mello my man

Revisiting the Wild Weekend episode where Ice Lou plays basketball at Master P’s house and gets his shoes laced by the worldwide international godfather gangsta pimp Mello-T recently has inspired me to see if I can unearth anything by the Mississippi rap pioneer thats cropped up since The Martorialist’s priceless posts on him from 2010.

I’m having a hard time weighing up whether I should pay for this Mississippi Legend cd he released in 2011. On the one hand he has a song about a stripper coming out the closet and another which samples what I want played when I’m made fly the shuttle into the sun after spotting 3-d 2pac & Liberace playing Streets Of Rage through one of Sputnik’s portholes, on the other hand theres stuff like a Ha remake so true to the original it makes you wonder why he bothered at all. Be Axel, not Atomic.

His record shop/label’s Family Tree compilation from 1999 is pretty good though and possibly even worth it’s extortionate price tag on Amazon. As well as a fair few previously unreleased Wildliffe Society bangers it even has 2 solo songs by Treasure, someone most of us who watched the episode assumed was just being strung along with rapper pipe dreams by Mello, her Jesus Christ. I suspect he never got round to setting a date for the wedding though.

As novel as hearing the now well-worn “rapping = sex” concept from a female perspective is, I’m not quite enlightened enough to not find “the head of my pen is sensitive, it gets all exited when i give, it a handjob it starts to throb, the ink starts coming out in blobs all over the paper” somewhat nauseating tbh, however well executed.

Wildliffe Society – Get Your Beg On (1999, Family Tree)

Considering my last post contained two songs with enough comedy t-shirt slogan fodder to last the next two world cups and my less than kosher attitude to browbeaten women expressing their sexuality through rapping, a good conscientous, Gaurdian reading, chickpea stewing right’un like your boy should probably feel a ways about this being my favourite song off the comp. Theres still jew-els for the wary though:

“get your hair done, get your nails did, get some new shoes for your kid”

Wildliffe Society ft. Eddie Seawood – Family Tree (1999, Family Tree compilation)

I’ll leave the asking myself questions severely for now though as theres also a token ’90s gangsta rap conscious album cut (TM Too Short) to address the karmic balance. While it is undeniable fact that no one rapped about dealing crack cocaine like the acne ridden teenage character from The Simpsons til The Clipse came along, one or two mischevous upstarts like Mello-T gave their “feed poison to those who could very well be my kin” angle a dry run before those groundbreaking Virginia virtuosos made it Art. Granted, it probably would be a downer if an old secondary school teacher approached you wanting to reenact the Woodrow skit but man is that shit hilarious when its a particularly cuntish one getting thrown out a strip club with vomit on his shirt. On a weeknight, no less.

Unfortunately the only previews of his bizzare collabo with middle aged MD, Dr Frank McCune…

I could find were on itunes and seem to have been taken down. Thats a shame cos according to Martha’s customer review from cduniverse.com, Transition “is the solution to the universal disparities suffered by people of color through the diaspora” – a far more convincing argument than any of Nas’s fully-baked mumbles on how making a song about a trolling right wing pundit is basically the same as Malcolm, Martin & Huey painting the white house black after pissing on John Wayne’s grave.

thats g for gaza not g for giraffe

Yes, thats turn of the century LA gangsta rap architect and charming host of MTV Arabia talent show Hip Hop Na, Fredwreck, congratulating infamous mover & shaker of dictator’s hands and Celebrity Big Brother firebrand Gorgeous George’s local election win on twitter.

This might seem an odd pairing to your average citizen but really, whats more GTA: San Andreas than two lads with excessive facial hair dreaming of “wading ashore, Kalashnikov in hand” and “a bitch that’ll shine my rims up and open my door”?

 Nate Dogg – I Need A Bitch (2002, single)

I’m really not Bol-itickin or anything but how amazing would a whole album of pro-Palestine screwface rap produced entirely be Fredwreck have been in 2005? If 99% of capital P “political” rappers since 1995 hadn’t learned their craft by attending beyond the brink KRS-One college lectures and reading Chuck D books instead of just watching old Ice Cube videos, that is. Unfortunatly Fred did that shit too and put the senile blastmaster on his woeful spanish guitar polluted attempt at recreating Whats Going On:

Even Pyramids P could’t save something that has Alchemist, Evidence and Everlast verses all stacked together.

** Update: Turns out Hi-Tek produced I Need A Bitch. I wonder what pre flip-flop principled killjoy Mos Def would’ve thought about that, not to mention Fredwreck lacing KRS.**

I might be showing my clueless european colours here but didn’t the bay used to be a bit obsessed with numbers? I think it was a way of combating the all-encompassing Northern Califoolya Yay Area community spirit, which could end up making your particular tiny Hamlet even more anonymous. I think a few rappers decided that if they name themselves after their area code/post code/longitude and lattitude, the one-horse minor break in the scrub they got their short trousers dusty in might gain some fame.

415 likely started all this faffing about and if what Richie Rich says here is right, even inspired long beach supercrew 213′s name. If thats true its also possible that the late, great 1/3 of that group responsible for the concentrated objectification above kept his ear to the ground, was up on all the 90s numerical mob music and was inspired by 

 11/5 – I Got Bitchez (1996, A1 Yola)

an even less equitable, even more suga’ free estimation of the fairer 50% of our species’ worth than anything the man with I Got Hoes and Aint No Fun in his catalogue ever made. Seriously though brih, read all the names in this line-up without taking your shoes off:

 Lucci Staxx ft. The Jacka & Fed-X - Its Nothin (2012, the internet)

If ever a rapper throws a female friend out a moving car or shoots someone over a dice game and needs better justification than “I’m not right, look at this colourful confectionery tattoo covering a good heft of my face”/they had to regulate, that rapper should study Jacka’s verse here.

Once they beat the case I hope they hire whoever made the beat (+ email me once they’ve found out how that Computer Love/”f-f-f-f-resh” scratch/stock alien creature chirp sfx(?) is made, as thanks for the excellent judicial advice) and try and make something half as inspirational as a song consisting of shit like:

“invisible roof, I got loot, had a miserable youth”

“flat screen make your temperature boil”

“boys shooting dice for the space toys, its christmas in the ghetto, chief – everybody eats”

along with possibly the first recorded usage of that epithet primarily known for coming out a few italian-americans mouths pre-1990 – “mooly” instead of the n-bomb as a term of endearment. That last ones way stranger than George & Fred imo and once again proves that as well as teaching the rest of America how to say “bitch” and make trunks rattle, no one does weird like the Bay.

ph level

 Kool Daddy Fresh – Born To Slang (PT. II) (1994, Murder Dog Presents: Piranha Killer Fish 5823/Kool Daddy Fresh- Plottin’)

From what I can gather, Murder Dog compilations had a pretty simple format: one song by Al Kapone, a dozen by people never to be heard from again and one stand out bonafide brick through the windscreen(often by someone never to be heard from again). This comp’s foreign object is a marriage destroying, baby liver shrinking, microwave pawning, remorseless pro-crack distribution anthem in the Pocketfull Of Stones, Slinging Base and Ghetto Dope mould.

 Chubb Rock- A Message To The B.A.N. (1992, I Gotta Get Mine Yo!)

Now Prince Markie Dee is a fitness instuctor and everyone else either had a coronary or got grassy knoll-ed, maybe its time the last obese elderly rapper dude standing was shown some appreciation before all those combo meals catch up with him and the internets overrun with declerations of how he was as good as G Rap. His albums were pretty patchy but that doesn’t explain why if hes brought up at all, its usually either Treat Em Right, his scene-stealing Crooklyn Dodgers 2 verse or possibly his freestyle on the last Yo! MTV Raps episode and thats pretty much it.
Maybe its revisionist LL Cool J/Ice-T syndrome where people can’t see the classics for the chapstick allergy, hats like a shark’s fin and leprechauns in the hood. Hows someone get overlooked though, over some rap&bullshit quiet storm junts and a Trackmasters affilation – when they had 3 albums almost entirely produced by Howie-T and when not spouting confusing basedpositive non sequiters & wasting classic posse cut opportunities by letting Tone rap & Grand Puba recycle 10 verses at once, was actually pretty great at rapping?
This song doesn’t really work as a Contact Blitt “wacky tour antics” story cos Chubb tends to be fairly obtuse at the best of times and its basically just in-jokes about (a lot of)people I don’t know but Chubb still makes his rapidfire snippets of anecdotes really universal somehow. What grown man hasnt slagged their buddy for bagging a not-stunning companion, had a food fight and bought a 380 from some anonymous hick though, anyways?

 Money B & Identity – Confidential Informer (1997, Spread Yo’ Hustle compilation)

lol if your bucket list contains getting the film trailer man to do your answering machine message, when cosigns and drops are so easy to obtain now a rap sanga like T-Pain can be made endorse the republican party post- every rapper breathing* having rocked an Obama t-shirt:

and so having 40 water record something 9/10s of callers will be listening too slow for could presumably be hooked up pretty easily via twitter, especially after someone as minor league as Identity(aka wishful thinking) managed it all the way back in 1997. Hes nice though and I’m actually glad he got more time than Digital Underground vet Money B, (who’s Tonite Show with DJ Fresh doesn’t seem to exist on the internet unfortunately) who apart from saying “bitch muthafucka” really well doesnt add that much to the song.

 

*With one notable exception:

sean penn burnerz

 Castro the Connect – Crayola (1998, single)

It seems Gucci’s paint chip book fetish (“my _____ grapefruit, my _______ salmon”) and Saigon’s All In The Same Gang rehash/legitimate threat to society via teaching gang members that red tracing paper over blue tracing paper trick he was shown in primary school, The Colour Purple, had a precedent after all. Pity this is so hard to find outside teh ‘tube though cos its the dreaded radio edit. I’ve no idea why he even bothered with one cos he’l just wind up with the same artistic dillemmas Ratz had:

It’d be nice to hear gems like

“I’m on a white sand beach fucking a white ho, all because I got white blow” and ”black man, black cat, bad luck, black alligator truck, i fuck black bitches with my black dick, I’m black as fuck”

in all their technicolour glory. He even gives beige love on here.

 Dat Boy Grace/Macc Grace Dopeman ft. Boss Shan & Mike D (2010, Guess Whos Back)

Since family friends are now visibly worried when asking “what are you at with yourself these days?” and I’m feeling like I should read one of the depressing books I keep handy to impress people its become increasingly hard to do like Chuck D says and ride for “music your girlfriend hates” without feeling like I should also be spending my evenings going in all caps on message boards over the difference between jazz-funk and psychedelic jazz-funk.

Consequently my long held aversion to sung hooks on rap songs has steadily been replaced for an intolerance for a dozen hangers on, plus whoever was smoking weed in the studio corridor at the time shouting the same three words a few times between verses, especially if its accompanied by some Bar-Kays classic thats been  filtered for a bass line turned to sludge and the ’92 arms south egyptian military stomp:

Thats all gravy, no one wants to be holding the wall up forever and that muddy timz & horn parps shit was one of the more overrated styles of the 90s but theres one stage in my development that I’m not fine with at all and thats the abundance of southern nostalgia raps lately. Cos while that makes for a slightly less camo suited up alternative to the throwbackpack phenomenom of the late 90s-mid 00s, they’re starting to ruin S&C choruses for everyone, something which seemed like it was on its last rungs anyways around 2007 but thankfully got a respite from going the way of “iggedy” and putting “-ski” on the end of your rap name by Houston rap’s popularity fading drastically around that time.

Now every time I listen to Dopeman (by the only gangsta rapper who instead of changing his girl’s name to something more menacing like Ice-T (PKA Tracey) did, decided it’d be better to clarify by putting “Dat Boy” in front) I don’t think sleep apnea and mahogany car interiors, instead its keffiyehs and cosmonaut boots and thats just not on at all, mayn. Its all lazy eldery rap dude smack, I bet people who remembered the 80s loved J5 at first too.

 Rick Da Bro – I Dont Wanna Talk (demo, 1994)

I can’t remember if it was Trav or Noz but some New Jeruz blogger made an observation ages ago about how a lot of Outsidaz members often use really strangely worded punchlines that just kind of work, maybe its cos they combined it with a ridiculous overblown delivery but it works because of, not in spite of that akward phrasing.* Mostly cos the weird construction tends to make them funny in a surreal way though, like Lil’ Fame shouting his old nickname “SLAPADOO” apropos of nothing or every single thing in Durty Pop.

Anyways I’m starting to think it might be a local style, cos for the life of my I’ve never understood half of Redman’s punchlines, which always seemed pretty slapdash-edly(?) thrown together and then theres this mysterious cunt, who “talks so much trash because my pops was a garbage man” while sounding not unlike Krazy Drayzy dealing with the tv license inspector. Plus his name is Rick Da Bro and his producer’s name is Spaz.

*Not “awkward phrasing” like The Game or Tyler The Creator though. Them dudes just jam stuff in willy-nilly cos they Rhyme and don’t show much awareness of how  haphazard and 14 yr old textcee this sounds when put over the instrumental they never listened to til recording time.

tbh I suspect me lumping Tyler in with The Game has more to do with wasting irl currency on Goblin instead of contributing to Ryan Leslie’s laptop fund than anything else really. 

veni vitti vici

Amongst the many, many great things about E-40′s new series of albums is how much of the guest list reads like the 90s Bay Area rap wiki page – Richie Rich, Spice 1, Jt The Bigga Figga, C-Bo, Sam Bostic, Brutha Lynch Hung, both Celly Cell and Cellski, Andre Nickatina(!),  Heiro (!?!) and along with the standard B-Legit features he even included his cousins Kaveo & Mugzi, the latter who most of us havent heard hide nor hair of in many moons.

As impressive as all that is, theres one dude who used to be an essential cog in the Sic Wid It machine that it would’ve been great to see 40 reach out to, Levitti. While hardly a hook-man of Nate Dogg’s stature (obviously thats an ocean even the most talented rap & bullshit dudes have never managed to  traverse but any mention of “hook-man” without acknowledging him just seems wrong.), Levitti managed to quietly carve out a pretty respectable career for most of the 90s & early 00s, lacing mostly lesser known Bay Area rappers’ songs with his distinct nasally tone. Thats probably the main reason I like Levitti, maybe he doesnt have the most technical ability but he has a unique voice thats not likely to be mistaken for the thousands of scared of their own cat, prepubescent sounding squares and generic studio beures doing their best Whitney/Mariah impressions, who rappers usually dont even bother to credit on their tracklisting cos they’re so nondescript. Hes got that Anthony Hamilton-”not likely to get beat the fuck up by the average pre-1982 soul dude” OG masculine pomp in spades, he talks like it too. It’d be great if more current Bay Area rappers made use of Levitti, especially since hes now reduced himself to facepalmery like this.

Its probably not a stretch to say the average E-40/The Click fan might not have payed that close attention to who was singing on all those old songs, so I thought it would be good to throw a few of the best ones he contributed to together for anyone who missed out. Since most are likely familiar with 1 Luv and Hot Sunny Day or whatever, the compilation mainly steers clear of the early Sic Wid It classics hes been on, to keep it interesting and shine some light on some thumpers you might have missed.

Man, I cant even remember what the joke with my blog’s name was supposed to be now.

rawwwr rawwwr

After seeing the SuperInternetOFWG producer people mention Sleepy’s Theme on their twitter and reading this excellent interview Complex did with Rico Wade, Ray Murray and Mr DJ (Don’t Let Go!) I figured an important music video list for some of the lesser acknowledged Dungeon Family essentials was needed. Features too. Some of these are well-known classics really but I think they’re in danger of being slept-on when they belong to the same catalog as Hey Ya etc.

 Parental Advisory ft. Eightball – Sundown 

Outkast ft. Cee-Lo – In Due Time

 Society of Soul – Pushin

Goodie Mob – Get Rich To This ft Big Boi

 Slimm Calhoun feat. Andre 3000-It’s Ok 

Sleepy’s Theme – Still Smokin

Backbone – 5 Duce 4 Tre

Mista – Blackberry Mollasses 

Killer Mike – My Chrome ft. Big Boi 

Goodie Mob – Play Your Flutes 

Joi – Missing You

Outkast -Land Of A Million Drums

 Sleepy’s Theme - Curse On You

Malachi – Grimey

Roscoe- Head To Toe ft. Sleepy Brown

Goodie Mob ft. Esthero – The World I Know

86 your one lads

Witchdoctor – Best Year

Big Gipp ft. Sleepy Brown – Steppin Out

 Outkast ft. Raekwon – Skew It On The Bar-B

Cee-Lo – Gettin Grown

Joi- Sunshine And The Rain

Cool Breeze – Cre-A-Tine

Cre-A-Tine was in the Complex thing but it only has 98,000 views somehow. This should’ve had a video too.

a factor, a fixture

 Above The Law - City Of Angels ft. Frost (1996, Tommy Boy)

Its easy to see it being E-40′s influence accounting for some of the progression between Pure Pimp Fene-era and the fully developed Suga Free of 1997 (not just the flow even, a lot of the Unorthodox humour he pepper and salts his shit with could be at least partially atributed to 40 Fonzarelli) but I hear some Cold 187um/Big Hutch and Kokane in there too. Them all being from Pomona supports this, I’m not sure if the shots fired at Hutch here helps or harms my case though.

Even noting them possibilities, hes undoubtedly still the same incredibly unique dude who raps exactly like you’d imagine the most persuasive and natural leader of unfortunate daughters that Californias ever produced would rap. I’m sure if most rapper dudes sat and listened to the man hold court for as long as it took for him to chastise some unlucky spouse/employee about the missing items off his grocery list they’d decide they weren’t built for this after all.

Unlike Rakim* or Mystikal** or E-40*** or anyone else with a style that appears to have an absent father, I always got the impression most of the game Suga Free soaked up was from career pimps who came before him (he says “Black Tone” more than every Ugly Duckling old-school gamedrop combined.) and the rappers just gave him a few minor pointers.

This is related, you should read it.

I’d feel way happier about Mystikal receiving all this long overdue attention if it wasn’t for the horrible real life shit but man is that dude a one-off rapper.

* Jazz. He played saxophone.

** Eddie Murphy’s James Brown impression.

*** He names a heap of them in this song but who the fuck knows really.