EWA100 - #86. Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard

86. Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard (Rumble. 1997. From the EP Jurassic 5)

Mike Dikk: I’ve intentionally avoided Jurassic 5 for a long time, and now I’m forced to confront them because of this dumb list. Ever since I heard the pre-release hype about them bringing back the “Rappity rap rap we’re rappin’ to the beat!” old school, I made a note to never listen to them on purpose. Unfortunately, I know I’ve caught some of their songs here and there, just because I recognize Charlie 2na’s weird voice, but I couldn’t tell you the names of the songs I’ve heard. I know their most recent failure featured Dave Matthews. They really couldn’t have picked anyone else to make me dislike them more. Perhaps Meatloaf or the dude from Creed?
Now that I’ve listened to this song a bunch of times in a row, I can form an honest opinion on why I don’t like these guys. They take the same type of old school posturing that Black Star had then wrung it through a west coast hippie rap filter, which is one of my most despised subgenres of rap. I’m not from the west coast, and I’ve never been, so I don’t understand why everyone from there sounds so god damn cheerful, even when they’re not trying to. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a pretty gigantic, obsessive fan of Madlib, but I really don’t place him in that hippie rap category. He’s just some dude who unfortunately happens to be from the west coast.
This song really didn’t win me over either. It’s long for no reason, and sounds like something that would be too bohemian for even Dave Chappelle to listen to. These guys outgay Common. I really hope Raven has some kind of personal introspective piece to make up for all this irrational hatred I have toward Jurassic 5.

Raven Mack: Jurassic 5 is like a really hot college hippie chick - hardcore hippie with dreadlocks, not halfway trustafarian rocking the sorority DMB sticker on leased SUV with out-of-state plates style - and you finally get together to smoke some weed and you know she doesn't wear panties. The first time or two, it's very exciting and quite enjoyable, because of the freshness of the experience. But then, on like the third time sitting there listening to her aka Jurassic 5, it's that same ol' shit you kinda figured they were gonna say already.
Now to be fair, I don't mind Jurassic 5 in small doses, as it's the perfect type of rap that a man can play and his wife and two daughters won't mind at all, nor will they learn stupid euphemisms for oral sex or anything far too early in their life. It's like ez listening rap music, and eventually the man's wife and two daughters will play it more often and more often, and the man will just tune it out, blocking it internally with really bad southern rap chant hooks by guys with stupid names like Richboy or Jewman or Lil Boosie. But separating different Jurassic 5 songs from each other or even putting one on this list is like arguing with somebody over what Elton John song is the greatest and how it should be right next to "Freebird" or "Crazy Train" as a rock-n-roll anthem. I'm not down with that.
But hey, it's hippie rap, and white girls are down with the hippie rap, and if there's one thing in this whole hip hop world that both the expert whiteboy analysts and the thugged out ghetto fabricated dark-skin homeboys can agree on, it's that white girls sure are fun to have sex with.

Download: Jurassic 5 - Concrete Schoolyard

I guess there's no real music video for this song, but there's around 1,000 live videos. Those are boring, so instead, I'm going to go with this video of unattractive English people doing some kind of country line/ballroom dancing hybrid to this song. I've seen some dumb shit on Youtube, but after watching this clip for the full nine and a half minutes. I had to go and take a shower to wash away the shame. If you didn't hate Jurassic 5 before reading this, you probably will now: