'Mande Effect

Getting It Back: The Cymande Story (trailer)
(the BFI's YouTube page; 2024)


Been waiting to see the Cymande documentary since a trailer for it first appeared a couple of years back, so shit was on like Donkey Kong when my local cinema screened it last night. Never did I ever imagine I'd see the Biz Markie puppet on a British cinema screen, but that's exactly what happened when the documentary featured clips from Master Ace's Me & The Biz video. I never quite realised how unsuccessful they were in the U.K at the time, nor how popular they briefly were in America - my mans supported Al Green on tour playing to thousands of people every night, were the first British group to headline Harlem's Apollo theatre, and The Message was a legit Billboard 100 hit. Fancy that eh?

Cymande's Dove is one of those songs which has me thinking "how did ANYBODY ever come up with this?" and "how did NOBODY ever come up with this before?" at the SAME DAMN TIME! Moreover, I can't believe nobody flipped that sample until Diamond D cooked up The Score for The Fugees in 1996. Part of me wishes Diamond had given that beat to somebody else, but that somebody else probably would have been wack-arse Fat Joe. Sometimes you've gotta say "c'est Fu-Gee-La vie" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We live in a world where nobody has ever uploaded Cymande's Soul Train appearance to YouTube, but there are multiple uploads of David Bowie's performance of his woeful Golden Years single on Soul Train. Motherf**kers are all up in the game with their priorities missin'.

God bless YouTube

A long time ago on TV sets here in the U.K there was a ramshackle yoof show called The Word. Filmed in Manchester on friday nights it benefitted hugely from Yank artists being in town for live shows and consequently ended up featuring the British TV performance debuts of Generation X big hitters like Cypress Hill, Snoop, The Pixies and Nirvana.



Factor in the performances by EMF, 808 State & MC Tunes, Public Enemy, Snow, Blur, Rage Against The Machine, Shabba Ranks & Marky Mark, D:Ream, Huggy Bear, Jamiroquai, L7, Mary J. Blige, Oasis, Goldie, Dog Eat Dog, Gravediggaz, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Word's archives amount to a warts & all snapshot of the early nineties musical zeitgeist.

Naturally, yours truly had a compilation VHS tape of the show's best live clips which got rocked until the tape sadly popped sometime in the early noughties. Thankfully, in the years since all the performances have turned up on YouTube - all except The Pharcyde's rendition of Ya Mama, that is. Well, guess what I've just found on the 'Tube, lads!


Bonus beats: the two greatest performances in The Word's history were Oliver Reed's shitfaced rendition of Wild Thing and Onyx's barnstorming version of Throw Ya Gunz, the latter of which is essentially an extended stage invasion by the Moss Side mandem.

Bonus bonus beats: the most underrated Rap performance in The Word's history was Craig Mack doing the Q-Tip remix of Get Down during Mack & Biggie's Bad Boy U.K tour of 1995 - specifically, underrated by me since I've only come around to accepting the remix is better than the original in recent years.

In hindsight, The Word's head honcho Terry Christian probably regrets booking Mack instead of a Biggie performance of the One More Chance remix. But the reason The Word was so very special™ is that it's the only TV show on Earth to have performance clips of Ya Mama, Throw Ya Gunz and the Get Down remix in its archive - singles which weren't the respective artist's largest hits but are still legitimate classics.

Much like Big Poppa, we'll always miss The Word here at The Martorialist. That said, since The Word went off air in 1995 appearances on U.K TV by The Charlatans have dropped by 70% - silver linings eh?

Who stole the Soul?

The Family Stand - Ghetto Heaven (Soul II Soul remix)
(From Chain album; 1990)


It's understandable that Americans never give any kudos to Soul II Soul for fusing R&B and Hip-Hop in song form because it screws up the narrative that Puff Daddy & Mary J. Blige pioneered the practice in 1992. Unfortunately, this means that Americans then end up writing their own artists outta history - artists like The Family Stand who scored an international hit with Soul II Soul's remix of Ghetto Heaven two years before Mary's debut with Real Love.

Not that the British are much better, mind. Very few folk in my country acknowledge that Soul II Soul's remix of Ghetto Heaven was the obvious blueprint for Massive Attack & Shara Nelson's Unfinished Sympathy, and now Massive Attack are somehow considered more important than Soul II Soul. Unfinished Sympathy is a legit classic, but there's an important rule every British citizen must adhere to: we only credit Bristol when we're talkin' Portishead or Sara & Keren from Bananarama.

Annual post about some random U.K tune

S1mba ft. DTG - Rover
(From YouTube; 2019)


Truthfully, I fronted on Rover for the longest - homeboy tryna flex in Superdry ski goggles is unforgivable, but as an anthem this song is undeniable. Rover had URL goin' nuts during lockdown to the point where it reached number 3 in the U.K Top 40, hilariously inspired an Australian remix, and even went gold in New Zealand (we did it, Moscaddie, we did it!) Now a certain sense of normality has resumed, Rover deserves to have IRL goin' nuts for what's left of this lost summer. Basically, if I can drunkenly sing "I just wanna make the moo lah lah, got 'em all screamin' ooh la la" in the pub on a quiet Wednesday night then it'll be my official Song Of The Summer™ 2020.

PS: there's even a new remix with Lil' Tecca for myopic 'Muricans!

Manchester's alright if you like saxophones

808 State - Pacific 707
(From Pacific single; 1989)


808 State don't like it when you say that Pacific is A Guy Called Gerald's song which Graham Massey played saxophone on.

A Guy Called Gerald doesn't like it when you say that Pacific is even better than Voodoo Ray.

Mancunians don't like it when you say that Pacific almost single-handedly redeemed the Madchester era.

Londoners don't like it when you say that Pacific bodies any dance music from down south.

Americans don't like it when you say that Pacific bettered Chicago at its own game by truly putting the Acid into Acid House.

There were at least 5 different mixes of Pacific in 1989 alone starting with Pacific State from the Quadrastate EP, but the Pacific 707 single mix up top is the definitive one. You've gotta be a right dry-eared rando if you consider Pacific anything other than the G.O.A.T British song of the last 30 years. If a case could be made that Hip Hop kulcha's introduction to the U.K has been as inadvertently devastating as the introduction of grey squirrels to these shores, the exact opposite is true of House music - Chicago stays creating it, the U.K stays taking it and making it even better.

B.I.G >>>>>> R.S.D

Notorious B.I.G - Me & My Bitch (Computer Love remix)
(From the internet; 2011)


There was never a studio version of Biggie's live performance of Me & My Bitch over Computer Love from The Show so some intrepid soul put his own bedroom blend-job together. I shoulda pressed this up on 12" for 2019 Record Store Day today, advertised it as an unreleased Bad Boy remix from 1995, sold the 12"s for £60 a pop, and watched that boutique vinylz collector sucka cash come rollin' in.

MP3 here if anyone wants it.

Who shot Phats & Small? If we don't get 'em they gon' get us all

It's bigger than HIP HOP HIP HOP today. As Canibus nearly once said, Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You was the most overrated song I've ever heard in my life because the greatest Filter-House choon of all time dropped on March 29th 1999:

Phats & Small ft. Vanessa Feltz's future husband - Turn Around
(From Now Phats What I Small Music album; 1999)


Officially 20 years old today this tune. If FACT Mag doesn't drop an oral history of Turn Around anniversary article in the next 24 hours then they're the police.. actual FACT! Remember dem dayz when Britain could waltz right into continental Europe and snatch a sub-genre from right under Johnny Foreigner's nose? Turn Around is Nigel Farage's utopian Brexit in audio form innit.

Generic list post: So International

"THEY FOREIGN!"

Remember the time Giggs went all Finbarr Saunders & His Double Entendres with a legit jam about his todger? How about the time Iggy Aztralea bodied everything Nicki Minaj dropped in 2014? Or the time MHD recorded a French language bangeur about French football? What about the time J Hus made every American dance-Rap song of 2015 sound superfluous? And who can forget the time two Nigerian lads DJ Consequence & YCEE made the 2010's British Grime revival sound like the tepid Redbull-sponsored shite it truly was? If your memory's foggier than Victorian London then here's a reminder of all the above & some other favorites.

The best non-Yank Rap songs of the 2010s, IMHO:

Giggs - Monsta Man (2011)
Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy (2014)
MHD - Afro Trap Part 3 (Champions League) (2015)
J Hus ft. DoccyDocs - Lean & Bop (2015)
Krept & Konan ft. Jeremih - Freak Of The Week (2015)
New Age Muzik - Da Beat (2016)
21 Savage & Metro Boomin' - No Heart (2016)
Young T & Bugsey - No Mickey Mouse Ting (2016)
DJ Consequence ft. YCEE In A Benz (2016)
J Hus - Did You See (2017)
MoStack - Let It Ring (2017)
Donae'O - Black (Social Circles Remix) (2017)
Sneakbo ft. Giggs - Active (2017)
Definite correlation between me losing interest in Roadrapfrobeats and me growing bored with Auto-Tune. It also doesn't help that, after the rise of U.K Drill, loadsa rappers from the Roadrapfrobeats scene have developed stars & stripes in their eyes and started rhyming about trap-phones and the like. The only good thing which can come from Brexit is if the U.K starts deporting any British citizens who've ever rhymed about traps, opps, and bandos.