What a Div'

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?

The BIG 4-0

So, my favourite Rap 12" of all time celebrates its 40th birthday at some point during this year. A truly great record which stands as thee best example of early Rap on wax, it's also a hugely important record since echoes and ricochets of both songs can be heard in everything from T La Rock to Too $hort. Me, I wanna read an oral history of the 12" from everyone involved still alive (R.I.P Pumpkin and Bobby Robinson) and some of the A-list Rap personalities who bear the traces of its influence like LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Pos & Dove from De La, Kid Capri, and Will Smith & DJ Jazzy Jeff. One caveat, though: the article must NOT be written by that insufferable narcissist Questlove.

Who Dem Girlz? (no Moscaddie)

"I'm the new asshole of the industry
Church folk all wanna get rid of me
Feminists consider me an enemy
I say hoes, I don't mean that offensively
I just don't know your names individually
You not dancin'? I gave you a remedy
A House track with a little' bit of energy
To Juke to when you off that Hennessy"

Mic Terror - Juke Them Hoes
(From the internet; 2007/digital retail; 2017)


I know I mentioned this in another post, but the properly-mastered MP3 of Mic Terror's Juke Them Hoes really has transformed an already great track into something truly glorious. It's the equivalent of finding a grainy VHS tape porno you saw as a teenager in vivid Blu-ray quality on XHamster (other smut streaming sites are available.) There's some things you just can't transform, though: despite what the official MP3's artwork sez it's always gonna be Juke Them Hoes.

Most importantly, it's still the song wot corrected the main problem with Hip-House: too much House, not enough Hip-Hop. As an old Kay Slay saying goes, only Chicago coulda done that, yo!

Orange Krushed

In 1983 Larry Smith & Davy DMX of Orange Krush pivoted to producing Rap records and used a rough approximation of the same Oberheim DMX drum pattern on 4 very different songs that year. Early 80s Rap is so badly documented that it's damn near impossible to work out the chronology of the '83 Smith & DMX productions, so I threw 'em together as a mini-playlist in the order they sound best in: from the Disco-DMX hybrid of Spoonie Gee's The Big Beat to the tuff bahdangdiddydiddy minimalism of Lovebug Starski's Live At The Disco Fever to the stark brutality of Run-D.M.C's Sucker M.C's to the Electro scratch-madness of Fearless Four's F-4000.

~~Larry Smith & Davy DMX - Orange Krushed Ya Speakers In 1983~~
Spoonie Gee - The Big Beat (1983)
Love Bug Starski - Live At The Disco Fever (1983)
Run-D.M.C - Sucker M.C's (1983)
The Fearless Four - F-4000 (1983)


Davy DMX being Kurtis Blow's younger sibling explains why Davy ghost-produced all those tracks Kurtis was credited for dunnit? Even back then the Rap game was all politics and paperwork, but there were loopholes to let ya baby-brother producer get a slice of the pie.