Generic list post: can you believe 2000 was 20 years ago?

"THERE'S ONLY FIVE YEARS LEFT!" bellowed Busta Rhymes on Everything Remains Raw. Then we all finally got to party like it's 1999, the clock struck midnight, and... ain't a damn thing changed. This was particularly true in Rap because half the biggest anthems of 2000 were released in 1999: Black Rob's Whoa, Method Man & Redman's Y.O.U, Dr. Dre's The Next Episode, Crooklyn Clan's Be Faithful, Jay-Z & UGK's Big Pimpin', DMX's What's My Name and Party Up (Up In Here), Juvenile's U Understand, and Nelly's Country Grammar (Hot Shit).

All of which is a fancy way of reminding all y'all that I dropped a 1999 list last year, and now I'm postin' a 2000 list as a sequel to my recent 1990 list. The 35 best Rap songs of 2000 as according to me.

OutKast ft. Sleepy Brown - So Fresh, So Clean
Ghostface Killah - Saturday Night
Kool G. Rap ft. RZA - Cakes
Mac Dre - Off Tha Rictor
Prodigy - Keep It Thoro
8Ball & MJG - Pimp Hard
M.O.P - Roll Call
DJ Quik - Pitch In On A Party
Shyne ft. Barrington Levy - Bad Boyz
Black Rob ft. G-Dep - B.R.
Three 6 Mafia ft. UGK & Project Pat - Sippin' On Some Syrup
Project Pat - Gorilla Pimp
Cocoa Brovaz - Super Brooklyn
Nelly ft. City Spud - Ride Wit Me
SPM ft. Baby Beesh - Oh My My
Big L Flamboyant
Cam'Ron ft. Prodigy - Losin' Weight
Mystikal - Big Truck Boys
Bumpy Knuckles - Industry Shakedown
Trick Daddy ft. Trina, Deuce Poppito & Co - Shut Up
Trina - Pull Over
De La Soul ft. Redman - Oooh
Big Tymers - Get Your Roll On
Mad Skillz - Ghost Writer
Snoop Dogg ft. Kokane & Suga Free - Bring It On
C-Murder ft. Magic & Snoop Dogg - Down For My N*ggaz
Big Pun - N*gga Shit
K-Rino ft. DJ Screw - Why Ya Wanna Hate?
Beanie Sigel - The Truth
Field Mob - Project Dreamz
AZ - I Don't Give A F*ck
Ruff Ryders ft. Snoop Dogg, Yung Wun, Scarface & Jadakiss - World War III
Jakki Tha Motamouth ft. Copywrite - Widespread
Ludacris - Southern Hospitality
Note: if people can dance to songs by/featuring a serial groomer like Drake then I can stan for SPM's one legit 5/5 song.

What's a goon to a gobbling?

Mic Terror - Head In The Morning
(From Tall, Dark, & Gangster EP; 2019/YouTube; 2020)


Hooray - my favourite song from Mic Terror's last EP now has a video. Hip hip hooray - the video lives up to Mic's "I love a pretty face, fat ass, and huge boobs" lyric.

It's a brand new decade, we need brand new attitudes, and brand new ways to stop superfluous dudes from turning every Rap video into a sausagefest. In with Eye Candy 4 The Lads, out with neighbourhood goons mean-muggin' the camera! Sing along with me, folks:

♫ NO MORE LOCAL RANDOS, BRING BACK VIDEO HOES! ♫

Rebel without a boutique raer vinylz release

"Mic manipulator mutilating MC's
Narrator-navigator of the seven seas"

Tragedy AKA Intelligent Hoodlum - The Rebel Returns
(From Marley Marl sessions; 1989/the internet; 2019)


There was me thinkin' I knew all the unreleased 1989 Intelligent Hoodlum tracks via old Westwood shows and those two EP's on DWG Records. Then I came across this sequel to The Rebel and was like "how have I never heard this before?" Turns out Westwood did play this in 1989, someone upped the audio of that to the internet in 2016, and someone else finally tracked down the test press 12" last year and ripped it. A smattering of lyrics on this one date back to the 1987 Super Kids era. Otherwise, it's sick-scientific Tragedy mispronouncing the Tasmanian Devil over a twangy loop of Cissy Strut.

R.I.P 5th Ward Weebie

5th Ward Weebie ft. Wild Wayne & Trombone Shorty - Drop It How Ya Feel It
(From Soundcloud; 2018)


Let me find out that the internet is bullshitting with the news of 5th Ward Weebie's death. That man kept Bounce alive when Bounce had taken a dive, made music which sounded like Mardi Gras in Magnolia Projects, and was responsible for some of the only non-corny Real Instruments Rap™ of this past decade. Most importantly, Weebie owned the G.O.A.T Louisiana-sounding Louisiana Rap song:

5th Ward Weebie - Supa Sunday In N.O
(From Da Unexpected album; 2003)


Rest in peace lil' big man. I hope Heaven got more pop-up Seafood Gumbo restaurants you can open up with your royalties from Audrey's Nice For What.

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.

Buff(et) Crew

Eatem: he looks like Percy Tragedy and makes regionally distinct rowdiness in the spirit of Treal Lee. This new song's pressure and jams something lovely as a double A-side with Spent It All .

"Different angles with the banger like triangle isosceles"

Eatem - Wat's Wrong Wit' Em
(From YouTube; 2020)


Where's my true Paid In Full fans at? I'm talkin' people who copped the O.G bootleg DVD from Canal Street in 2002 with the scene set to Special Ed's I Got It Made which was later overdubbed with Jaz B Lat'n's era-inappropriate Set It Off for the official movie. Lord knows why they changed it because I Got It Made was on disc one of the soundtrack.

Generic list post: can you believe 1990 was 30 years ago?

The year was 1990, I was in my 2nd year of high school, Round The Twist was my fave show on TV, Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby was thee shit to me initially, and I loved FNM as much as N.W.A. Plz believe ya host was livin' that Hardcore Hip-Hop lifestyle, though: stealing Posca pens from Partners and tagging up provincial carparks, buying a pair of snow-camo trousers in a misguided attempt to dress like the S1Ws, paying a neighbour to record me Yo! MTV Raps off BSB, and accidentally making a Jehovah's Witness girl cry by playing Silver Bullet's 20 Seconds To Comply on our high school common room's tape-deck.

James Brown samples and Ultimate Breaks & Beats staples were starting to recede as new styles and sounds were beginning to fully blossom, but 1990 Rap was still funkier than Rab C. Nesbitt. And so, in no particular order, here's 30 Legit Jams™ from 30 years ago. Some were faves at the time, others I've discovered in the years since, all of them are absolute choonz.

Brand Nubian - Step To The Rear
Too $hort - The Ghetto
Eric B. & Rakim - In The Ghetto (LP mix)
Ice Cube ft. Lil' Russ - A Gangsta's Fairytale
N.W.A - Real N*ggaz
Above The Law - Murder Rap
Gang Starr - Just 2 Get A Rep
Compton's Most Wanted - Duck Sick
Lakim Shabazz - The Voice Of Power
King Tee ft. Ice Cube & Breeze - Played Like A Piano
Master Ace - Me And The Biz
Kool G. Rap & D.J Polo - Kool Is Back
Rated X - Be Cool To Your Girl
EPMD ft. LL Cool J - Rampage
Poor Righteous Teachers - Rock Dis Funky Joint
Digital Underground - Packet Man
Chubb Rock - Treat 'Em Right
X Clan - Funkin' Lesson
Public Enemy - 911 Is A Joke
Poison Clan - Bad Influence
KMD - Peachfuzz
M.C Pooh - F***in' With Dank
Lord Finesse & DJ Mike Smooth - Funky Technician
Ice-T - Mind Over Matter
LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out
C.O.D. - Clever Word
A Tribe Called Quest - Luck Of Lucien
Jungle Brothers ft. Native Tongues - Doin' Our Own Dang (Do It To The JBs mix)
Main Source - Looking At The Front Door
Mob Style - Gangster Shit
Bonus beats: can you believe 1980 was 40 years ago? Was gonna drop list of my favourite Rap songs from 1980 too, but it'd just be three Spoonie Gee tracks, Jimmy Spicer's Adventures Of Super Rhyme, Treacherous Three's Body Rock, and Kurtis Blow's Hard Times.

Throw Dem Bowsers

For Smif-N-Wessun to get one of their very best songs effectively shut down by sample clearance was standard practice, to get two was plain bad luck: first there was Nothing Move But The Money in 1995, and then Super Brooklyn in 2000 after their rebrand as the Cocoa Brovaz. In a perfect world Dru-Ha got the Super Mario Brothers samples cleared and Super Brooklyn went on to be the biggest Boot Camp Clik single since Leflaur Leflah Eshkoshka. G.O.A.T video-game sample song? Possibly. The only Boot Camp Clik song Peter Crouch could do The Robot to? Definitely.

"I'm a Brooklyn survivor
These streets is hotter than lava
Yo, that saliva burn you like fire"

Cocoa Brovaz - Super Brooklyn
(From Super Brooklyn 12" single; 2000/Game Over compilation; 2002)

Kot_Moroz · Cocoa Brovaz Super Brooklyn