Late pass: hat tip to DJ Z-Trip!

Buckshot LeFonque ft. Uptown - Breakfast @ Denny's (Uptown Version)
(From Buckshot LeFonque album bonus track; 1994)

Sum shit I never knew until this new episode of Salute The Sample: there's a bonus track remix of Buckshot LeFonque's Jazz-Rap anthem Breakfast @ Denny's featuring Uptown of Dope On Plastic minor-fame on vocals. All these years I never even knew there was any kind of vocal mix. And I'll be damned if it isn't better than the single mix and shouldn't be considered the definitive version.

Random-Rap - 1, Regular-Rap - 0.

My Mind Spray: Special Ed edition

One of my favourite short-lived Rap rumours: Special Ed only had one hand. Brought about because of Ed's bizarre pose on the cover of his debut album; short-lived because as soon as you saw the video for I Got It Made, you knew Ed wasn't Kase 2.5.

As far as opening trifectas of songs on Rap albums go, Taxing, I Got It Made and I'm The Magnificent from Special Ed's debut album is one of the best three choon runs on a golden-era LP. Which makes it all the more baffling that Priority Records decided to remix I'm The Magnificent for the single/video release and ruined the song with vastly inferior production. As far as pointless video mixes of classic Rap song ever go, the video mix of I'm The Magnificent is second only to the video mix of In The Ghetto by Eric B. & Rakim. Two separate A&Rs destroyed two perfect songs with two shitty video remixes in the SAME DAMN YEAR.

Speaking of I'm The Magnificent, Special Ed's "I betcha what you want is just attention/your mother & your father should have used some prevention" lyric is applicable to most current Hip-Hop media personalties: DJ Vlad, Adam22, Joe Budden, DJ Akademiks, Wack 100, Trap Lore Ross etc. The world would be a better place if none of those lads were ever born.

The Trill That's Real

KenTheMan - First
(From First single; 2024)


I'd heard loadsa singles by Texas' KenTheMan except the good one right here. A glaring omission from my favourite Rap songs by Da Ladeez 2020 to 2025 list or wot? There's also a remix with Monaleo where Monaleo says "Ima get the head first and foremost, then leave him outside like a dog at a door post." Very spiteful bird-brain Rap par excellence. Posting this one for the tru hedz who recognise & realise that KenTheMan is the new version of Lil' Fame's old m8 Big Ken. That's right, 4 Star Bitches with blokes names are back!

Champagne On The Blog

Big Scoob - Say It Loud (American & Proud)
(From Say It Loud (American & Proud) 12" single; 2002)


Here's a rap song which wasn't on the internet so I've uploaded a video of it to YouTube. Some proto-Top Shelf 8/8/88-core by Big Scoob FKA Big Daddy Kane's ex-dancer Scoob Lover, taken from the early 2000s when Scoob was dropping nice 12" singles like Kryptonite and U Got It, Can Du and Brooklyn Flava and Floss Filthy. Say It Loud (American & Proud) is Scoob's ode to the U.S.A recorded in the aftermath of 9/11, which basically means it's 30% patriotism/70% braggadocio. Don't get it twisted tho, this song would make a way better American national anthem than The Star Spangled Banner. That's one thing the U.K and the U.S.A will always have in common: national anthems which are tuneless dirges.

My Gran bought me the portable turntable in the video back in the early 80s and it's still going strong. I dunno how to rip vinyl to MP3 so Step One said he'll do it for me if I post him the Big Scoob 12". I'm gonna take him up on his offer, but first I'm gonna take a punt on a couple of the other early 2000s Scoob 12"s I've never heard which have never been uploaded to the internet. If they're legit jams then I'm gonna hit Step up with that Scooby pack.

**EDIT** I put the Say It Loud (American & Proud) instrumental on YouTube too.

What's the 41?

41 - Save Me
(From Save Me single; 2024)


First 41 song I'm all in on with no reservations. All I want from New York zoomer Drill is some barional rotten apple Rap which could double as a modern day Tunnel Banger™.

Late pass!

"A Lo-Life always plottin'
A Lo-Life always scheme
A Lo-Life after the American dream"

Rack-Lo - What's A Lo-Life To Me
(From Polo Classics mixtape; 2013)


I love a beatjack which puts a fresh twist on the song from whence it came. Peep Lo-Life O.G Rack-Lo having his wicked way with a Gang Starr classic and flipping & bouncing Code of The Streets into Code of A Thief. Fave Rack-Lo song I've heard since his 2000 single Spit In Ya Face.

PS: sincere R.I.P to Shifty Shellshock from the Butterfly band Crazy Town. I'm gonna hazard a guess that 80% of this blog's readership have dated at least 1 girl who was/is obsessed with that song. I hope Heaven got a hairdressers where he can keep his tips frosted.

Best of Both Worlds

Big Scoob ft. Celph Titled - Floss Filthy
(From No More Mr. Nice Guy 12" single; 2003)


File this under 'rapper pairings nobody saw coming.' In hindsight, the link-up of former Big Daddy Kane back-up dancer Big Scoob and future Bo$$ Hog Barbarian Celph Titled seems even more bizarre now - especially when it's Big Scoob featuring Celph Titled rather than vice versa. Anyhoo, this shit is a back-slapping bromance à la The Essence with the twist of Scoob extolling the joys of jiggyness and Celph celebrating his own cheapness. A very unexpected slice of "I do what work for me, you do what work for you"-core.

Other than me, Dom Passantino and Plum Drank, who else is #Bo$$HogBarbarian$Hive?

Scooby Du

Big Scoob - Can Du 12" single (2000)
1. Can Du
2. Brooklyn Flava


Some more Big Scoob 12" gems from his brief early noughties renaissance. A-side Can Du is some 45 King produced Hard Knock Life-core with a sample from Guys & Dolls; B-side Brooklyn Flava is some hard Rock Brownsville shit-talk with young Uncle Murda on ad libs (allegedly!) Both songs strike the ideal balance between Brooklyn thug-Rap and Golden-Era fun. Not so much Tunnel Bangers as Tunnel Woppers and that's word to B.Fats.

Big Scoob's career trajectory was proof that a Dancer-Turnt-Rapper could drop hotter music than the Rapper they danced for if they were willing to persevere long enough. Scoob hinted this was possible when his 1996 single Champagne On The Block was lowkey better than anything on Big Daddy Kane's 1994 album Daddy's Home, and achieved it fully in the early 2000s when songs like Kryptonite, U Got It, Can Du and Brooklyn Flava bodied anything on Kane's boring 1997 album Veteranz Day. Patience is a virtue, chess not checkers etc.

In hindsight, I wish I'd named this place Champagne On The Blog.

Boricua's Way

Tony Touch ft. Doo Wop & Pain In Da Ass - The Return Of The Diaz Brothers
(From The Piece Maker compilation; 2000)


Tony Touch & Doo Wop were tighter than Carlito & Lalin, nah mean? Here at The Martorialist we've got a lotta lotta love for the second single from Tony's first compilation. On The Return Of The Diaz Brothers Tony & Wop were like a rapping DJ version of The Beatnuts who let Pain In Da Ass deliver his greatest Tony Montana ad libbing on a song. Tommy Boy Records clearly gave Tony a budget with oodles of 0's to be able to sample Salsation and to shoot a fancy video in Miami featuring Angel "Chi Chi from Scarface" Salazar. Plus, it was a return of The Diaz Brothers foreal foreal because they were the second Hip-Hop duo to adopt the moniker of those infamous characters from Scarface folklore.

Bonus boricua beats: just like Carlito's barrio, the video for Homeboy Sandman's Enough ya no existe since he threw a hissy fit and deleted his YouTube account last year. Fortunately it reappeared on his VEVO page a few days ago and I do mean fortunately because it's such a funny little no-budget video with Sandman, J-Live & Kurious all unintentionally dressed like uncles as they rhyme each other's verses. In theory, a song built on a drumless acoustic folk guitar sample should be earbola to me; in reality, it was the first Homeboy Sandman song to catch my ear back in 2014 - some EZ-Elpee Listening type shit.

Homeboy Sandman ft. J-Live & Kurious - Enough
(From Hallways album; 2014)


Sandman took Kurious' "worse than drugs, yeah, stress is a disease" line to heart and turned it into an album.

Wanted dead or alive: Kryptonite by Big Scoob

Big Scoob's Kryptonite was a minor classic which rang out alongside Ante Up in summer 2000, but I've only ever seen it uploaded online as the instrumental. Perhaps Kryptonite is a true "You Had To Be There" tune: Big Daddy Kane's former back-up dancer dropping a Superman theme sampling indie single which became a Funkmaster Flex Tunnel Banger™ staple. Here in the U.K, Kryptonite was a rare example of a Westwood favourite which got love in Mr. Bongo by British backpackers who had their Jansports strapped too tight. Step Won came thru with the Ronaldinho to Rivaldo type assist, so I threw the MP3 up on Audiomack and Mediafire. Ya gun got dust in it from not bustin' it!

Big Scoob - Kryptonite
(From Kryptonite 12" single; 2000)


Be rude to leave you without another Big Scoob song to step to, so here's the lesser known U Got It. Scoob on some I Got It Made braggin' & boastin' over a certain Bobby Byrd break. U know the proto-Top Shelf 8/8/'88 steez.

Big Scoob - U Got It
(From U Got It single; 2002)


Anyone got an MP3 of Scoob's Say It Loud? Never heard it meself, but it could be cool if it's a JB sample. Alternatively, it could sound like a Drag-On album track which is why I'm hesitant to spend a tenner on the 12".

Thinking of a Masta plan

Master Ace - Me & The Biz
(From Take A Look Around album; 1990)



Boggles my mind that the brilliance of Me & The Biz was an accidental masta stroke - the song is a glorified reference track which ended up being released because Biz Markie and Marley Marl both refused to be in the same studio to record Biz's vocals. Masta Ace says he thinks the song would have been a bigger hit if Biz had appeared on it; perhaps, but it would have lost what makes it such a unique song, and Rap would be poorer without the Biz Markie puppet which was created especially for the video. Real talk, though - how'd everyone involved go to the trouble of making a Biz puppet, decking it out with the video's best outfit, and then do the song itself dirty by editing out the entire third verse? You bet that makes me real mad, don't it.

Crazy visions, BOOM: Ace pays tribute to The Diabolical by recording Me & The Biz part 2. There's no need to find a new beat because it's scientifically impossible to come up with a better backdrop for Ace's Bizisms than that Cymande sample.

And dont forget MC Spoonie Gee...

AZ ft. Keffa - Keep It Real
(From Doe Or Die II album; 2021)


Expeditiously I be on my grizzly, yet I'm feelin' A-Ziggy gettin' semi-wavy by puttin' the Max in the B over Love Rap from the bottom straight to the tizzy. So, Doe Or Die II is a mess but I'll forgive AZ because it's like he made this song especially 4 me.

LMFAO @ the painfully solemn Idris Elba intro. At least mi don Idris' verse on Wiley's Boasty was sorta intentionally funny.

Can't we just all get along...

Little Shawn - Hickeys On Your Chest
(From The Voice In The Mirror album; 1992)


Little Shawn's Hickeys On Your Chest AKA the missing link between Super Lover Cee and Ma$e. Never seen this video in such pristine quality before - possibly the only Rap video to feature Bela Lugosi. Is Little Shawn's album worth a listen? Howie Tee produced the whole thing so there must be at least one more Legit Jam™ on there.

Update: checked the album and there's nowt as good as Hickeys On Your Chest on there. Nowt as good as his later single Dom Perignon either tbqh.

Little Shawn ft. Notorious B.I.G - Dom Perignon
(From Dom Perignon single; 1995)


10/10 opportunism for Little Shawn flipping Biggie's line on Party And Bullshit into a comeback single and billing it as a Biggie cameo.

Late pass!

Digable Planets - Little Renee
(From Coneheads soundtrack; 1993)


Say what you want about the 1990s, but it was the only decade where a killer Digable Planets exclusive could end up on the soundtrack to a Dan Aykroyd movie alongside songs by Slash & Michael Monroe, R.E.M, Morten Harket from A-ha, Barenaked Ladies, and Soft Cell's Tainted Love. It's a pity Aykroyd didn't have Digable Planets perform it in the movie like Digital Underground did with Same Song in Nothing But Trouble innit? Some of youze lads will probably front like you've got this song on a test-press 12" single, but I'd never heard it until a few weeks back, nor have I ever seen or heard anybody mention it before. Genuine deep cut status or wot?

Murda was the case in point

"Don't come round me talking all this Crew shit
You was strapped, saw the kid who shot me and ain't do shit
If that was me on the othеr hand
Woulda shot him and the n*gga he was with, I'm just keeping it a hunnid, fam
So miss me with all the phony shit
Woulda did a bid for you, thinkin' we was on somе real homie shit
That woulda been time away from my kids, n*gga
Woulda been sick thinkin' bout all the sucka shit you did, n*gga
But it is what it is, n*gga"

Uncle Murda - Bro Shit
(From Don't Come Outside, Vol. 3 mixtape; 2021)


Me & Uncle Murda go back like Lil' Baby & Young Thug songs not named Pacifier, but my old chum ain't made shit dope since Cam'Ron Voice. Fortunately, friendship is a song topic which has brought the best out of everyone from Whodini to Dag Nasty and here it proves to be the ideal framework for Murda's foulness to flourish into a Bro Betrayal Ballad™. Listen closer tho because in every slice of Uncle Murda's ig'nance there's always a kernel of truth.

Last week it was Nino Man, this week it's Uncle Murda. Check back next week to see if I've found a Dave East song I like (probably not unless he miraculously drops some undeniable shit.)

AZ you were

"Down in the tombs 30 years can bring a n*gga to tears
Neutralised, numb and scared, can you imagine you there?
I'm elsewhere, my chick pussy pretty, shaved like a pear
Her derrière make a queer n*gga sit there and stare
This is the year, since the ball dropped been ballin' on top
Then came the Kobe death, Covid, and cops"

AZ - Different
(From Different single; 2020)


Son, who laced you with the ill Soul-crack? Been testing this one for the past week and my conclusion is that it's categorically the best original AZ song since We Movin'. Some non-fancy 70's baby New York Rap that's still flyer than Aladdin's magic carpet. Bite ya lip, let's hope Doe Or Die 2 sounds like this.

Be rude not to discreetly add this to my 2020 songs list.

Martorial elegance: Do The Fila part 2

Before Brooklyn loved POLO, they loved Fila. Fila kicks, Fila socks, Fila tees, Fila baseball caps, Fila bucket hats, Fila headbands, and Fila tracksuits.

Code Money Anthony, put ya Filas on! 16 or 17 year old AZ circa 1988. Pic's got me wishing there was a lost 1989 teenage AZ song over some Hitman Howie Tee production. After all, Howie's beats worked wonders for another Brooklyn teenager in 1989.

Special Ed - I Got It Made
(From Youngest In Charge album; 1989)


Special Ed had a frog, a dog with a solid gold bone, and the first Rap video to feature a buncha POLO gear.

Previously: Do The Fila.

Very Special

Crooklyn was a gift and a curse for Special Ed: an instant-classic posse cut which rescued Ed from the Rap wilderness, it then inspired him to rhyme over a buncha lumpen sub-Boot Camp Clik beats for his mediocre comeback LP Revelations. Luckily Profile Records stepped in to spare Ed's blushes by hiring DJ Premier to rework Freaky Flow into a track which va-va-voomed like 74 Honda scooters. Billed as a remix, it's more like a sequel since the only thing it shares with the original is the hook. If I Got It Made is the highest title numero uno of Special Ed songs then the Freaky Flow remix is fighting it out with Taxing for numero dos position.

Special Ed - Freaky Flow (DJ Premier remix)
(From Freaky Flow (DJ Premier remix) 12" single; 1996)

Agallah The Don Beckham

Sum shit I recently found out: Agallah's proto-Wavy mixtape classic Gangster debuted on this Bork-released 12" in 2002 under the title of Gangsta 4 My Homies. Handy to know if, like me, you still think all your fave Rap songs deserve to exist on 12" backed with an obligatory instrumental version.

Agallah - Gangster
(From Imagine Your Life 12"; 2002/Doomsday mixtape; 2004)


One of my favourite things about Gangster is that you can use it to play 6 degrees of separation with Agallah and Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham: Gangster appeared on Kay Slay's Diplomats Volume 4 mixtape next to M.O.P's That Simple AKA the track which would later become the Posh Spice & Mash Out Posse collaboration after Dame Dash tried to sign her to Roc-A-Fella. Dame, you a fool for that one!

Dame, you also a fool for the Posh Spice & Jim Jones song!

Black Steel In The Hour Of Lateness

"Have you ever thought of suicide
On a jail call when your mother cried
She ain't understand you had to ride
It was him or you, it was do or die"

Casanova - Jail Call
(From Behind These Scars album; 2019)


I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened and read it, it said I'm a sucka for sleepin' on Casanova's Jail Call. Pain music par excellence where Casanova turns down for what's the first introspective song of his career. Not so much Don't Get Caught, as Don't Do It If You Do Get Caught. Modern Blues and the most effective anti-porridge song since Mysonne's In Jail.

Never fear, though, because the next song on Casanova's album is a Brooklyn Shout-Rap version of Body Count's Talk Shit, Get Shot where Cas' threatens to pull up on people who've trolled his Instagram.