Skinny blogger swag, yeah I be on my T.I.

"Talkin' about you sell dope, you 'bout to hop in Lambos
You live with yo' momma, and she live with yo' grandma
Spent yo' last on the ruger, now you ain't got no ammo
Now when my soljas catch ya you gon' think they wearin' camo"

Foxx - Shut Up
(From Foxx Mayweather mixtape; 2012)


I'm all up in your Best Rap Dis Songs Of All Time Spotify playlist editing it to include Foxx's Shut Up. This shit was directed at Mista and Young Ready, but the specifics of the beef aren't important: it's just a funny slice of Louisiana tuba-step with zingers which have ricocheted & reverberated around my brain for the last 12 years. "Shootin' with yo' eyes closed hopin' you don't hit shit/Oh you a hitman, but in jail you hit dicks!"

The same mixtape Shut Up comes from also contains I Wonder. One of the ultimate Baton Rouge barbiturate-ballads. War inside in my head Blues-Rap for brothers with suicidal tendencies like Rocky George.

Guy Trouble: EPMD vs. Stezo

What's beef?: Beef is when Stezo got kicked off EPMD's tour as their dancer for fighting with Parrish Smith, but then scored his own record deal with EPMD's label Fresh/Sleeping Bag much to EPMD's chagrin and blew up when It's My Turn became a hit. Parrish fired a subliminal at Stezo on So Whatcha Sayin' with the "and when we needed a piss, boy, you was hired" line and DJ Scratch called Stezo out when EPMD performed the song at the 1990 Rap Mania concert in New York.

The beef is on: Stezo got wind that EPMD had dissed him onstage and recorded a response track which Fresh/Sleeping Bag owner Virgil Simms was more than happy to release since Stezo's debut album Crazy Noise had done very decent numbers. Unfortunately, Fresh/Sleeping Bag Records went bankrupt in late 1990 before Stezo could release it and the song remained in the vaults until Stones Throw Records released it on 12" back in 2004. Piece Of The Pie AKA the song where Dooley-O predicted the title of EPMD's sixth album nine years before it dropped.

Stezo ft. Dooley-O - Piece Of The Pie
(From unreleased; 1990/Piece Of The Pie 12" single; 2004)


Beef, what a relief: Would Piece Of The Pie have had any real impact on EPMD's career? Probably not, but it would have made for a very nice single, preferably with Police Story on the B-side. Where it might have had an impact is that, had it been released in 1990, Large Professor probably wouldn't have used the same Nautilus sample for Main Source's Live At The Barbeque in 1991. Thus, the posse track which introduced Nas and Akinyele to the world might have sounded very different. Even Kodak couldn't picture that.