EWA100 - #84. Beatnuts - No Escapin' This

84. Beatnuts - No Escapin' This (Loud. 2001. From the LP Take It Or Squeeze It)

Mike Dikk: The typical type of annoying Expert Whiteboy would probably pick “Reign of the Tec” or “World Famous” to represent The Beatnuts in an attempt to prove that they are Tha Rillest of Tha Rill. I’m pretty surprised this song made it over those myself. I like this song, and I really thought this was finally a Beatnuts song that sounded commercially appealing enough to make them a household name, but it didn’t really happen. There were still allusions to rape in the song, so maybe that’s what did it. Some people are so uptight!
I never really think of The Beatnuts as rappers. To me, they’re the crazy Latino dudes who were in The Source wearing Nirvana T-Shirts that have amazing record collections and crate diggin’ skills. No matter how much they tried to clean up, they were still dirty filthy dusty gritty and grimy. That’s a good thing to people like me, but not usually a good thing when it comes to making that G-Unit kind of money. I’m sure they’re not starving, but I really thought this song was going to hit big. I thought the same thing about “Watch Out Now” before it, too, though.
Unfortunately, I think “No Escapin’ This” was their last real chance at mainstream success. I could see them making a huge comeback production-wise the way things are going in the rap world right now, with people once again warming up to sampling, but I don’t see them crafting any 21st century club bangers since people in the club want to shake their ass to noises from Pong and cell phone ringtones these days.

Raven Mack: Damn, I was gonna wax self-importantly about how the Intoxicated Demons EP, with them other songs, was like the soundtrack to tallboys of St. Ides and Hurricane and Red Bull back in the day (the for-real Red Bull that would get you drunk, not the pussy energy drink that fratboys need with their vodka so they can stay awake long enough to date rape some chick in their brah's bed), but Mike sort of took the starch out of that.
This is a great song though, but The Beatnuts have been so consistently good over the years - me being a big fan of their style of tweaked out horn sampled production over the boombap beats that make the whole thing sort of sound like a warehouse party on PCP - that I'd be hard-pressed to pick any one song, other than of course "Reign of the Tec" ("I WANNA FUCK, DRINK BEER, AND SMOKE SOME SHIT!" - probably greatest rap song hook in the history of forever), but if I had to, I guess this would do, if you wanted to make it a Beatnuts-exclusive joint, because I think "Off the Books" was a pretty great song, too, but that was when Puerto Rico rappers were just being able to stop pretending they were just yellowboned black dudes, and half of Puerto Rico was on that track. (For all the boriquas on the set, just so you know in advance, Nore's "Mas Maiz" is not on this list anywhere, sadly enough, which won't allow for Whiteboy exploration of full steezies.)
And really, the grimy is the best shit. I usually feel out of place like a fuckin' feral dude raised by eunuch goats, and sometimes I try to trick myself into thinking I can assimilate into this world and carve a nice healthy fat piece of money pie for me and my offspring, but then I look around at the pop culture landscape and see The Beatnuts on the fringe in the obscure corners of old hip hop, and The Neptunes are nothing but glossy 8x10s all over everything and everybody acts like that's the greatest shit to ever make a beat and music critics fight each other to piss on themselves first over a Neptunes project (see The Clipse circa 2006), and I realize I ain't ever gonna fit in. You can wipe a little grime on a shiny surface to make it seem more rebellious and daring for marketing value, but it wipes back off if necessary. A grimy-ass surface never holds gloss though. Fuckin' stupid world.

Download: Beatnuts - No Escapin' This

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