"So I'm strapped like a dyke bitch
Big 30s and we shoot, we don't fight, bitch
Hittaz turn me on like a light switch
You a opp, that's that shit I don't like, bitch"
Katie Got Bandz - Hittaz Only
(From Bandz And Hittaz mixtape; 2012)
Here's the dilly, yo : if I Need A Hitta was Katie's game-changing My Melody joint which obliterated all former generations of chick Rappers in one fell swoop, Hittaz Only here is Katie's As The Rhyme Goes On joint where she really flaunts her flow and lyrical chops, with the bit where she tells her engineer Rich to "wait, man..I got gum in mah mouth...tweakin'" possibly even paralleling the opening conversation between Eric B and Rakim on Paid In Full in terms of historic Rap record ad libbing.
I'll honestly take Nino by Young Giftz & Tree over anything on Tree's critically acclaimed, internet-sexy and really good Sunday School mixtape. Now Nino has been blessed with a video I can kill two birds with one post by finally sharing this unpopular opinion with you and then reminding you that Giftz was also responsible for the masterpiece that is Meet Da Dealer :
Rap video paradox # 45679, 00001 : Tree saying "whip so sick I don't need no chain" during the hook at 0:19 - 0:22 as he stands there Rapping into the camera wearing a dookie gold ropechain.
Rappers have been really lettin' ya boy Blogota Rich down with their videos this month, mang - a few weeks back King Louie filmed a loosely Bonnie & Clyde-themed clip for Bars with some random 'hoodrat as his patna in crime instead of Katie Got Bandz, and today sees A-Mafia release a promo for the 2011 fan-favourite Ted Dibiase with nary a visual reference to its namesake. Here was me hoping the video might reverse the Ted and Virgil racial dynamic and feature a Tuxedo-ed up 'Mafia stunting around Harlem flanked by a subservient pecKKKerwood in a dickie-bow who gives impromptu foot massages. Oh well, he does get his Iron Sheik on in the video, and the song is still the hardest shit since MC Ren as well as the perfect antidote to the mundanity of Joey Bada$$; does N.Y really need its own Stalley?
A-Mafia - Ted Dibiase
(From What The Streets Made Me mixtape; 2011)
Already cultivated my Lil' Phat 'tache for the rest of June to honour his memory, so today I'm catching up with those two tribute mixtapes to the recently deceased Trill Fam Youngin; the T.I.P (Trill In Peace) 'tape by Traps N Trunks is fairly comprehensive and even features a couple of songs I'm hitherto unfamiliar with like Ima Dirty Muthafucker, while the #RipPhat: A Tribute To The Yungin 'tape by DJ Smallz & DJ Shure Fire would be the definitive Phat retrospective if it weren't bereft of a few key classics like I Do My Shit, Cuttin' Up, Feel My Pain and Countin' Money. Weirdly, both 'tapes are lacking in any Phat's material as part of 3 Deep, which I guess isn't so surprising really since I was unaware they'd recorded anything other the twosongs on Survival Of The Fittest too until ANU put me onto their First 6 Songs mixtape recently.
Anyhoo, there's a few questions surrounding Phat's death which still need answering, damnit : does this Phat-sized hole in the Trill ENT roster mean Mel & Turk will finally start giving Foxx and/or Mouse a push again? Who'd have ever thunk Phat would die before Boosie or, indeed, Webbie? Can Mel plz release the NO-DJ versions of his dead son's Life Of A Yungsta and Death Before Dishonour mixtapes? Are there any crazy conspiracy theories floating about since the murder happened in ATL and not Baton Rogue? And why couldn't it have been Lil' Trill who got his balloon popped instead? I kid, I kid on that last point (sorta) - Turk's offspring might've single-handedly ruined every track he ever appeared on when he was Trill's in-house squeaky pre-pubescent sock puppet, but he did kinda rip the official version of Turn The Beat Up after his sack dropped :
Mouse On Tha Track ft. Lil' Trill, Lil' Phat & Webbie - Turn The Beat Up
(From Trill Fam : All Or Nothing album compilation; 2010)
Speaking of crazy conspiracy theories, it's fairly common knowledge that Boosie had been trying to leave Trill ENT due to money issues and Mel cutting verses from his songs to replace them with Lil' Phat cameos before he got sent to the bing in 2009, but did you know that he even went as far as threatening Mel on the unreleased-until-2010 song Free At Last?
"Fuck a contract, n*gga gonna have to release me
Mel, your goons ain't like my goons and you 'bout no beef!"
Lil' Boosie - Free At Last
(From Free At Last mixtape; 2010)
Could all of this possibly tie in with the rumour that Mel's other son was involved in the murder of Boosie's best friend Bleek alongside Marlo Mike and the recent gossip that Boosie plans on moving to ATL when he's released from prison? Damned if I know, but Trill ENT's labyrinth narrative of dirty money, murder, even dirtier moguls and attempted-murder is already similar to a Agatha Christie novella which takes in Alpo killing Rich Porter, The Lox's Let The Lox Go! campaign against Bad Boy, and Baby allegedly having U.N.L.V's Yella Boy shot to death along the way.
Thought this was gonna be my lucky day for new Rotten Apple Rap, but that new Eldorado Red track certain sections of the internet are going cuckoo for turned out to be a Jurassic 5 version of Money Boss Players over trendy Cloud-Rap beats, and the latest Troy Ave Bricks In My Backpack mixtape didn't offer me a single song worth keeping since it sounds like Young Roddy reciting French Montana lyrics over a Stalley album. Thus, I've had to return to couple of dope Harlem loosies from the past couple of months that've otherwise slipped through the cracks online to get my N.Y Rap jollies :
Today's crap cinematic description of A-Mafia's music : that Jean-Claude Van Damme punching out the snake in Hard Target-Rap. I'm finding Mafia's "I'm ready to die..as long as I get my point across before I go!" declaration on this quite upsetting seeing as 2012 has already claimed two of my favouriteweedcarriers of recent years. Please let A-Mafia live, God, and if you must insist on killing a Dipset third-stringer in the next 6 months then take 40 Cal instead as punishment for that time he ruined Dipset City.
2011 blessed us with Snaggapuss and Black Rob together on that Bounce Squad beatjack of J. Beez Comin' Through (Bonus Beats), this year we're treated to a remix of one of the handful of good songs from the last Black Rob album featuring a Snaggapuss verse and a Datty X appearance. I can't believe Dru-Ha doesn't give B.R first refusal on all the good beats which pass through the Duck Down office because Roses should've been a Black Rob & Freeway emo-Rap classic instead of an aiight Smif-N-Wessun song with the eyewateringly cringeworthy lyric of "just think, if BIG and 'Pac made peace and you could say somethin' to both of them, then what would it be?" Personally, I'd ask messrs Wallace & Shakur if they could believe that such a bitchmade lyric had come from the group responsible for such an all time classic as Nothing Move But The Money.
Because somebody has placed Fam-Lay's Clap Clap over the Slow Clap GIF AKA a loop of Charles Foster Kane clapping Susan Alexander's disastrous opera in Citizen Kane.
1. Clap Clap didn't make much of an impact first time around earlier this year so it deserves a bit of a second wind, especially since it's the closest Fam-Lay's come to rivaling the laconic menace of Skrung Owt and it's way more worthy of attention than rubbish Pusha-T dis tracks to Wayne, innit?
2. Fam-Lay and Orson Welles are apt bedfellows since the possibility of his forthcoming Trained To Go album featuring all the old Neptunes joints like Skrung Owt, Rock 'N' Roll, Amalance, Da Beeper Record et al alongside the recent tracks like Clap Clap, Money Makin' Trick and Beach Cruiser would basically make it the Rap equivalent of a fully restored cut of The Magnificent Ambersons with all the lost footage Welles left in Rio.
3. Fam-Lay's haircut and outfit in the real Clap Clap video were totally unbecoming and unsuitable for a thug-Rapper rhyming about guns, torture, pyromania and masculinity issues involving looking at one's self in the mirror. Don't let Mike (NJJ) catch you in them Virginia streetz lookin' like you're on that Blade shit, that gay parade shit, that dad-fitting denim jacket and parts in ya gumby fade shit, Fam'.
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, has Canibus got the Klaus Kinski as Don Lope de Aguirre swag down pizzack in that video of him battling Dizaster or what? From his lurching posture and gimpy arm, to the pie-eyed egomaniacal babbling into thin air, to the teeth which are too big for his mouth, to him being surrounded by filthy screeching dissident primates - the whole sorry mess appears to be some sort of bizarro recreation of the infamous finale to Herzog & Kinski's masterpiece :
Along with the original Right Now, Your Ho was one of the two songs from the advance of Just Tryin' Ta Live that leaked to the internet in 2002 which then proceeded to vanish from the retail CD's tracklisting. Right Now was cut due to the James Taylor sample RAP-A-LOT couldn't clear at the time, but it's never been clear why Your Ho got left on the scrap heap when it was a sample-less Dr Dre track and easily the equal of that other great Just Tryin' Ta Live Dre production credit It's A Shame.
Whatever, if you downloaded the leaked Just Tryin' Ta Live advance off Soulseek or Kazaa a decade ago you'll surely recall Your Ho too even though its subsequently disappeared from t'internet ever since, so there has to be somebody out there who still has the MP3 on a slowly eroding CD-R or an old external hard drive gathering dust. If so, hook that shit up before its lost in internet mythology forever like that XXXplicit photo shoot Andre 3000 did in his studio with some foxy Brazilian stripper bird back in 2003 not long after the release of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
EDIT : thanks to some dude called Wahhhhhhh correcting me that it was actually called Yo' Ho, and to street nozzles pointed at ya Noztrils for coming through with the info that it turned up under a different title on the 2008 RAP-A-LOT cash-in album Hi Ligh.
Devin The Dude - Yo' Ho/Comin' Back
(From Just Tryin' Ta Live advance copy; 2002/Hi Life album; 2008)
