Jonzun & Jonzun

And on the subject of Jonzun Crew, here they are doing Pack Jam on German tv in 1983 :

Jonzun Crew - Pack Jam



Hoes on our dicks 'cuz we look like Lord Dark Helmet and the Spaceballs.



That Tron Legacy theme by Daft Punk sucks so Disney really shoulda just licenced Jonzun Crew's Lost In Space LP as the movie's soundtrack.

Young Boobie (no John McCririck's wife)

Even though Huslin' Since Da 80's is a compilation of Husalah songs assembled by a label/management team when he was doin' porridge, it feels like one of those great Mob Figaz solo albums such as The Jack Artist or Headshotz by AP.9. His Dope, Guns, And Religion album, meanwhile, is pretty much your archetypal patched-together-and-patchy ragbag of songs from a rapper who happened to be in prison but it has 3 trump cards in Through The Night and Frozen Heart (2 of his finest moments), and a real historical curiosity in the old demo song he and Jacka recorded when they were 13 and 15 and went by the monikers of Young Boobie James and Ouiny Mac :

Young Boobie James & Ouiny Mac - Shock The Place



It transpires this was recorded at some point in 1995 (a good 3 years before Hus' and Jacka made their debut on C-Bo's Till My Casket Drops) and it's just a bizarre song to emerge at the apogee of G-Funk because it's a tinny 808 electro stomper (the closest reference point of the era would be N.O Bounce, I suppose) which hints at Rick Rock's robo-funk, the Hyphy sound, later Hus' songs like B.I.T.C.H, and that recent NhT Boyz track with Hus' from their Power Triangle mixtape which I've been looking for an oppurtunity to post since everyone else has just mentioned the Jacka cameo tracks from it :

NhT Boyz ft. Husalah - Dope Boy



Shock The Place is even a peculiar how'd-you-do lyrically because two teenage gangsta-rappers from the Bay Area interpolating T-La Rock and BDP lines sometime in 1995 is some Bizarro World Jurrassic-5 level of oddness which I can't comprehend, even for a group whose deep affection for New York rap has always bled through into their music since their official debut .

Nowadays gangsta-rappers from the Bay rapping over old electro/beats by people like Newcleus, Whodini and Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde, and Bay producers making music borne of a mid 80s influence of keyboard alchemists like Larry Smith, Davy DMX, and Mantronix is commonplace, but it's still mighty, mighty weird because that's an era generally neglected by New Yorkers and most internet rap-nerds. Does every Bay rapper and producer have an uncle with an encylopedic knowledge of 1981 to 1986 rap 12"s, or does that old stuff get the most play on the radio in the Bay during old-school hours? Whatever the answer, can E-40 and Turf Talk rap over the instrumental to Space Is The Place by Jonzun Crew on 1 of his upcoming Revunue Retrievin' follow-up albums in the place of the inevitable J. Valentine sex jam where '40 goes into far too much detail about his cock for my liking, plz?

Jonzun Crew - Space Is The Place



Props to this ever-so-zany wench here for keeping her 14 cats out of the room when she was dancing and being the only person to upload the full version of Space Is The Place to Youtube. So, this is my 2nd favourite electro song ever after Scorpio by The Furious Five, the Brim scene it soundtracks in the 1984 BBC documentary Beat This! A Hip Hop History is classic, and Michael Jonzun and his brother Maurice Starr went on to clock that Euro-Millions lottery fetti managing/writing for New Edition and discovering/producing New Kids On The Block, which would explain why I always thought Hangin' Tough was such a banger.

Wanted dead or alive # 5 : Live At The BBQ 2007

Remember that Bad Boy posse track over Nautilus which D-Dot leaked with some old Biggie verse, and new verses by Black Rob, Ness From Da Band, and Aasim? I can't find whatever cd-r I put it on and all the download links are dead now (the audio has even been disabled on Youtube) so does anyone have it? And speaking of Aasim...

"I scream! You scream! We all scream for ice cream!"



Alas, nobody is screaming for poor Aasim because he's a near-unknown after spending the past 12 years as the rap Theo Walcott at the 2006 World Cup/a victim of label-limbo at Loud, some indie, and Bad Boy, and when it did look like he'd started to build a little buzz for his major label debut on Bad Boy with Go and Say New York City back in late 2006/early 2007, Puffy ganked all the beats Sean & L.V had earmarked for him and gave them to Jay-Z to use on American Gangster to rap about Russell Crowe or whatever the fuck the "concept" of that album was. While I'm sure Aasim's ghost-writing/vocal coaching cheques from Puff have probably helped wipe the tears from his eyes, this is one seriously unlucky guy, eh? Is dude atoning for being a Jonathan King figure in a past life or something?

So, I happened to notice the other day that he has another Money Pit street album coming out (or already out?), and while the songs I've heard from it are doo-doo, the first one from 2005 had some joints if you happen to be in the mood for some vaguely AZ-ish cerebral old-man NY street shit which isn't too thugged-out (sometimes a man just doesn't feel like listening to Kool G. Rap pretending to be Sam Giancana or Styles P threatening to dismember cocksuckers with his cutlery) but don't fancy listening to old Gang Starr, Nas, or AZ himself :

Aasim ft. Wise G - The Money Pit



Because every Noo Yawk rapper needs a weed-carrier who sounds a bit like Cam at his most husky. Here Aasim turns his predicament as a rapper trapped in his oppressive environment due to his record labels perpetually shelving him and not coming through with the paper into his persona, which is a preferable option to him sounding like Mark Curry or Loon, I guess.

Aasim - Disrespectful Views



Mid-tempo production was the best vehicle for Aasim's dulcet tones and, hey, at least he delivers the Biggie line for the hook himself here. Remember that Black Rob Y'All Know Who Killed Him song which was billed as featuring Biggie so we got excited that it might be an unreleased/little-heard Biggie verse like Jeans And Sneakers but it just had the Biggie vocal sample as the hook? People have sued for far less.

Anybody have Live At The BBQ 2007 then? Be a dear and hook it up if you have.

Greatest movie scenes ever # 33

It's a pity that Master P's book from a few years back was a "you can make it if you try!" type affair rather than an in-depth breakdown of the central tenets of the No Limit Soldier philosophy back in the 90s because I've often found the sentiments he expressed in his music back then are so applicable in life for us caucasians too. For instance..

Master P ft. Mystikal & Silkk - Always Look A Man In The Eyes When You Kill Him



Ayo, Amy Irving - I know John Cassavetes was the one who urged Scorsese to break out from the exploitation flick cul-de-sac and make Mean Streets and that he'd just whipped up his own masterpiece in the form of The Killing Of A Chinese Book a couple of years earlier, but his evil intelligence-operative character in Brian De Palma & Frank Yablan's The Fury is a playa hater who won't let you ball with them telekinetic powers of yours so you gon' do as P says on this one, post-haste, shawdy :



(Needless to say, if you've never seen The Fury and harbour a desire to ever watch it then it's probably best not to click the play button on this.)

As far as 70s De Palma flicks go, it has to be said that the self-billed "supernatural thriller" The Fury is no Carrie, Sisters, or Phantom Of The Paradise since it's a more convoluted retread of the former leaden with mismatched elements from the traditional spy movie, but it's an interesting overlapping of genres which is worth suffering any incoherencies and shoehorning in narrative sub-plots for the above finale - obviously a precursor to that scene in Scanners - with its grand guignol multi-camera angle shot (done in 1 take, I believe) of Cassavetes's comeuppance, the sorta ethereal Irving being the perfect choice in the role of the post-Sissy Spacek confused teenage girl with paranormal abilities who inadvertently makes anyone who touches her bleed from their eyes, Cassavetes with his arm in a black sling which immediately gives him the duplicitous air of a Bond villain the moment he steps on screen, some heavily stylized Hitchcockian set-pieces you'd expect from our Brian, the magnificent John Williams composed scoring performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, a cast which also included Kirk Douglas as an ex CIA agent trying to rescue his son from the clutches of his old colleague-turned-enemy Cassavetes's agency, and early appearances by an 18 year old Daryl Hannah, Dennis Franz, and, ever so briefly, James Belushi.

As far as hallmark De Palma set pieces go, the operatic slo-mo sequence where Irving escapes the psychiatric treatment centre with a little help from Snodgrass and Douglas set to an evocative Williams composition is the other genuinely remarkable scene the movie has to offer. Man, oafish British gangster/football hooligan movies really did ruin the art of slow-motion :



All in all, a fair few bull's-eyes hit for a movie so flawed, including Amy and the young Daryl Hannah in bikinis at one point, and I've finally found an oppurtnity to post Always Look A Man In The Eyes When You Kill Him (a great song that sounded out of place as a new bonus cut on the 1997 reissue of P's The Ghetto's Trying To Kill Me album when it replaced 1 of the 3 King George songs from the original 1994 press which were removed from the reissue due to legal issues stemming from George leaving No Limit) so everybody wins here.

The monthly token N.W.A related post

Only just spotted this recent Vibe piece where Cube breaks down all of his albums and some of his other notable songs like My Posse and Natural Born Killaz, but it's quite an interesting read and it finally answers my question on why he had beef with Arsenio :

I met John Singleton around the same time when I was upset with Arsenio Hall because he had 2 Live Crew on his show, but never let N.W.A . come on. And that show was taped right in L.A.!

Even if you tuned out after The Predator, it's worth continuing with the Lethal Injection, Natural Born Killaz, and Westside Connection blurbs, but I gave up myself when I clicked the page and found him trying to extoll the virtues of War And Peace Volume One. Just a pity they didn't ask him about Two To The Head or this :

Scarface ft. Ice Cube - Hand Of The Dead Body



Devin didn't get an official credit on the song for his hook, but at least 'Face and J. Prince let him up in the video. The Rap-A-Lot cap 'Face wore in this used to be a grail of mine back in the pre-eBay era, but the one with the white front panel the Denim Short Don Craw had on when I saw him recently is even nicer. A Til Death Do Us Part era Geto Boys song with 'Face, Bill, Big Mike, and Cube over some N.O Joe swamp-funk would've been amazing, but I'm content making do with the Willie D line-up St. Ides commercial they did :



This and this were pretty great too.

The rap Fabrizio Ravanelli

trainwreked420
2 weeks ago
this fool sucks brah wackest rapper i heard in a minute his pops is a dentist and his mom is a chiropractor how weak can u get this sucka dont move shyt

If you recall my post about the Youtube response to Codename by White, debate raged over whether the colour of White's beard was caused by his near-geriatric age, his alledged diabetes, or some sort of traumatic incident which rendered him prematurely grey overnight a la Leland Palmer, but this otherwise boring video of rappers droning on about weed I found recently complicates matters further as we learn that his beard is now both grey and brown?



While the jokebook overfloweth with quips about White being a stunt-double for Leprechaun In The Hood, his continued dropping of N-bombs (is Slick Pulla okay with this?), and Jeezy apparently not wanting to be seen with him in public, I feel we should also acknowledge that White is the nethermost fantasy of every caucasian rap nerd trudging through life bound by the antiquated rules of polite society. I'm all for cracking a few jokes about rappers, but, yo, let's discontinue the pretense that the supressed alter-ego of White isn't lurking deep inside each of us like a dreadlocked Mr Hyde with a speech impediment just waiting to be awoken by a magical potion of affluence and the acceptance of thugged-out black gentlemen. Or, indeed, a couple of drinks too many in a nightclub after listening to Project Pat as you were getting ready.

Yukmouth ft Young Jeezy - Air Jordans



Jeezy's Air Forces didn't get an official sequel until last year, but this stop-gap came out on some Yukmouth album in 2006. If you can keep a straight face when Yuk attempts Jeezy's patented "THAAA'S RIGHT" plus "YEEEAAAAH" ad libs and brags about fittin' a quarter of a mil' in "these Makavelli jeans" then you're made of sterner stuff than me, and he apparently just ganked the concept of rapping about Jordans over Jeezy's Air Forces beat from a little-heard cut by the Texan group Dirty South Rydaz (why's that song suddenly vanished from Youtube the moment I need to hyperlink it?), but I quite like this since it successfully captures the spirit of the original while managing to add a dash of the Bay to the proceedings, and, much like White's Codename, you should never oppose the dubious charms of any song which can cause you to laugh like a drain.

6 degrees of seperation : Vanilla Ice to Fabolous?

I can do it in one move with Pharrell as the link between them.

So, can you guess the connection between these three without making a joke about Fabolous and Vanilla Ice having a Filipino grunt doing all the hard work while they take the credit? Here's a hint : it isn't that Fabolous and Pharrell are the other two favourite rappers of Vanilla Ice fanatic/White Rapper Show contestant G-Child, nor is it that Vanilla Ice and Fabolous each have lyrics as worthy of a Mr Humphries raised eyebrow as Pharrell's "just last week I was out in Italy/Italian heartthrobs could not get rid of me" line from Mr Me Too, or that Jedward have also added Frontin' and Toss It In The Bag to their repetoire of cover versions, and it definately isn't that Nigo has hired Ice and Fab to both issue tacky diffusion lines through A Bathing Ape after the success of Pharrell's BBC brand.

The connection seems startlingly obvious once you know it, but you probably won't have picked up on it unless you heard Pharrell's interview on Westwood in 2003 when Cormega also happened to be in the studio and revealed an unlikely seam between the two of them as his sister did back-up vocals on some old Neptunes shit when they were producing for Teddy Riley. Pharrell was talking about various productions of his and how they'd were loosely based on old rap songs so how he'd instruct whoever was rapping on them to channel the spirit of the original songs or adopt the flows or mannerisms of the rappers who created them with the most obvious example being Nothin', which is effectively a Jungle Brothers song from the perspective of a QB thug-rapper and two Filipino production nerds (or half Flip' in the case of Pharrell). Moreover, he confessed, there were certain Neptunes productions where he'd talked the rappers involved into experimenting by emulating something flagrantly corny to see if they could turn shit into shinola, before he dropped the bombshell that he'd gotten Fabolous to mimic Vanilla Ice's rhyne pattern on Ice Ice Baby for Young'n (Holla Back) and had an incredulous Westwood play it to authenticate his bold claim :

Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby



Fabolous - Young'n (Holla Back)



Whaddaya know, right? I still say that's as good a single as Breathe and everybody at my school liked Ice Ice Baby the first time they heard it in 1990. Keep your eyes peeled for an exclusive interview I did with Pharrell recently where he reveals that he's had The Clipse fashioning their rapping on Freedom Williams's stoic lyricalz from C&C Music Factory's Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) for the last four years, which would explain why they've been so utterly boring and one-dimensional since Hell Hath No Fury.

Drrrrrrrrrrrop!

Sha Deezy on the chop; you crazy for this one, potna :



Who needs a mandatory nine point deduction when Liverpool are quite capable of losing those points on their own, eh?

Bonus beats :

OutKast - Benz Or Beamer



Always the best song to use the Beasties "Drrrrrrrrrrop!" sample from The New Style, and all the more impressive for being a generic movie soundtrack assignment job which they molded to fit their own aesthetic. Andre was one cool bastard in his transitional post-Southernplayalistic/pre-ATLiens period, and dude had a serious pair of grapefruits on him to hit The Tunnel up in trousers which may have possibly been created by Jim Henson a few years later in 1998 when Watch For The Hook was poppin'.