Man, this song is such a grower. Philadelphia Drill that mixes the ignorance with the elegance. Tinkle, tinkle, little piano. Possibly titled Goose Coat because it sounds like Christmas snowfall? The remix with Meek Mill isn't necessarily bad, but is so unnecessary.
Schoolly D's Saturday Night single turns 40 years old sometime this year. Don't expect me to know the exact date tho because I'm not a nutcase like Dart Adams. Saturday Night isn't as important a song as P.S.K. "What Does It Mean?", but I reckon it's Schoolly's ultimate choon. That's not to say it isn't important too, mind - it's a key song in Rap's breakbeat revolution of 1986, but it rarely gets the credit for that because Schoolly wasn't from New York and the track wasn't produced by Marley Marl or Ced Gee. Saturday Night is one of those classic 1980s singles which never had a video, so the closest we've got is the menu screen from the King Of New York DVD which sets Saturday Night to the scene of Frank White dancing in the hotel room with his homeboys & homebirds. Cheeba cheeba y'all.
DJ Megadon - Do It Mega
(From Do It Mega single; 2025)
Discovered via Crimedawgbylaw's best Milwaukeee Rap songs of summer 2025 list. Rappers seldom ever make tribute songs to DJs nowadays, so DJs have to get on the mic to feel themselves in song form instead. It's REAL HIP-HOP ™ in a way that's beyond comprehension to 90s Boom-Bap plebs, and charmingly wholesome in the exact same way that Hey DJ by World's Famous Supreme Team was.
If more modern Rap music took cues from Louisiana then modern Rap music would be way more fun. This Philly jam is some standard disrespectful booty-chatter about ur girlfriend that's been elevated to greater purpose by its whodyfication. Throw this in the mix alongside Shake Down by Sunnitharapper & OnlyHeaven.
**EDIT** I'm gonna use this other recent Sturdyyoungin single as the B-side to Respectfully. Very different vybz which is befitting of a song with the word Wars in its title. Okay, as wars go comparing bottles in da club is not exactly the 1223 Mongol Empire invasion of Volga Bulgari, but a battle is still a battle.
One of the best things about NorCal Rap is how there's very little generational Too Cool For School posing because those muhf**kers are all ears to all eras of Rap; if a song knocks then 9 times outta 10 NorCal fuxwit it. Thus, only an Oakland rapper would think of revamping Freeway & Peedi Crakk's Flipside into a 2024 slap by jacking the hook and reuniting Free & Peedi on that shit. How effortlessly does Peedi bounce, rock, skate & slide on this beat? Makes me wish Peedi had guested on some of the Freeway & Jacka songs.
LARussell is a weird artist. HissingleswithP-Lo are some of my absolute favourite music of 2024, but he's just dropped a handful of singy Chance The Rapper type singles which are unlistenable to me. I'll always hate Chance's stupid crying Adam Sandler sounding-ass voice, but I got luh love for him for effectively putting that terrible MTV News website outta business lolz.
Philly Club Rap which kinda sounds like Chicago Bop? As The High & Mighty nearly said, that's a pleasant surprise like seeing unshaven pussy right in front of your eyes. Oochie Coochie might be the catchiest chorus of 2022 - a hook so horny it'd make Max B proud (2Rare even talks like Max when he says "I'm tryna hit you too, I got the wave right now and you keep tryna make me be the one to cuff you" to his bird on the phone.) At 1:14 Oochie Coochie is more like an intro than an anthem, but I ain't mad at it in this instance.
... who am I tryna fool? Nah, I'm mad. Oochie Coochie coulda/woulda/shoulda been a 5 Star General choon if it were longer. Not only is a 1:14 Rap song musically unsatisfying to me, it's also functionally impractical: how am I supposed to listen to this shit in the car and keep my eyes on the road when I've gotta fiddle around to rewind the song every 74 seconds? The unfortunate thing with a lot of these zoomer rappers is that they make music for TikTok instead of making music for cars. You know what's really annoying though? None of 2Rare's other songs are this short, but none of them are anywhere near as good as Oochie Coochie. Flippin' typical innit?
In theory, 2Rare could solve Oochie Coochie's problem by recording a 2nd verse for an extended mix. In reality, extended mixes usually end up creating more problems where the new verses either sound like awkward ProTooled attachments or use a different flow which ends up debunking the original song's charms. Life is... too short, and so is this song. Guess I'm just gonna have to accept that.
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?
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - The Reverend
(From And In This Corner... album; 1989)
This song could be a TEMPUR mattress the way I've slept on it. As far as late 80s jams built around vocal samples go, The Reverend belongs in the top 3 alongside LL Cool J's The Doo Wop and Nice & Smooth's Dope On A Rope. Plus, with that Mary Mary drum break it had the potential to be a Running Man classic. So why isn't this shit heralded as one of the best Jeff & Will album cuts? It's a mystery, Father Brown.
Random-Rap spods tend to be terrible cheerleaders for the Golden-Era because they'll turn their noses up at a killer Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince album track but spunk themselves silly over some mediocre obscure 12" by a 5th rate MC Shan clone. That's why 95% of vinyl purist blokes make useless music guides, and if you disagree then you can see deez.
PS: MC EZ & Troup's Get Retarded is disqualified from the late 80s jams built around vocal samples canon because it's Craig Mack doing the Zoom, Zoom, Zooming himself.
Rippin' up Showtime At The Apollo in 1989, it's Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince performing Jeff Waz On The Beatbox. Alas, the Apollo crowd were not as receptive to Jeff & Will's charms as the Union Square crowd because there's a stark contrast in energy levelz between artists on the stage and audience in the seats.
Alongside The Girlie Had A Mustache, Jeff Waz On The Beatbox is one of the two tape/CD bonus tracks from the shitty third Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince album which bodies everything on the regular LP. Them crackas at Jive™ f*cked things up big Willie style by relegating both songs to bonus status when they shoulda been the third album's two main singles: Jeff Waz On The Beatbox is a far better tribute to Jazzy Jeff's human-Octopus DJ skillz than Jazzy's Groove, while The Girlie Had A Mustache bangs way harder as a Fresh Prince storytelling yarn than the frankly Godawful I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson. Plus, imagine how hilariously #problematic a video for The Girlie Had A Mustache could be by modern day Cancel Culture standards, right?
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (full version)
(From the TV show; 1990/Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince Greatest Hits album; 1998)
The biggest mistake Them crackers at Jive™ made wasn't continually delaying The Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury, it was not releasing the full Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air theme as a single back in 1990/1991. A no-brainer global hit in waiting, that shit coulda been as big as Summertime and made the world a more fun place in the process. Instead Jive came up with the bizarre decision to only release it as a Netherlands-exclusive and not even in its original form. Whichever A&R came up with that idea should have been fired - into space.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - A Nightmare On My Street
(From He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper album; 1988/YouTube; 2018)
Damn, nobody told me that the banned A Nightmare On My Street video finally turned up online in 2018. Banned because New Line Cinema had it pulled from circulation in 1988 to use The Fat Boys' Are You Ready For Freddy? as a promotional tie-in for the 4th A Nightmare on Elm Street movie instead. Lord knows why because the Fat Boys song was shite, and there couldn't have been any tricky image rights issues to negotiate when the Freddy of Jeff & Will's Street looked nowt like the Freddy of Elm Street. One, two, Freddy's evil Muppet Billy Idol's coming for you...
Let's be honest here, this video resurfacing and Jimmy Wopo's two Elm Street songs were the only notable things Freddy's Franchise™ produced last decade.
"I show you how to weigh your work on the way to work
I be proud of you like, dog, that's the way to work"
Cam'Ron ft. Ted Dibiase & Frank Muller - Oh Boy (Remix)
(From Westwood's BBC Rap show; 2002)
Peep what Step "Plug" One found on a tape of a 2002 Westwood show: a remix of Oh Boy featuring a new Cam'Ron verse and 2 verses by some Philly duo called Ted Dibiase & Frank Muller who went by the name of The Feds/Fedz (nope, us neither.) Step asked Just Blaze if it's official or nah, and he reckons it must be some "fake DJ trickery" because he'd never heard it before, so who knows? Whatever the case may be, it's a Cam verse I've never heard elsewhere, and Step's right about it being a way better flip than the Oh Girl remix with those annoying half-arsed "GIIIRRL" vox every 7 seconds.
Remember dem dayz when beatboxing wasn't just noise pollution made by busking white lads in peaked beanies or the fifth element of Hip Hop for German #trueskool truthers? Let's cast our minds back to when beatboxing was the backbone of tracks wot banged with a capital B. The 20 best Make The Music With Your Mouth Rap songs of all time as according to ya author Blog E. Fresh.
It was monday night and I'm feelin' kinda like Gillie, fell down a wormhole of rap outta Philly. Not remotely high or even slightly drunk, so I threw together a generic list of my Top 20 Philadelphia jawns:
Bonus beats: never forget the O.G version of MC Breeze's DiscombobulatorBubalator AKA the song which pioneered #problematic AZN stereotyping in rap before DJ Louie Lou, Ice Cube, or Bun B.
