What do Devin The Dude and Boo Rossini share in common?

Apart from both being southern rappers who both debuted in the 90s, the two of them started their careers as single word name rappers who were then forced to adopt the title of one of their albums as a postfix to their Rap monikers; Devin became Devin The Dude after the cover of The Dude confused record store owners and customers alike, and Boo had to become Boo Da Boss Playa/The Boss Player after he retitled, rejigged, repackaged and reissued his Birds Fly South debut as The Boss Player and everybody just assumed that was his name because what sort of dipshit Rapper would call themselves something as unimposing as Boo?

Anyway, I have to confess that I'm barely familiar with any of the music he's released under the name Boo Rossini other than Throw It Up and Immuh from Max Minelli's Me And My Hustle album when he was affiliated with C-Loc's Concentration Camp crew and the odd more recent joint from the C.T.E weed carrier era like All About Me with Z-Ro, but I've been listening to what I can find of his early stuff under his original monikers online this past couple of months and found an underrated masterpiece of melancholy Gangsta-Rap which uses that same damn hitherto-unidentified Part Time Lover cover version sample as AZ's Hustle In My Blood :

"I'm on the block tryna flip it fo' sho
a skinny n*gga searching for the rainbow
I'm on the block in the same clothes
a skinny n*gga searching for the rainbow"

Boo Da Boss Playa ft. King Goldie - Rainbow
(From A Hustla's Prayer; 2000)


If you've ever had the misfortune of hearing the Rolling Stones' pitiful Psychedelic-experiment-period plunder of Love's She Comes In Colors you'll already be aware that songs about rainbows generally can't be trusted in the hands of Rock musicians so, as ever, it's left to Rappers to save an entire sub-genre of songwriting, although it's worth noting that Boo & Goldie should probably be wary of what they might find at the end of their rainbow alongside that pot of gold. Kudos to Boo for this song and for also possessing the uncanny ability of resembling both Rap's Da Capo and A-Wax depending on which direction you squint at him.

Anybody have his Concentration Camp-era CD 601? I can't find any working links online and I'm unsure whether it's worth me shelling out $45 on from Amazon which would end up as over £30 factoring in postage and packing. The album could be a dud, but it's very tempting when it's almost entirely produced by "Happy" Perez and there are appearances by C-Loc, Young Bleed and Lay-Lo on there.

Another mystery solved

De La Soul - A Rollerskating Jam Nam Named Saturdays
(From De La Soul Is Dead; 1991)


Thanks to holmes in the Fat Lace comment section who dropped the solomon jewels after Dan speculated about which record Maseo got the inspiration for that WAH-A-WAH-A-WAH-A-WAH-WAH scratch pattern he uses on A Rollerskating Jam Named Saturdays from in the last F.L podcast. I've never heard this Fearless Four joint before because I loathe Problems Of The World Today, but the moral of the story is thus : pay closer attention in future because not very good The Message-lite 12"s from 1983 sometimes come accompanied with forgotten electro scratch jams of major historical significance to Prince Paul-era De La fans on the B. side :

Fearless Four - F4000
(From Problems Of The World Today 12"; 1983)


A Rollerskating Jam Named Saturdays is, of course, one of the only Rap songs you can air-scratch to in public without feeling like an extra in the video for that Dilated Peoples song with the Havoc vocal sample, but could it be that it's not Plug Three getting busy at all and a sample from The Fearless Four song instead? The cut-up breakdown solo by DJ Grand Supreme from 3:25 onwards indicates yes, even though it's never officially been credited anywhere. Ayo De La - dip into that Gorillaz/Nike dough and cut Fearless a cheque, you stingy bastards.

I'm a boss, f**k you, my lemonade need cubes

So, this is where I hop aboard the King Louie bandwagon driven by David to ride shotgun alongside ANU by posting the song which convinced me to explore his oeuvre. The obvious stream-of-spazzing-out-in-one-take-over-a-naggingly-repetitive-vocal-sample A Milli record, Louie has cuts which are more distinctive than I'm Arrogant, but this shit bangs harder than the binmen at 6:40 AM on a monday morning and Louie's got the sort of fancy pants gas on here which has you scheming on peppering real life conversions with its lines, so I think it serves as the best introduction to him : King Louie - I'm Arrogant (From Man Up Band Up Mixtape Before The Mixtape; 2010) It's always been important that rappers should have some sort of identifiable image, but it's particularly necessary in the is-there-anybody-under-the-age-of-30-in-America-who-doesn't-Rap? era when Youtube videos are crucial in getting a handle on what a Rapper's persona is about and most people couldn't pick a ham 'n' egger like Meek Mill out of an identification parade even if he were standing next to Rick Ross wearing a I'M WITH FATTY -----> t-shirt. A$AP Rocky, for example, is instantly recognisible because he's a deadringer for DJ Quik in 1991, has a stomach tattoo in the NWA font and swaggerjacks Haptronic from Superfuture's whole O.G Goth Ninja look, and Louie is equally as memorable since he manages to work the whole fat dude with dreads & chipped teeth shtick way better than Fat Trel and also pulls off the dreads protruding from under a beanie steez without resembling a lesbian Prop Joe like E-40 did when that combination became his default look in 2008 : Given the "it was me all along, Austin!" secrete managerial curtain pulls on the Rap blogosphere with A$AP Rocky and Main Attrakionz this year, it wouldn't surprise me if Louie turns out to be an elaborate experiment in viral marketing by the SoManyShrimp team with a prosthetically disguised SergDun spitting lyrics penned by David. I guess Louie and Rocky are similar in that their music sounds equally regionally ambiguous, but the key areas where Louie differs are that his influences are broader, taking in the Bay & ATL, not just confined to a couple of specific eras, and, more saliently, he can really, really Rap and has more than 2 good songs. Admitedly this was written before I've had the chance to listen to Live.Love.A$AP but I think his manager's blog in its heyday captured the 90s Baby aesthetic Rocky's music is aiming for better than any of his actual songs, bar Peso and Wassup. DJ Iceberg's #ManUpBandUp mixtape is the ideal entry point into Louie since it collects most of his best songs from the past year and change into one digital dollop, so I'd recommend starting with that. I've pinky sworn not to post the cuts from his upcoming Dope And Shrimp mixtape I'm privy to, but I'm Arrogant's equal in the slap stupido stakes from it We Like To Party just leaked to Youtube. It wasn't me, honest!

Hallo hallo Halloween

One, two - It's Halloween and a Freddy Kruegar fight is due. Three, four - but the Freddy Versus Jason movie was a total bore. Five, six - razor-fingered glove not Razor Ramon with the toothpicks. Seven, eight - but son from Elm Street and Scott Hall are both fond of rape. Nine, ten - so here's a duel between a couple of Freddy-themed songs by some of them Rapping black men :

Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Nightmare On My Street
(From He's The D.J, I'm The Rapper; 1988)



The Fat Boys - Are You Ready For Freddy
(From Coming Back Hard Again; 1988)


I dunno about you, but I score this contest as a tie : Nightmare On My Street is the better song but New Line Cinema had the video Jeff and Will shot for it banned for copyright infringement to the point where it's still sitting decomposing in a vault at Jive today; meanwhile The Fat Boys secured the services of the movie character with the best one-liners of the late 80s in their video for Are You Ready For Freddy after shelling out all the loot they made from their cover versions of Louie Louie and The Twist, thus redeeming a song that's otherwise only notable as an 80s pop-culture curiousity and also reminding us that New Line's hustle with the Freddy brand was tighter than Ol' Baby GAP lookin' ass Theophilus London's 40% spandex blend acid-wash jeans.

No Sparkle & R. Kelly, but be careful when you open the refrigerator tonight, dunns, as you never know what you might find in amongst your stash of chicken caesar wraps and strawberry & banana flavour Innocent smoothies.

Martorial elegance # 51

Irrefutable highlight of the autumn/winter 2011 issue of the Carhartt Europe* magazine has to be the piece about the brand finding favour with kewl black ppl around the turn of the 90s, which examines just how the legendary Tommy Boy Records brown duck jackets that were embroidered by Shaun Stüssy came into being. Since the stats indicate that 80% of this blog's regular readership is non-European (shout outs to the dude from Qatar!), here's the entire article including the mag's intro pic page where Prince Paul managed to nullify all exclusive swag the jacket had bestowed upon him by tucking his shirt into his jeans; wrong move, son!





The winner in this last pic isn't the Anchorage Parkas, the vintage pairs of Adidas Campus or even Mike D's Knicks ringer tee he famously wore in Glen E. Friedman's Paul's Boutique promo shots and the So What Cha Want video, but Ad-Rock's Pervert beanie. You might say that Pervert was the Money Boss Players of Streetwear in that it was only active for a few years during the 90s but proved to be highly influential. Is there any truth in the rumour that Don Busweiler folded Pervert to pour his profits from the brand into forming a religious cult? I still dont know because the internet is still severely wanting for any real documentation of Pervert beyond this Geoff Heath interview, scans from old issues of Thrasher and the gear spreads from Phat Magazine Gwar upped, and the few deadstock t-shirts which'd been festering in the Bond International lock-up for well over a decade that turned up on their website a couple of years back. What the dilly, yo?

(*Basically, more flatteringly tailored versions of Carhartt's heritage outerwear pieces and various pants, shirts, tees, caps etc aiming for that lucrative Streetwear market skrilla which are then sold Stateside in places like Union in Los Angeles.)

Twitter, you deeed dat

Z-Ro - Look What You Did To Me
(From Look What You Did To Me; 1998)


All y'all dudes who've used Twitter to share your thoughts/network/harass or butter up Rappers, celebrities and journalists/promote yourself/follow Twitpic happy pornstars/troll Liverpool fans have probably had the times of your lives the last three years, but, as DB Tha General opined on Upgrade Um 2, "there's consequences in this shit, n***a!" Over the past ten months we've had to suffer Lupe Fiasco gracing a Trae joint and various new El-P production credits & cameo verses on songs by actual black ppl again just so you dudes can have a forum where Dante Ross asks the same five fucking questions over and over again and Wale posts awed updates about Mumblecore movie dialogue, but these are minor Twitter-fuelled indiscretions when compared to ol' Rio Ferdinand soundin' ass Joe Budden now having a medium to spread his unique brand of frowny faced faggotry to once-great Gangsta Rappers with Emo leanings.

The writing was on the wall last month when news spread that Budden's upcoming Sad-Rap EP would feature a Z-Ro verse, but this week saw our Texan hero bigging up T-Shirt & Buddens as a "real n*gga" in a freestyle Twitvid, and you can't help but hope the Mayan's prediction that the Earth will be eviscerated by tidal waves, tornadoes and spunking volcanoes in 2012 comes to fruition because it'd be preferable to seeing Z-Ro become the fifth member of Slaughterhouse, which is surely now inevitable. So, if we're all going to be engulfed by earth, wind and fire 'n' brimstone next year, then I'd like you to remember that this was the blog which gave you the photoshop of Joe Budden's head on the body of the sulking fat teenage chick from Papa Roach's Last Resort video :

Martorial elegance # 50 : Boosie edition # 4

493 Boosie songs! Even I don't have that many Boosie songs and I have an MP3 player devoted solely to his catalogue. Here's hoping the kid Adrian here has successfully managed to impart the wisdom of 1 specific Boosie song on his 2 female pals :

Lil' Boosie - They Dykin'
(From Gangsta Grillz - Streetz Iz Mine mixtape; 2009)

Frankie Valli VS. Young Bleed

Young Bleed - Walk Like Uh Husala
(From Preserved; 2011)


AKA one of the few songs on Preserved that lives up to the promise of Stamp On It and Holla At Uh Dog. The highlight of Walk Like Uh Husala is obviously the "ding dong, mawfucker!" ad-lib, but I'm also feeling the 2nd verse where Bleed employs a schlepping slow flow to recreate the leaned shoulder, leg-dragging strut known from Baton Rogue to Barnsley as the Gangsta Limp. Get your own G-Strut on to that or the 17 second long intro to Frankie's Walk Like A Man and you'll see what I mean, just make sure there's nobody 'arder than you around when you're doing it or you might get tested for your manhood by a Fordham Baldie or some rude bwoy in one of those highly effeminate tiny backpacks the U.K chapter of the International Man Dem Crew are currently fond of.