R.I.P Magoo and I ain't talkin' about that bloke from Romper Stomper, boiiii

"Most of y'all rappers can't do your part
Ima finish up what y'all can't start
Got no heart, I fart on your LP
I'm on your radio and on your TV'

Timbaland & Magoo ft. Mad Skillz - Clock Strikes (extended remix)
(From Clock Strikes (remix) single; 1998)


Furry Kangols at half mast for Magoo AKA the Rap Game Andrew Ridgeley: a G.O.A.T mensch who played his position to the detriment of his own reputation. Us connosiers knew tho because Maganoo blazed those 3 Timbaland & Magoo albums plus songs like Clock Strikes (remix) and Here We Come saying bugged-out idiosyncratic shit which could have only have ever come from his mouthpiece. And what a mouthpiece Magoo had - Real Hip-Hop squares dismissed him as a pre-puberty Q-Tip when he was #actually the revenge of Milk Dee. How very ironic to see those very same Real Hip-Hop squares slobbering over Kendrick "Zeldar from Beldar" Lamar 15 years later. Magoo fluffed youse lads up, so Kendrick could give you an orgasm. Maybe I'm Nicole Brown because you really kill me.

Character and chutzpah are two of the intangibles every rapper needs, and Magoo's Cup overflowed with both. So it's a pity Timbaland didn't give Magoo the track-time on their second and third albums together which he gave him on their debut Welcome To Our World. Here at The Martorialist, we'd trade fellow Virginian Pusha T's entire boring solo career for a couple of Magoo solo songs over peak Timbaland production (Pusha catchin' a stray there like Madonna caught a stray on Up Jumps Da Boogie.) Deep in your hearts all y'all know I'm right, and when I say all y'all I ain't talkin' about the classic single from Timbaland & Magoo's second album, booiiiiiii.

Born To Audiomack: Original Bangers

~~ Various Artists - O.B: Original Bangers ~~
1. Gang Starr - Doe In Advance (O.G mix) (1994)
2. Slick Rick ft. Doug E. Fresh - Treat Her Like A Prostitute (movie version) (1988)
3. 2Pac - F*ck All Y'All (O.G mix)
4. AZ - Your World Don't Stop (O.G mix) (1995)
5. The Firm - La Familia (O.G mix) (1996)
6. Young Bleed - A Fool (1997)
7. Edan - Migraine (1999)
8. Trae ft. H.A.W.K & Fat Pat - Swang (O.G mix) (2005)
9. Redman - Can't Wait (remix 2) (1994)
10. Ghostface & Raekwon ft. Method Man & Superb - Flowers (O.G mix) (2001)
11. DJ Mustard ft. Ty Dolla $ign & Joe Moses - Paranoid (2013)
12. Agallah ft. Ruck - Telemundo (2001)
13. OMB Peezy - Lay Down (O.G mix) (2017)
14. UGK - Cocaine In The Back Of The Ride (Southern Way mix) (1992)
15. Mac Dre -Shoulda Been Mo (O.G mix) (1996)



Keep it real, get ya own shit, and be original. Here's some O.G versions which are categorically better than the official versions. Some of these came out billed as remixes but believe me plz they're the original mixes. Envisioned this playlist would be 20 jams deep, but there's some songs Audiomack just won't accept such as Martorialist classics like the original mixes of The Click's Daily Routine, Jackie Chain & Jhi Ali's Rollin', ABN's The Rain and Beeda Weeda & DJ Fresh's Bass Rock Babies Talk about a bummer in the summer eh?

My Mind Spray 11.5

How very apt that YouTube is recommending me U.K Drill songs and Major League Soccer highlights videos: both are artificial novelty spectacles which the native populations have delusions of grandeur about. The only difference is that U.K Drill has managed to produce a handful of good songs when it embraces its novelty factor, while Major League Soccer continues to get worse the more it takes itself seriously as a credible sport. Get Messi and Busquets taking penalties like this IMO.

My fave 2023 Rap song nobody else cares about is Get Somebody Else To Do It by Day Day Sustaaa & Eatem. Even the two rappers don't care about that shit because they've barely promoted it and deleted the teaser clip for the video :(

Homeboy Sandman had been on a great run since his EP with Edan in 2018, but his new music has become too priggish and prudish for my liking. He's now an insufferable bore who drones on about being a tee-total vegan anti-vaxer who doesn't own a smartphone on damn near every song. Plus, I can't take "money is bad, yo" rhymes seriously from a guy who constantly begs his fans to donate to his Patreon.

That said, credit where it's due - Sandman's Then We Broke Up is some lyrical veridical Reality-Rap à la Waiting On My Girl.

A lotta rappers claim they're big Pop-Punk fans, yet they've never hit up Aaron Cometbus for artwork, they've never rhymed over the bass from Green Day's Longview, and they can't name three Screeching Weasel songs.

Milwaukeee Brewer's Droop-E

Myaap - HTS
(From HTS single; 2023)


My problem with the current wave of Milwaukeee Rap is that most of the songs are first-take brainfarts from folks who are more #content creators than rappers. You say "teenage punk rock energy", I say "throwaways freestyles with very little replay value". Basically, it's music made by ADHD youngsters for ADHD youngsters innit? Plz believe ya host isn't morphing into Mart Adams tho because I occasionally come across a Milwaukeee song which sticks for me: AyooLii's Smackin' Crackin', Zae Shakur's Donuts In A Benz and Myaap's HTS. The latter is some twisty-turny Milwaukeee Slap-Magnifico that's full of hook like Abu Hamza's wife and underpinned by a bassline which hits like Lil' Nico on Lil B.

Generic list post: July 2023

Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when Australia made up for itsbad sportsmanship in the cricket by dropping 2023's best horror movie so far.

The 45 King - Simply Dope Part 2 (1989)
Dizzee Rascal - Street Fighter (CDQ) (2002/2023)
Z-Ro ft. Shaq - Stop The Rain (2020)
Mic Terror - Lori Lightfoot (2023)
Mic Terror ft. Gzus Piece - Chinese Money (2023)
Gzus Piece - Rich Off Drugs (R.O.D) (2023)
Gzus Piece - Hibiscus (2023)
TREE - I Usually Say How I Feel (2023)
2Humpy & 2Rare - 2Humpy Anthem (2023)
J Hus - Massacre (Colors performance) (2023)
Philip Brophy - Shaan (1993)

Other notables: WTF by Valee & Harry Fraud with Twista has got me fiendin' for a Twista single produced by Harry Fraud; two years later we finally get a remix of Cootie & BiC Fizzle's Supafly; whoever A&Rs for Lola Brooke has clearly been listening to Eatem.

Other stuff: I showed love to Dick Fontaine's 1984 documentary Beat This: A Hip-Hop History and ended up defending Malcolm McLaren from Fontaine's criticism; EttelThun did an M.O.P deep cuts mix and of course he included 187.

R.I.P Sinead O'Connor

So, this is the point where everyone pretends they've always been big Sinead O'Connor fans. See Me? I was a big fan of I Want Your (Hands on Me) being used to marvellous effect twice in the fourth A Nightmare On Elm Street fillum. Pour out a little Jameson for the only Na hÉireannaigh lass to ever record a song with MC Lyte. She was Ireland's first minister of the First Priotity posse and that's word to Auldio Two.

Sinead O'Connor ft. MC Lyte - I Want Your (Hands On Me) (remix)
(From I Want Your (Hands on Me) single; 1988)

Now everybody wanna sound Grimey

Dizzee Rascal - Street Fighter
(From pirate radio; 2002/Boy In Da Corner album 20th anniversary reissue; 2023)


Shout outs to Chun-Li, she was THAT bitch! Been fiendin' to hear Dizzee Rascal's Street Fighter in full pristine CDQ for years and finally it's here! Some gobshite enfant terrible Grime recorded for Boy In Da Corner but shelved due to the Street Fighter II sample. Only a myopic 'murican or a frontin' foreigner could possibly deny this song a place in the canon of best video game-sampling Rap choonz alongside Super Brooklyn by Cocoa Brovaz, Mac Man by Beanie Sigel, NBA Live 2004 by Twista, Get It Back by Gucci Mane & 2 Chainz, Lincoln Continental by Danny Brown, 2 Brothers From The Gutter by Percee P & Diamond D, Game Over by Lil' Flip, Cha Cha by D.R.A.M, Eternal by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Never Been by Wiz Khalifa and Human Video Game by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. If Giggs' Monsta Man samples a video game, then that deserves a place in the canon too, natch.

Hickey's On Your Ass

Dick Fontaine's 1984 documentary Beat This: A Hip-Hop History is very much the Beat Street to Style Wars' Wild Style: a corny companion-piece made by outsiders which still captures the magic of early 80s New York. Endure Gary Byrd's dad-rap narration and Afrika Baambaataa with 2 studded belts wrapped around his noggin so you can enjoy such highlights as a DJ cuttin' up Black Grass while the Rock Steady Crew strut their stuff, Kool Herc driving around the Bronx in a droptop Cadillac with gigantic speakers propped up in the back seat, DJ Jazzy Jay on the decks at a basketball court block party, graffiti artist Brim crossing the tracks of an elevated station like he's James Bond to the sound of Jonzun Crew's Space Is The Place, and the Cold Crush Brothers dressed like Rick James' Band doing a live routine over Jeckyll & Hyde's Gettin' Money. There's even an interview with the infamous N.Y vandal squad coppers Hickey & Ski who were later immortalised as Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble on one of Seen's whole car trains.

Malcolm McLaren also pops up to talk about being in New York with Bow Wow Wow and ending up going to a block party deep in the rubble of the South Bronx where he met Afrika Baambaataa. This, of course, lead to McLaren importing Hip-Hop kulcha to Europe via his Buffalo Gals single/video. Back in the late 2000s ya boi Martaveli went to a screening of Dick Fontaine's 1988 follow-up documentary Bombin' hosted by Fontaine where he said he regretted including McLaren in Beat This because ol' Malcolm was "a culture vulture opportunist". O rly? You say opportunistic, we say gave the opportunity to Trevor Horn & Anne Dudley and The World's Famous Supreme Team to record classics like Buffalo Gals, D'ya Like Scratchin'?, World's Famous, and Hey DJ. Malcolm In The Middle™ of greatness: music which could have never existed without his galaxy brain impresario vision of putting Horn & Dudley with two New York radio DJs. Plus, if we're talkin' posh English blokes accusing each other of being "culture vulture opportunists" then what did Dick Fontaine ever do for Hip-Hop other than those two documentaries? Name 3 Ultramagnetic MC's songs, m8!

Needless to say, some of the Beat This scenes featuring that nonce Afrika Baambaataa have NOT aged well, particularly the one where he meets some young lads in a dark room and then takes them away with him. Cash Money was an army, Zulu Nation was a grooming gang.