Other notables: I'm not particularly fond of Sauce Walka or drumless Rap songs so I'm surprised R.I.P Buddy made its way into my rotation; the Max B & Giggs song should have happened in 2009; listened to Duke Deuce's Soldiers Steppin' and came to the conclusion that I'm bored of his Crunk revival songs now; I'm assuming Kap G wrote Lil Nas X Holiday because the first time I heard it I genuinely thought it was a new Kap song; Thirstin Howl III's Return Of The Polorican is a better #Menswear advert than song imho.
Perfection ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Understand Perfection
(From the Please Pass The Mic compilation; 1992)
Perfection is perfected so now I finally understand what Snoop's line on Nuthin' But A "G" Thang meant. Pre-The Chronic Doggy Dogg from the L.A Gangsta-Rap cassette tape netherworld. Same Grover Washington sample as Played Like A Piano but with a tad more tinkling of the keys. Fun fact: the "one n*gga who decided to leave and get his rap on elsewhere" Snoop is throwin' salt on during his first verse was none other than Domino.
MP3 here for anyone who wants it like this, like that, and like this and uh.
What if Get Retarded was the A-side of Craig Mack's one 12" as MC EZ and it became a big golden-era hit, consequently changing Mack's whole career trajectory? Crazy visionz, check it out, BOOM: Fresh Records then had MC EZ & Troup record an album in 1989 and the duo begin rollin' with RUSH management alongside fellow Fresh roster groups EPMD and Nice & Smooth. Thus, EZ & Troup follow EPMD and Nice & Smooth over to Def Jam when Fresh Records folds in 1990 where they release another couple of successful albums in the following years. Fate conspires that Mack still records Flava In Ya Ear, Get Down etc, but they're MC EZ songs on Def Jam songs rather than Craig Mack songs on Bad Boy - ergo, the Flava In Ya Ear remix features Redman in Biggie's place and Making Moves With Puff is now titled Making Moves With Russ.
In this parallel trajectory, Puffy still signs another former Fresh Records roster member who's spent the early 90's in Rap's wilderness - Stezo who has now rebranded as Stephen Williams. Hmmm not sure that woulda worked out for Bad Boy tbqh.
"Nah, now I ain't on your level
But can I ask you a question - why you make the Devil?
Me, I wouldn't make my own enemies
And for every fatal disease I'd make remedies
Switch George W. with John F. Kennedy
He in the drop-top enjoying the weather
POW!!!
Laura Bush got brain on her sweater
I like that pic a bit better"
Mic Terror - If God Was Mic
(From the internet; 2008)
Much like Hoopty Music, If God Was Mic is an early Mic Terror song which really shoulda been a single. In a perfect universe it woulda been the If I Ruled The World of the late-MySpace/early-blog Rap era; in my universe it's a #MicTerrorHive classic. Slick Rick-level songwriting which contains multitudes and my personal favourite use the Go On And Cry loop courtesy of Gzus Piece who was a producer before he started rhyming. How much do I love this song? Like Tyson loves Cus D'Amato!
"I go stupider
I ain't came from Mars, I came from Jupiter
I wanna Cupid her
Baby got them buns I'm bout to doop in her
I'm boopin' her
If she say she Blood then I'm Woopin' her
Gotta strap it up 'cause I ain't tryna leave no troop in her"
Stack Dough - Chicken
(From YouTube; 2021)
SF robo-slap by some breh with a NOLA accent and an IT mask. This shit coulda done with a hook but I fuxwit it regardless. Fed this song into the trusty old audio-to-image converter here at Martorialist HQ and this is what came out:
The year was 1985, ya host was eight & 1/2 years old, and Run-D.M.C's performance of King Of Rock at Live Aid on TV was one of the pivotal moments where Rap music went from being something which was vaguely within my orbit via Roland Rat and Herbie Hancock to being the centre of my cultural universe alongside BMX bikes, amusement arcades, and Cadbury's cream eggs. Run-D.M.C & Jam Master Jay were a leather tracksuited star-shaped peg in Live Aid's hexagonal hole of stone-washed earnestness: they sounded like nothing the kid Marty had ever heard before and they were even cooler than the hoodlums in Michael Jackson's Beat It video. That was the night everything changed...
Thirty six years later and I still give Run-D.M.C half the credit that I've always preferred Adidas to Nike. The other half is down to Adidas Superstar tracksuits being the G.O.A.T #Athleisurewear. Wearing a slim-fit Adidas Superstar trackie to the pub on a Tuesday night to watch some Champions League football is an #AthleisurewearEra power move which makes you feel like King Cosy Boy (ask Valee!) Wearing a Nike Jordan trackie to the same pub on the same night to watch the same football, however, makes you look like you've just been to sign on the dole and makes you feel like you should be slobbing out at home on the sofa instead.
Related 80's: pour out a lil' Kraken for Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher. Who got the props? Alas, not Duke even though he was the Pumpkin of Sugar Hill Records, the genius behind The Message who then had his name scrubbed from the song's credits and his verses rapped by Furious Five members in the video, and the producer behind such tuff drum-machine era classix as Z-3 MC's Triple Threat and Word Of Mouth & DJ Cheese's King Kut and Coast To Coast. Credit is due.
First good Rap song of 2021 IMHO. Alabama's hoodrat Angelica from Rugrats on a Trading Places life switcheroo. Seriously, if they don't spoof Eddie Murphy's G.O.A.T movie for the video to this one then it's a complete waste of the song's concept.
The paradox of Vybz Kartel is that the Worl' Boss™ often sounds like he's from another planet: he's spent the past 7 years rotting inside a jailcell in Jamaica yet he's still sneakily recording new songs which sound like alien transmissions from Jupiter. If that reads like swanky-arse hyperbole to you it's only because this song sounds like a space-age riddim to me innit.
