from The Alliance is equally essential. Good things come in twos like boobs.
Some strange happenings on YouTube recently with long-deleted videos reappearing as their original uploads but minus all the old comments from before the videos reappeared.
