EWA100 - #52. Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads

52. Public Enemy - Night Of The Living Baseheads (Def Jam/Columbia. 1988. From the LP It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back)

Mike Dikk: All of my early memories of Public Enemy are jumbled into this big ball of media controversy. I remember things like Do The Right Thing becoming a breakthrough movie for Spike Lee simultaneously with “Fight The Power” becoming a breakthrough song for PE. I remember watching “Welcome to the Terrordome” for the first time in this video store I spent a lot of time at after school in 6th and 7th grade. I remember Professer Griff being kicked out of PE for hating Jews (at the time, I was still kind of unclear what a Jew was), and also hating jewelry because it was obviously made by Jews since the first three letters in jewelry are JEW. I remember white people being afraid that such a pro-black album like Fear of A Black Planet sold millions of copies. I remember “I got a letter from the government, the other day...”
Remembering “Night of the Living Baseheads” is a bit trickier for me. I know I saw it sometime shortly after “Fight The Power” broke. It was one of the few rap videos to get regular airplay on MTV and then after that, they’d show every PE video ever made in order to capitalize on PE’s rising stardom. I know I wasn’t even aware of “Night of the Living Baseheads” when I first saw it because I thought it was clearly superior to “Fight The Power” and I wondered why they didn’t play this video instead of “Fight The Power”. Honestly, I didn’t even see that video very many times after that.
I’m not even sure how “Fight The Power” became their breakthrough video. Did it take mainstream media that long to notice how fucking angry these dudes were? They certainly had an arguably angrier back catalog. Maybe that’s what the problem was. Until “Fight The Power”, PE was too angry and the beats were too insane.
I don’t believe that bullshit though. “Fight The Power” had a monumental movie backing it up, and “Night of the Living Baseheads” had nothing, outside of speaking the truth about the crack epidemic. You have to wonder if Flav was thinking, “Man, Chuck needs to chill. This crack shit is dope,” during the recording of this song.
This is definitely my favorite PE song. The Bomb Squad transformed a simple horn sample into a crazy seizure inducing alarm that conjures up all these visions in my head of 1966 style Batman being stuck on a sinking ship, scrambling around and fighting The Penguin’s henchmen with all those colorful action bubbles popping up all over the place.
I know I’m not supposed to be thinking about wacky antics while listening to such a grim slab of street reality, but that’s how my mind works because I am at heart, a dorky goofball. This song may not personally make you think of men in tights, but in my world, it’s one of the highest compliments I can pay to a song.

Raven Mack: I'm from a completely different place on this one, as I can't forget this shit. Like I said in the long-winded intro way back in 2004 when we started this list, my high school was about half-and-half, and plus it had all sorts of racial guilt and shit hanging over it for having shut down the school systems back in the '60s. But our high school dances were always DJed by crazy mad hip hop DJs of the semi-local variety, with names like Blue Thunder and Sam the Beast (Sam even had a regional hit with a go-go influenced song called "Gucci Time" at one point). Farmville is a crazy retarded place, full of talent and hope, but nothing but hopelessness and dead dreams to meet that. Lady of Rage is from there. Fever's, the club in town, is mentioned for hosting weekend parties on the Richmond stations because it's notorious.
Well, I dabbled in all cultures most of my life, getting down with stickweeds of ghetto smoke as well as burning bowls with the prep kids. I like to keep my options open. So I'd go to the school dances, mostly because it was pretty dark and lawless and we'd drink grain alcohol mixed with grape Kool-Aid, and I'd get all fucked up and try to dip my finger in a young vagina, usually only to get more drunk than have adolescent sexual thrills.
Usually, they'd have the dances in the cafeteria with all the shit cleared out, but I remember they had one one time in the actual gym, because you had phys ed teachers checking your shoes upon entrance to make sure you wouldn't fuck up the floors. It might've been Sam the Beast that night, because he was the guy they brought in for the heavyweight school dances, but they threw on the "Night of the Living Baseheads" megamix, and I was probably higher than fuck or drunker than fuck or mesmerized by young pussy, but something was up, and that shit cracked my cranium. I mean, I had heard the original version, but the crazy remix just fucked me up. And they played that shit at a school dance. (You stupid fuckin' kids with your chicken noodle dance bullshit, and your goddamned white t-shirts dragging behind you like a ballgown. And don't you know wearing two earrings means you're a fag?)
I ended up getting the full length PE Nation of Millions tape because this dude Evil Ed who was my main man had quit school at 16 and was working with some slum-ass white dude named Doug from nearby Cumberland, and we rode around one Friday night listening to music and getting high. I found Nation of Millions on the floor under the backseat and asked to pop it in, and whiteboy Doug was all like, "Man, we can't play that shit, that shit's old. The brothers will laugh our ass out the parking lot," while we were cruising. It's funny to remember with retro-minded internerd whiteboy blog upload culture that there was a time where if you weren't listening to the brand new shit, you were a fuckin' herb. But Doug didn't even want that tape, so I asked could I have it, and he said yeah, because it was some old shit. I've still got that exact same tape, although I lost the cover a few years back when I decided I didn't need to keep tape covers or cases anymore and only the shell itself and dumped them all into a couple big grocery bags.
But it is funny, I think some of my resentment of the whole Fear Of A Black Planet era PE is because Nation of Millions is a far superior Black Planet-style record, yet every redneck kid in shop class was jocking "Welcome To The Terrordome" like it was the newest shit that was ever new. The beats on Nation are far more insane, and the lyrics are far more revolutionary, so thinking about white dudes who used the word "nigger" to me regularly reciting the lyrics to "Terrordome" kind of negates any greatness that album might've held. It's more like a Uncle Tom Farrakhan shuck-and-jive routine in my memory bank.
Of course, I'm a white dude typing into the blogosphere about stupid shit about what PE record is more revolutionary. I always get on Chuck D for being a sell-out bitch, but look at me, sitting here typing words on a screen. And I don't even get paid. This is a stupid fuckin' world, and it makes you realize why people like crack.

Download: Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads

Watch the video:

Cock Box

I got one of those chat boxes all the kids like. It's in the sidebar right before the links. Basically I'm just lazy and I want to people to leave their shills for their sites right on my own page so I don't have to do any extra searching and I can just sit here and eat icy white honey buns all day. If the thing pisses me off, and it probably will, because everything on earth pisses me off, I'll take it down, but for now, GO NUTS!

EWA100 - #53. Black Sheep - The Choice is Yours

53. Black Sheep - The Choice Is Yours (Mercury. 1991. From the LP A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing)

Raven Mack: It took me a long time to get up for writing about this song, not because I never liked it, because I still own the Black Sheep tape and it sits solidly in my grocery bag full of old cassettes, but when I thought back on Black Sheep when they blew up, I remembered I didn’t rock out to them forever, because they were white girl music.
Now, I am a white guy, so I’m not hating on white girls. I love white girls as much as anybody, for the obvious reasons, but when it comes to hip hop, white girls take up a different space than white guys. (This does not mean those white girls who become impregnated with blackness and start rocking the too-tight ponytail and big hoop earrings and talk like they grew up in Brooklyn even though the last nine generations of their family has lived just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina; this is more about those forever-white white girls who will eventually live happily married to a white guy and drive a soccer mom starter car – usually a Subaru of some sort – to go out and get organic things to put inside the family’s bellies.) But there’s a certain watered-down acceptability of hip hop for white girls. I mean, white guys can see the inherent beauty in smoking too much weed, drinking Beam, and swerving through the night while blasting Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted. White girls don’t see the goodness in that shit… it’s all too assaulting. They like happier more laid-back rap, tolerating sex talk so long as it’s not too explicit, and very little gun talk. Native Tongues, Good Life Health Food Café, Black Star type shit. Hell, it’s only because of white girls that anyone on earth would even consider G. Love & Special Sauce a form of rap music. Basically, white girl rap has to go good with Bob Marley.
Well, in my memory bank, I remember white girls being mad into Black Sheep, that was acceptable rap music for them. I guess that’s why I don’t retroflect kindly back at Black Sheep. Though this song was EVERYWHERE when it was big. Everywhere. But I only seem to remember the white girls.
This also could stem from me having just started college when this came out, and the prospect of mining crazy amounts of white girl sugar walls was there, but I was never motivated enough to carve a thousand notches on the headboard. And I’m sure Dres got crazy white girl sugar walls at that point, so perhaps there’s some playa hatred on my part involved. But probably not, because I never gave a fuck about other people getting more ass than me. I think it’s more just the whole white girl stigma I’ve put in my head, because rap music for me is about getting loud and getting crazy and getting chinky-eyed and, from my experiences, the injection of a white girl’s mentality into your life is usually a shackle upon that type of carefree recklessness. Chicks tend to care about shit so much that they don’t ignore it, whereas I care about things, but when presented with a choice to get loose as fuck without regard for my own well-being or future financial stability, it easily overwhelms my ability to care about shit I’m supposed to do.
So I’ve talked very little about the song itself… basically, if you’re a white chick, you’re gonna love this song if you’ve never heard it. But you’ve already heard it. I bet you’ve even done the running man while listening to it.

Mike Dikk: I always assumed that I would hate this song fifteen years after its release, but I don’t. For some reason, I thought it would replace “The Electric Slide” at weddings and like-minded functions, but it never got to that. I still think that by the time I’m in my 40s, it will be a wedding staple. It’s kind of like that whole Camp Lo “Luchini” scenario I wrote about. I’ll be forever programmed to love this song as time passes me by.
Though I’ve listened to “The Choice is Yours” nearly 15 million times in my life, I have one vivid memory related to it that sticks out more than others. I don’t mean to cheapen it, but the same vivid memory could be used for Fu Schnickens “La Schmoove” too, but that didn’t make the list, even though I nominated it. People be hatin’ on Fu Schnickens, so I was alone on that one.
When I was in 8th grade, I still lived in a poor city. We didn’t have middle schools like normal towns for some weird reason. Instead, all schools were K-8. So when you finished 8th grade it was a big deal because you were in the same fucking school for nine years of your life and you were finally done with it.
Our 8th grade graduation trip was basically supposed to be as important as a high school senior’s prom. Our regular year-end field trips would usually be to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, but for 8th grade, we went to this place called Holiday Hills. It was like a resort for preteens. I’m not sure if this is like a common thing or if it was exclusive to my area, but I still think a resort for preteens is a weird thing. I’m sure you could rent the place for family reunions or something, but I know it was mainly used for kids.
Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it was for kids who lived in cities who didn’t have grass and stuff, because that’s basically what it was. A bunch of grassy fields designated for specific sports, then trails and stuff. The whole place was swarming with 13- and 14-year-olds from all different city schools in the surrounding area and very few adult supervisors.
I don’t think many of the kids participated in any actual activities. We all just kind of walked around bullshitting with each other and trying to meet girls from other schools. I did meet a girl there. We went on a hayride together. Then I gave her my number and she never called me. THAT BITCH.
Anyway, this song, along with “La Schmoove” and a few other megahits of the moment were being blasted from every walkman and boombox in the vicinity. This is also when I had my solid red Etonics which are probably number two on my All-Time Favorite Sneakers I’ve owned list. I know right now, “Etonics” conjures up pictures of old ladies in ugly walking shows, but for a short time, Etonics were the shit, and every kid had a different solid color of Etonics. I don’t know why I liked the red ones so much, because my favorite color has always been blue, and most of my designer fad sneakers at that time were always blue if that was a choice... but I digress.
There was this Pavilion in the middle of the whole field/resort/nature trail thing, where I think you ate hot dogs and hung out if you were an inside kid like me. There was a stage off to the corner of it, and I remember a group of girls from my school in jumpers with one strap unbuttoned and loud House shirts doing an elaborate Fly Girls/Def Comedy Jam style dance to this song while everyone watched. For some reason, that memory sticks out in my mind the most when I randomly hear “The Choice is Yours”, which is still quite often. It’s still a staple on Old School Throwback Urban Jamz Radio segments, and it kind of sucks when they play it, because the two bit DJ will always extend the “Engine Engine, Number 9” part out for entirely too long.
It’s no secret that I kind of hate nature. I’m really comfortable around concrete and gloom and dirty grey buildings, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was a really great day in my life. Being outside in the sun basically unsupervised meeting kids from all over the state without having to worry about the traditional downers of city life was a pretty unique experience to me and most of my friends, so it meant a lot to me. At that point, it was probably the greatest day of my life, but since then I’ve grown up and managed to do a lot of things on my volition that would qualify as great days. Still though, a lot of those great days I’ve had in my grown up years were doing Inside Kid things. Very few, if any, have to do with being at a crazy country resort for city kids and watching my fellow classmates get down to “The Choice is Yours” and going on hayrides with girls from distant schools. It totally made up for getting forced into playing Knuckles with the scary kids on the bus ride up.

Download: Black Sheep - The Choice is Yours

Watch the video:

EWA100 - #54. Dr. Dre - Deep Cover

54. Dr. Dre (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg) - Deep Cover (Epic/Solar/Triple X. 1992. From the LP Deep Cover Soundtrack)

Mike Dikk: This was the song that introduced the world to a young man full of piss and vinegar by the name of Snoop Doggy Dogg. It also introduced us to Dr. Dre: Solo Artist. I didn’t really know what to expect from Dr. Dre at that point in time. Mainly because I was like 13 and didn’t really think deeply about stuff like if Dr. Dre would be better on his own or if he’d fade into obscurity. I mostly thought about comic books and how I was probably going to die a virgin because I was kind of fat and had acne.
It’s hard to think back to those times. I don’t mean the whole dying a virgin thing, that’s just dumb. No one dies a virgin, unless you’re my friend Jew Jay who is like the most socially awkward man on the face of the earth. I meant back to a time when Snoop’s flow was totally mesmerizing. The way he wove his way through the beat with his low key tone, even sort of doing this breathy whisper thing to emphasize certain lines like a thugged out Sade. Even from this one song alone, you could tell the sky was the limit for this dude, and it was. He’s like 30 albums deep into a career and still as relevant to teenagers as he was when I was a teenager. I may not like him all that much anymore, but he’s a true entertainer, and you have to respect that.
Not only was the rapping A++ Would Buy Again material, but this beat is easily in my top ten all time favorite beats. I know there have been literally millions of written orgasms ejaculated all over The Chronic, but this is still my favorite Dre beat ever. I know it would end up being a bad idea in the long run, but I really think this beat should be brought back once a year for some kind of all star posse cut. Like the five best rappers of that given year get to rap over it. When it came out, I listened to it on repeat for days. Now it’s kind of hard to do that because I know they’re only rapping about a really bad movie. At that time I still hadn’t seen Deep Cover, and I wish I never did. I will say this was the only song ever to encourage me to watch a movie though, so I hope Dre and Snoop got royalties on the box office sales.
Speaking of which, that was just an amazing time for rap music intertwined with movies as a whole. There were a ton of soundtracks coming out full of original five-star rap music. It’s hard for me to choose the best rap soundtrack of all time. I’d probably end up going with Juice, but this remains the all-time best rap song specifically written for a movie. Unless you’re into Will Smith. He had that Wild, Wild West jam that was pretty hot. So yeah, either Dre & Snoop’s “Deep Cover” or Will Smith’s “Wild West Summertime Just Don’t Understand Men In Black” song is the greatest soundtrack rap song of all time. I’m sticking with Dre and Snoop myself, but maybe I’m tougher than you and you don’t get down that way.

Raven Mack: This was some serious shit. That beat is out of control and it is weird to think how Snoop was this AMAZING RETARDED UNHEARD OF DISCOVERY back then, which when combined with Dre on his new jack gangsta beatmaking without the sneaky shadow of that Jerry Heller dude's devil-horned hand in his pockets, it was a double dropkick that propelled both to the point they're at now, where they can half-heartedly mail in shit on the regular, cash a fat paycheck, and still somehow not sound as stupid as about half of the people who are young and fresh trying to do the shit with whatever passion they might have.
In the process of writing these blurbs, which have taken months that you don't see in reading them, because me and Mike both suffer from about a thousand different obsessions, not to mention real life triflings, I am amazed that "G Thang" is so far below this. And I'm also amazed that this is so low. There's a serious west coast bias on this list, which we tried to avoid, but I guess it turns out it was expert east coast whiteboy analysis in the long run. I mean, "Jus Lyke Compton" isn't even on this list either, and J.J. Fad's "Supersonic" never even got a sniff of the nominations list I don't think. Fuckin' stupid.
It's also funny thinking back to "Deep Cover" days about Snoop being all skinny and short-haired, basically looking Pete Rock's Long Beach angle-faced cousin, and now, you never see Snoop without a big shit-eating grin on his face. This is because he is rich, and high. Most of us in life hit that point where we decide those two things are a fork and we must choose one or the other, but he steamrolled right into having it all. I don't know what Dre does now since I don't think anyone ever sees him. I usually just imagine he sits around like a Mormon in a big mansion somewhere, with his eldest black wife, who always cooks Sunday dinner, and he's got himself like two other white wives, but they are the eldest wife, so if it comes down to going to the Grammys or some shit, black wife is the one who gets the plus-one designation. And Dre just kind of kicks it, with a staff of four or five people seeking out talent for him, which means they get hundreds and hundreds of files of dudes hooking up beats who want to hook up with The Dr. Dre, and they each sort through the crap and bring Dre like three or four songs a week, so Dre takes those songs and picks what five or six each week he wants to steal from unsuspecting passionate young production wizards spending their idle hours all night long poking buttons on their G5s, and maybe Dre will rearrange this or that and maybe add a string section part since string sections equal pop success all throughout the history of pop music, and he sits back and gets paid, having learned well the lessons Jerry Heller taught him the hard way. It'd be nice to hear him and Snoop have some passion again like this shit though.

Download: Dr. Dre - Deep Cover

Watch the video:

FRESH GEAR BRO!

My semi-longtime friend and ex-partner in Face Rocking, Scot A. Burro, along with a person i don't know in real life, has started up a nifty little T-shirt company that all you silly bastards should check out if you want to look the freshest come summer time. As I said, they're just starting up, so they only offer 4 designs at the moment (one of which, is the pic above), and they're all $18 postage paid. This is all top quality shit printed on high end T shirts. All designs are multi-colored, so the $18 fee isn't ridiculous like some "Designer T-Shirt" Fraud Masters that have no problem charging you $25 or more plus shipping for a one color one-sided print, when they know full well that shit was no more than $6 per shirt to print up. Fucking assheads. Anyway check them out and tell your fashion conscious friends.

ALOHA VICTORY T-SHIRTS

If you tell them Mike Dikk sent you over, you probably won't recieve a discount.

Also, I should have another EWA post up later on as long as I don't forget about it.

EWA100 - #55. MC Lyte - Lyte as a Rock

55. MC Lyte - Lyte As A Rock (First Priority. 1988. From the LP Lyte As A Rock)

Raven Mack: I'll be honest... I didn't even remember this song when we did this list (which means I never voted for it, but in our group think system, it ended up this high). I downloaded it for the purpose of pretending I know what the fuck I'm talking about right here, and it's a decent enough song I guess. It definitely shows why MC Lyte was like the only serious female MC for the first 20 years of hip hop. Anybody else (Roxannes, Latifah, I guess Salt-n-Pepa) just sort of moved through as a gimmick. But Lyte was a serious MC, like a dude. That's probably why folks thought she was a dyke and she had to start making songs like that "I wanna a ruffneck" track.
But I can't act like this is the greatest song or anything, because this isn't even close, even upon heavy inspection, close to what I'd consider the greatest MC Lyte song ever. That would be one of her earliest singles, "10% Dis", which my boy Paul - or more likely his older brother - had on 7-inch way back in the day, like when the only rap we knew of was from the shitty AM radio station on Saturday nights out of Farmville that usually just played funk gospel the rest of the week. I saw some bullshit pre-packaged blogosphere-ready collection of "dis" songs the other day on the enter-web, and it didn't even have this track. Shit, I don't even know who she was dissing. In my convoluted mind, I know she was related to Audio Two, and MC Shy D was on that same label too, and Shy D was Miami's original rapper, so I think in the back of my alcohol-ravaged and drug-damaged head, I've always thunk Lyte was from Miami and she was probably dissing Trina.
So yeah, MC Lyte... she wasn't just a woman rapper, she was a for-real rapper... like probably about the 1,079th best rapper ever. Maybe she should've dressed to show off her breasts a little better or something.

Mike Dikk: Anything having to do with ladies doing stuff is always a touchy subject for me to write about, because I’m missing the regular PC filter most people have in their brains that stop them from saying sexist shit. I really don’t mean it, at least I don’t think I mean it, but it just comes out whether I like it or not.
This is also a weird one for me because I’m usually on the side of most other male rap fans that think lady rappers suck or are just too busy rapping about their vaginas for me to relate. I was ready to fluff my way through this one to avoid confrontation, but then I thought about how MC Lyte had a whole gang of songs better than this one. THEN, that got me all confused, because maybe this really is the best MC Lyte song, but I’m too sexist to see that because I like her manlier songs more. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I’m not sexist because I like more than one MC Lyte song and I can recognize them if they were played and to ignore the fact that in the beginning of this song when Milk D is talking, I always thought it was MC Lyte because they have the same voice, possibly because MC Lyte is secretly a dude or even freakier, Milk D is really MC Lyte and that’s why no one’s heard from Milk D in quite a while, kind of like how Michael Jackson and LaToya Jackson have never been in the same place at the same time.
Listen here fucker. I am not a sexist. Sometimes I just think dudes are better at things than ladies. I’ve owned the Hoes With Attitude record, which taught me what a Kotex was, thus making me closer and able to relate to the female species. I also bought that Boss tape the day it came out because that “Deeper” song was the shit, though deep down I wished a man used the beat and not a fake lady gangsta rapper. Nevermind that. I am not a sexist. I just wish “Cha Cha Cha” or “Cappucino” or a number of other MC Lyte songs were chosen so I could talk about how much I loved them like the non-sexist I am. FUCK MAN, WOULD A SEXIST EVEN KNOW TITLES TO MC LYTE SONGS?!?! I THINK NOT.

Download: MC Lyte - Lyte as a Rock

The only video link to this song on Youtube doesn't allow embedding, so here is a clip of "The Hip Hop All Stars" on The Arsenio Hall Show. I believe MC Lyte is in there somewhere.

Nice Weather Mix

We finally have nice weather up here in Albany. Last week was a bullshit snowstorm, so hopefully it stays like this. I made a short little mix to commemorate the nice weather, but mainly because we have a "MAKE A MIX" thread going up on our little fruity message board.

These are all songs that remind me personally of nice weather. I wouldn't classify them all as "Summer jamz" or anything like that. Just songs I use as little bookmarks in my brain to remember fun times I had during the brief spurts of nice weather we northeasterners get.

It's mixed together as one continuous track. I was going to cut it up into separate tracks but Audacity gets frustrating to use after a while. The only real flaw in the mix is that I should have dug up my own Fu-Schnickens CD instead of using a shitty quality mp3. I figured the 8 people that will end up bothering to download this won't mind that much. Here's the tracklist and link. Enjoy:

Keith West - On A Saturday
Quasimoto - Good Morning Sunshine
A Tribe Called Quest - Check The Rhime
Trick Daddy - I'm A Thug
Three 6 Mafia & La Chat - Baby Mama
Field Mob - Project Dreamz
Debbie Deb - When I Hear Music
Eazy E - Boyz N The Hood (Remix)
M.I.A. - Galang
The Go! Team - Ladyflash
Fu-Schnickens - La Schmoove
Sa-Ra Creative Partners - NYC
The Streets - Blinded by the Light
XTC - Making Plans For Nigel
Quasimoto - Come on Feet
Chicago - Saturday in the Park

57 MB. 62 minutes, 30 Seconds

CLICK RIGHT HERE IF YOU WANT TO JAM OUT TO THIS JANK

EWA100 - #56. Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day

56. Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day (Priority. 1992. From the LP The Predator)

Mike Dikk: In an extreme act of typical Expert Whiteboy know-it-all hoity-toityness, I tried my damndest to get “Steady Mobbin’” on this list over “It Was A Good Day”. Content-wise, it’s basically the same damn song to me, except one is more angry than happy, though I can see how this could have been viewed as a subtle way for me to prove how Rilly Rill I am by not bowing down to the single that would propel Ice Cube to mainstream status.
Truthfully though, I understand that if you were to randomly hear an old Ice Cube song, it would most likely be “It Was A Good Day” because it was his one real universal hit (for good reason), but on a personal level, I would most likely end up listening to “Steady Mobbin’” over “It Was A Good Day” because I never listen to the record “It Was A Good Day” was on because it kind of sucks, especially compared to the first two.
See, it wasn’t because of me trying to prove my Rillness, it was because sometimes I get caught up in the fact that I spend most of my time alone on a computer chair not speaking out loud, confined in an office or a bedroom. I tend to forget other people exist because I get so caught up in what I’m doing and depending on the circumstances, like if the specific thing I’m doing really sucks, I’ll zone out to pass the time and forget other people exist on purpose. I’m not saying this in an oppressive way like how, say, a Raven Mack would say it. I’ve grown pretty comfortable in my secure little fantasy land probably because I’ve spent my entire life in cold climates and harsh areas where I don’t really want to go outside too often. Then you add on that, just like everyone else on earth, I have/had issues like my name was Jonathan Davis, and you can understand that my mentality is more “Steady Mobbin’” than “It Was A Good Day”.
In the end, I kind of woke up and put aside thing like how The Predator is a shitty record I never listen to and that cold weather gets to me too much though I tell myself it’s not because I’m mental, but because every single thing you fucking look at in the winter will mention seasonal depression and blah blah blah. Then once I kicked my own self in the ass, I realized that even if I think “Steady Mobbin’” is a great song, I wish I had more reason to listen to “It Was A Good Day” than “Steady Mobbin”. I can’t separate “It Was a Good Day” from nice weather and being happy, even though if you asked some egghead music journalist to wax poetic about “It Was A Good Day”, he would say some shit how the music and tone is in stark contrast to the hardcore reality of the The Hood and all that other happy horseshit, but none of that is my concern.
“It Was A Good Day” reminds me of times before the internet sucking up my soul, and full time jobs and debt and bills, and rapidly getting older and fatter. Times when I could get dressed, go outside and sit on a stoop and play Crazy 8s all day and find the fun in that. Sometimes I try and relive that kind of childish nonsense, but sitting on the stoop isn’t fun anymore, and playing Crazy 8s is even less fun because your senses are constantly being attacked and raped by newer, better technology and I can’t appreciate shit like chilling in the park on an uncharacteristically nice day smoking a joint because I’ve grown content with wanting and needing and consuming every new and exciting thing thrown at me. Though deep down I wish I could erase all this mess and go back to enjoying all the stuff “It Was a Good Day” represents to me, but it’s kind of hard to up and change your lifestyle because you feel like a jerkoff for embracing it. Jesus, this got a bit too heavy for a lighthearted music piece, but it was quite cathartic for me. Thank you, EWA.

Raven Mack: I mostly heard this track on the BET hit video machine, because I also had pegged The Predator as a shitty album, when compared to Ice Cube’s first two. Shit, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted is one of the most underrated albums in hip hop ever, because people don’t fellate upon that like it’s an all-time classic like I feel they should.
This is a great feel-good song though, yet one that got so mainstream that Keith Olbermann used to say on ESPN Sportscenter “messed around and got a triple double”. Now, Keith Olbermann preaches incessantly while wearing a suit about how other dudes who wear suits are not preaching incessantly enough about the right things. That is why Ice Cube is making family movies. He has been assimilated, incorporated, and totally evaporated from his days sporting a jheri curl underneath a hockey team baseball hat.
Man, if I had a dollar for every time in my life I heard a white person say, “and I didn’t even have to use my AK…” in an ironic comedic manner on a beautiful sunny day, I’d have enough money to buy a Greyhound ticket to California, to stand around hoping I’d see the Goodyear blimp say “Raven Mack’s a pimp”, only to end up getting robbed by a pack of teenage homosexual prostitutes.
I remember at the end of this video, there was that change in pace where all the helicopters and cop cars and shit showed up at Cube’s house as he pulled home in his Impala, and I guess that was to be continued in the next episode, but I never gave a shit to see his next video, so I’ve always assumed it was actually a police department led by Common in a funny argyle cop hat that looked like something Rollo from Good Times would wear, and Cube ran in the house and WC and Mack 10 saved him by shooting hard lyrics out the windows for a while, until Common got a beep on his beeper about a thematic down-low party before people knew what down-low really meant to black men, so he split with all the cops, and finally Cube could come back outside, and just in time for him to have a big ol’ yard sale where he could sell his soul to a couple of old Jew dudes who slap-stuck him into some family comedies to squeeze big money out of a small budget flick. Sad thing is, I bet they were country club buddies with Jerry Heller, and Cube never even knew it.

Download: Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day

Watch the video:

EWA100 - #57. Biz Markie - Just A Friend

57. Biz Markie - Just A Friend (Cold Chillin'. 1989. From the LP The Biz Never Sleeps)

Raven Mack: There's a lot of things out there that make me embarrassed to being born an American, which I of course had no choice in, things like American Idols and Anna Nicole Smith and the way Jeff Gordon talks and how people on TV use the word "blogosphere" when it gets near election time, not to mention the creepy shit like porn obsessions and dudes who like to wear diapers or be forced to watch their wives have sex with other dudes against their will. It's easy to see why a machismo-soaked third world country would want to blow us apart with the effeminate leading men we have on our TV programs, which we force-beam around the world because we are the leaders of the free world - which means commercials for shit you should buy, not some grand philosophical idealogy. And when I get hung up on the major media or look at crappy music magazines with shit like Puff Daddy pretending he's tough and sexy or Fallout Boy looking cuter than most girls I've ever fucked, it fills me with a hate too and were I to believe in some sort of mythical god-figure like Muhammad or God or whoever, I would want them to throw all these fucks off the mountain too, to not clutter my view not so much with their perversions against decent living, because I don't care about that so much, but just to not clutter my view with their unloungingness. My basic philosophical mantra is we should all be able to chill, and shit like that makes it too uncomfortable to chill, or it creates sub-cultures of little identity-less basketcases who latch onto that as their identity.
However, when I remove myself from mass media and the molasses crawl of suburban sprawl, cars stalled out at endless red lights in front of chain stores with branded logos I can get on credit, I remember things like junkyards full of wrecked cars and old ladies frying up chicken and people like Biz Markie. It makes me sort of proud to have been accidentally born where I by chance was born, because no other country has such large stacks of junk cars or Biz Markie, and if they have old ladies frying up chicken, those old ladies don't talk in a way I find understandable. But seriously, Biz Markie is like the biggest, ugliest dude you could ever meet, but he's a goofy fuck who has carved a steady cashflow for himself.
"Just A Friend" is like the most shining example of Mr. Markie at his most Bizness. This is one of those songs - maybe one of only like two or three that I can think of - that when you hear it, not only do you want to sing along but you want to yell along as loud as you can, obnoxiously but in a good-natured way. It brings you happiness inside. If we could export material culture like "Just A Friend" but filter it into local dialects, I think the world would think so much higher of us Americans as opposed to knowing us as the land of double penetrations and Jessica Simpson's stretched tarpaulin face.

Mike Dikk: If there were to be one of those Myspace-styled dumbass surveys personalized to be exclusively about me, one of the questions could be: What song is Mike most likely to hand drum on a table?. The answer, of course, is “Just A Friend”. It’s kind of a trick question though, since it’s the only song I can competently air drum and still sing along to outside of “We Will Rock You” by Queen, which doesn’t count because you’d have to be brain dead to not do that. Like Raven said, this song was made to be yelled to anytime you hear it, or in my case, if you feel the need to air drum on a table, which hasn’t really hit me since high school when I was chilling with Boyz II Men and they needed something to acapella to.
The video to this song was also a very important first for me. It was the first video where I saw an article of clothing blurred out. The article was Biz’s Nike sweatshirt that he’s wearing on the park bench, which is only blurred out in the scenes where it’s really noticeable. I never understood what that was all about, but I imagined that maybe instead of NIKE it said FUCK or maybe there were titties discreetly drawn in there somewhere. I guess Biz and co. just didn’t want to risk getting sued or something, since this took place in the days before sneaker companies looked at rap music as a highly lucrative investment. As we all know, now every rap video ever has something blurred out in it, because all those rappers are always up to no good, showing the ladies inhumanly jiggling their asses and rolling marijuana cigarettes right in the videos. Why can’t they wait until after the video is over?
Also, the extended version of the song features Biz and his crew telling mama jokes at the beginning which was easily my favorite hobby at the time. I was really banking on telling mama jokes becoming a legit sport so I could be a millionaire by now. You may know the foreigner from That '70s Show hosts a show on MTV now called “YO MOMMA”, which features possibly the worst mother jokes ever to be told in the history of comedy, and the sad fact is I’m most likely too old, fat, and ugly to be chosen on that show and clean up. Though I think the winners only get $100 and a steak dinner, and I also heard that most of the people on that show are actors with agents and shit, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of me wanting to participate.
Annnnyhoo, If there was ever a song to universally bring dudes scorned by trifling bitches together, and let them laugh about the whole thing, it’s this song. Unfortunately, I think most people view Biz as a loveable loser getting shot down because he’s an ugly fucker, and not because women are trifling bitches and play that “Just A Friend” card with everyone, not just ugly fuckers.

Download: Biz Markie - Just A Friend

Watch the video:

EWA100 - #58. De La Soul - Me, Myself & I

58. De La Soul - Me, Myself & I (Tommy Boy. 1989. From the LP 3 Feet High And Rising)

Mike Dikk: I tend to read a lot of lists pertaining to music. Hell, I tend to make a lot of lists pertaining to music. It’s just what I do. I’m only capable of writing well in blurbs because of this whole I WANT MY MTV A.D.D. generation I’m a part of that makes my brain stupid. Anyway, if you’re like me and you read a lot of lists in bigger, mainstream magazines, specifically about hip hop, you’ll notice a lot of them are made solely to put either 3 Feet High And Rising or Paul’s Boutique in the top spot. Some more progressive lists will even throw DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing in there too, depending on the criteria. Any average moron can tell you what these three records have in common. They all rely heavily (in Entroducing’s case, completely) on samples. In fact, 3 Feet High... and Paul’s Boutique came out a mere eight weeks apart from each other. Both records shared similar ideas and Paul’s Boutique was supposedly recorded and finished before 3 Feet High..., but De La Soul beat them to the punch and got most of the initial acclaim for their sampling technique while most people panned Paul’s Boutique until years later.
Even though all three albums share a gigantic common bond, 3 Feet High And Rising stuck out the most to me. Simply because it’s the only record out of the three that I “Got” when it was initially released. Like most people, I wasn’t too keen on Paul’s Boutique when it first came out because it didn’t sound like Licensed To Ill and I was too young to understand that sometimes musicians had to evolve. Even to this day, I don’t think that record is as great as everyone makes it out to be. Yes, it’s good, but it’s mostly good because it sounds so unique and it’s something that can’t ever be legally duplicated. Endtroducing, on the other hand, I think is a phenomenal album and one of the all-time greatest records of any genre, but it took me at least three years to wrap my head around it. I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on when I first heard it. It was supposed to be a hip hop record but there were no lyrics and the songs were well over six minutes long. There was no way to logically dance to it or even rhythmically nod your head.
However, 3 Feet High... hooked me from the beginning. It was the first time I actually cared about the how the music was made. Before then, you could have told me that there was some super computer hidden in the Swiss Alps that generated beats from old James Brown records and randomly handed them out to people interested in rapping, and I would have believed you. Once I heard this record that was not only using a billion samples per song, but some were even recognizable to me and my novice ears, I had to get to the bottom of it. It’s why I’m such a big fan of Prince Paul to this day. When this record was blowing up, Prince Paul was interviewed on BET I believe, and they asked him how he came up with such weird shit for the record. He said that there were beats everywhere and you had to look hard to find them. He then threw some Mickey Mouse Club 45 on a turntable and played it backward, and sure enough, there was a beat.
There are very few records I care to physically own. This is one of them, just because it means so much to me, and it kind of led the way to me being a smart ass know-it-all music nerd, on top of providing me a soundtrack to 6th grade. In all honesty, I like De La Soul and all, but this record was more about Prince Paul than De La. The whole hippie Daisy Age vibe never phased me because I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics. Also, Hip Hop as a whole was in such a creative and experimental stage at that point in time that every rap record sounded different from one another. It was many years later that I found out this record kind of sparked the whole dorm room rap movement that we all know and love today.
The song “Me, Myself and I” really holds no significance to me though, outside of being the first De La song I heard and being their most well-known single from that record. I could have chosen any number of songs from the record to take this spot, or an even higher one if I had my way, but it makes everything easy and uniform when you pick the big single that everyone knows.

Raven Mack: I bought the 3 Feet High And Rising tape at a truck stop back when truck stops were infamous for selling bootleg tapes. Oddly enough, I think I got Paul’s Boutique at the same spot. 3 Feet High And Rising was great shit when I was in high school, because with my predominantly black school where thuggishness was a badge of honor with too many people, the potential to get your ass kicked over something stupider than the white dude stepping on the peanut-faced dude’s shoes in Do The Right Thing was always there. So 3 Feet High And Rising sort of caused certain more goofy-natured potential-thug brothers to adopt that puffy crooked hair style and wear goofy necklaces, although nobody I remembered really got full-on into the stupid shirts and shit too. It toned down the potential for violence, ever so slightly.
I never disliked 3 Feet High And Rising until I went to college and was forced to realize there were completely clueless white kids who had only grown up around other white kids and only hung out with other white kids and would only know other white people and were predestined to have white kids running around white cul-de-sacs driving white SUVs and voting for white people to keep things smooth and interest-laden for their collective white futures, and I guess I was tripping on the acid at a party full of those kids (seriously, it may be hard to believe, but growing up a piece of shit white kid in a piece of shit half-black/half-white piece of shit part of rural Virginia, I had no idea that shit existed) and watching them be them and this one dude played 3 Feet High And Rising like seven times that night and it all just made me sick to tripped-out stomach.
I also feel that everything De La has done, studio album-wise, since then, has been overrated as misunderstood genius music. I’m not saying it sucks, but it’s definitely music that holier-than-thou know-it-alls are apt to get up in arms and act like it’s the best shit ever and you’re ignorant for not making a separate playlist for it on your ipod, even though you don’t even have an ipod.
As for this song being here instead of any other De La song, I think back to the single-oriented nature of a lot of the black kids I grew up around. They didn’t go collecting records like white kids did really, or if they did, they didn’t keep old shit forever, which is probably a good personal habit. But this was the big single off that album, and were you to have an old school throwback show on Sunday afternoons blaring over some loudspeakers up in the trees at whatever public park in your city that folks go to to wax their cars and Armor All the tires, this De La Soul song would get more people to go “OH SHIT!” than any other song off 3 Feet High And Rising. And that is the essence of the Hip Hop Jam basically – if twenty years later it can create that nostalgic euphoria in random collections of people. I know this list is listed upon the internet where it’s more important to highlight your misunderstood genius status and make a list of the best 100 songs ever and have like German-released EPs by The Artifacts and England-only b-sides to Paris singles and shit, but all that doesn’t mean a goddamned thing on a Sunday afternoon to Mr. Old School Dude cleaning his Cutlass up just right at the park with a pint of gin in a cooler in the trunk.

Download: De La Soul - Me, Myself & I

Watch the video:


BONUS VIDEO! Here's a 7 minute documentary/short type thing that acted as an introduction to De La Soul. This is where I saw the thing with Prince Paul playing a Mickey Mouse record. He doesn't actually play it backwards though. That was just my retarded memory kicking in.

EWA100 - #59. Redman - Time 4 Sum Aksion

#59: Redman - Time 4 Sum Aksion (Def Jam. 1992. From the LP Whut? Thee Album)

Raven Mack: CRAZY HYPE! DRINK DRINK DRINK, STOMP IN BIG BOOTS THROUGH CITY NIGHT TIME HYPE! HYPER-AGGRO ROCK-N-ROLL, YET BLACK DUDE IS COMICAL MAKING HIM LESS SCARY TO WHITE FOLKS' EARS HYPE! Seriously, this is one of the greatest songs ever to adrenalize to and get stoked up to whoop ass metaphorically. And Redman comes across as one of the best guys ever in hip hop, with songs like this and "Supaman Lover" (which I always loved, over-analysis-wise, because he's a superhero who just flew across the city, but he has to take the back steps of the projects because the elevator was broke; you've gotta be extra-retarded to think up shit like that), and then you see him just act a fool through his career and have dollar boxes and his gold record leaned against the wall behind the couch his cousin is sleeping on on MTV's Cribs, and you just know Redman is straight up Redman all day everyday. So that just makes you feel good about the dude, so not only does "Time 4 Sum Aksion" get you all stoked-up, but you feel good about it, which is what coffee would be like if it was stronger and punk ass shoppes didn't rip you off on some beanwater in a cup and if it didn't taste like ass. And plus, Redman doesn't eat up your stomach and make you shit.
Back when I was making like three mixtapes a week, I think I used this song forever on tapes, doing that Cypress Hill song leading into this line and then jumping into this one, but I was a dual tape deck mixmaster with the pause button, stop, pull the tape back a touch of a turn so the sounds would blend and not have that harsh stop button sound. And sometimes, you could jump into the Black Sheep song at the end, but they were so soft-sounding coming after Red getting all crackbaby on the tape for the three-and-a-half minutes previously.

Mike Dikk: This is the best non-EPMD beat Erick Sermon ever hooked up. It’s not even up for debate. He did his best job to channel the Bomb Squad to form this amalgamation of pleasurable and intense sounds. It’s like an aural equivalent of putting a plastic bag over your head before you cum or punching yourself in the dick or whatever else weird pervos do to get off. It completely sold the whole rap Incredible Hulk gimmick Redman was doing on this record.
Since this whole list is about being Da Rillest of Da Rill, it goes without saying that Redman is one of, if not the realest dude out there. He’s the kind of guy who would turn down an industry party because he just bought Madden and wants to go play it with his boys. I know that whole Cribs thing was cool and all, and I’ve always wondered if at least some of it (especially the cousin sleeping on the floor thing) was a little exaggerated for the cameras, then I think of all the other wacky stuff Redman has been rumored to do and all the retarded shit he’s come up with to rap about, and it clears any doubt in my head. I’d like to share some of those rumors for the people who may not have heard about them or read them in something else more popular.
I can’t remember if it was for his sitcom (which I never actually saw, and sometimes think it was a big hoax, but he mentions it in that “Greedy Bitches” song, so I guess it was real) or for How High, but supposedly Redman was pissed that they expected him to wear clothes from the wardrobe department and he wanted to wear his own clothes. I wish there was some reality television show following him around when that went down. I’m not sure if he ended up getting his way and got to wear his own clothes, but something tells me he did. That’s just one of those admirable kinds of things the everyman can look up to and give a glimmer of hope that if you ever accidentally become famous or hit the lotto, you can still be down to earth enough to only feel comfortable in your own clothes.
There was also a rumor that I definitely didn’t read anywhere reputable that Redman rolled up into Queens alone, without a gun or any other kind of scary weapon and punked out Mobb Deep and their whole crew because of the little beef they had with Def Squad for a minute. Again, I can only believe this because it’s Redman, and I wouldn’t fuck with Redman no way, no how. Back to the Cribs thing, any dude who has been rapping since I was in 8th grade has enough money to live in a suburb somewhere. If that dude is content living in a shitty, barely furnished house in a terrible part of New Jersey, he is most definitely content with fucking you and your boys up with his fists and Timberlands.
Lastly, this isn’t so much of a rumor, but when I first found out about entire blogs dedicated to the hip hop, I read some story about how the author was on a plane with Redman around the time his first LP was out. He had the toilet paper up his nose and everything. That’s not the best part though. He was sitting on the plane with his walkman on rapping along to his own record. Someone who can do that without it being an ego thing is clear from being talked badly about. I’ll admit to not being that into Redman’s last... several... records, but I never look at it as his fault. I’m just not too into the beats. The dude is still rapping like he rapped from day one way back when I had the red and black lumberjack, with the hat to match. If you can’t respect that, better yet, if you can’t appreciate that, then we can’t be friends.

Download: Redman - Time 4 Sum Aksion

Watch the video:

EWA100 - #60. Diamond D - Best Kept Secret

60. Diamond and the Psychotic Neurotics - Best Kept Secret (Mercury. 1992. From the LP Stunts, Blunts And Hip Hop)

Mike Dikk: I’ve been sitting on this blurb for a while now because I can’t think of anything that sensational to write about this song. Don’t get me wrong, you can count me as a fan, but this record came out during a time where the ratio of good records to terrible records was exceptionally higher than any other time in hip hop. So much so, that the album was kind of lost in the shuffle until recently when the good ol’ internet resurrected it and dubbed it a lost classic.
Rapping-wise, Diamond wasn’t going to set your ass on fire, but with Diamond, it was definitely more about the beats. The beats are total boner mania on the whole damn thing, and it’s hilarious to think one of the biggest complaints about it at the time was the length. There were just too many songs! Now I would give an appendage for a hip hop CD with this much quality music on it. Actually, that’s a lie. As much as I like music, I enjoy my limbs a lot more.
“Best Kept Secret” was the lead single (I think so; if not, perhaps a nerd can correct me) and it was definitely the standout of the record along with “Sally Got A One Track Mind”. I remember it was a staple on mixtapes back then. Not like homemade ones, but actual DJ mixtapes when those existed. Outside of that, the only thing at all interesting that I can say here is that I was in the city (for those of you not from the northeast, “The City” always means “New York City”) this weekend with my roommate, and he was wearing an Ultimate Force sweatshirt, which I guess Ultimate Force had printed up a year or so ago for a reunion that may or may not have happened. Anyway, some stylish looking grubby bum told him that it was a very eye-catching sweatshirt, mainly due to the neon orange highlights on it, not because he was an Ultimate Force/Diamond D fan. Of course I could be wrong. Maybe bums know more dumb shit about rap music than us normal people with computers.

Raven Mack: I can’t front… I know I’m an old head and you have to put forth this know-it-all level of comprehension of your chosen field of dorkery when you dabble in the internet or even zine world, but I completely slept on Diamond the first time around. I guess Mike’s right, that was a heavy time for good hip hop – so much so that I was probably immersed into some individual branch of it at the time this first Diamond LP rolled out. It’s the consumer mentality to wrap yourself up in the fabric of a specific flavor of something, so you can feel like some misunderstood genius (internet and zines are full of those types) because I know so much about something so little. It’s how a dude who collects action figures moves onto being an anime dork moves onto eventually owning the soundtrack to Hair in nineteen different languages.
My man Born King used to speak highly of Diamond, though we’d usually just listen to some shitty rock-n-roll when sitting on the couch out front of his apartment building playing huvna. But it was around that time that I found myself non-unemployed for a good steady year or so, which is pretty amazing considering how much of a drunkard and unmotivated I was back then, and since I was sharing a trailer with a dude at $200 a month, I had mad extra spending loot. So of course, I got back into hitting the record store every Friday, buying up all the shit that even looked interesting. This was probably the last flourish that hip hop had, with Rawkus first jumping off, me copping the first MF Doom single without even knowing the story at that point of who he was or what he’d become, and I got the first single off of Diamond’s second as-yet-unreleased LP. That single was bonkers. Back then, since I did a lot of driving, I’d make a 100-minute mixtape every Sunday afternoon, like clockwork, so new shit from Friday had a chance to get listened to to make the tape, and the best shit from previous weeks would be on there. The stupid kid in the first trailer in the trailer park was selling dubs of my mixes and shit too at his stupid faggot richboy college, even though I wasn’t really mixing anything, just doing dual deck cuts and moving the tape back a touch of a finger turn so there were no hard popping cuts… straight up retard science, but still, retard science is a major influence in hip hop (“power from the streetlights made the streets dark…”). Immediately, I bought up all the new Diamond that came out, including that second LP, and I know Diamond gets not much love as an MC, but he’s got that perfect laid back flow that’s definitely brought up in that “party people” era, but more grown folks sounding.
Once time passed and buying records at the record store no longer became part of my life, and I had internet so you could just ask somebody to steal something for you if you couldn’t steal it yourself, I got the back catalog of Diamond, and yeah, he’s always been awesome. This song is great, but no greater than almost every other Diamond song. I guess this was the famous one or something from back when I was looking in a different direction.
I also remember reading in The Source way back that Diamond, who was originally Diamond D, had to drop the D because some whiteboy rapper had trademarked that name. I never saw a whiteboy rapper named Diamond D, although I often get Milkbone images in my head when I try to remember if I ever heard of him. I bet that fucker runs a Foot Locker or something now, that old trademarking-assed whiteboy called Diamond D. He probably just goes by Doug nowadays, and poor Diamond has just accepted being just Diamond. It’s one of those instances where bullshit legal matters gets in the way of what’s right. The law is here to protect business interests, not the Rill Shit.

Download: Diamond D - Best Kept Secret

Watch the video:

Internet Problems.

My internet is goin' nuts. It's been down for the past few days, hence no updates. As long as it decides to work tomorrow, the dumpin/EWA crapfest shold commence.

EWA 61-80 Super Saver & More!

We are now officially 2/5ths done with this dumb list. Here is a bulk package so you can DL the last 20 songs at once, just in case you were late ot the game and you've never heard music before so you don't already own most of this stuff. The DL link for songs 81-100 is dead, but I guess I could have it re-upped if someone really needs it.

There's also a shit ton of Wu Tang instrumentalz I'm throwing in FREE OF CHARGE.

First though, here's what we've gone through on the EWA100 list so far. 61-80 are bolded, because those are the songs in the DL package.

#61: Fatlip – What’s Up Fatlip?
#62: Three Six Mafia – Sippin’ On Some Syrup
#63: Outkast – Player’s Ball
#64: Camp Lo – Lucini
#65: Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock
#66: Scarface – Mr. Scarface
#67: Kool G. Rap & DJ Polo – Road To The Riches
#68: DJ DMD – 25 Lighters
#69: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – White Lines – 12 pts
#70: Das EFX – They Want EFX
#71: Positive K - I Got A Man
#72: A Tribe Called Quest - Award Tour
#73: 3rd Bass - Gas Face
#74: Dr. Dre - Nuthin' But a "G" Thang
#75: Jeru The Damaja - Come Clean
#76: Ol' Dirty Bastard - Brooklyn Zoo
#77: Cypress Hill - How I Could Just Kill a Man
#78: Pharoah Monch - Simon Says
#79: LL Cool J - Boomin' System
#80: Kool Moe Dee - Wild Wild West
#81: Public Enemy – Fight The Power
#82: Whodini – Friends
#83: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – 1st Of Da Month
#84: Beatnuts – No Escapin’ This
#85: Ghostface Killah – All That I Got Is You
#86: Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard
#87: MF Doom – Doomsday
#88: Ice-T – 6 ‘n Tha Mornin’
#89: Biz Markie – Make The Music With Your Mouth, Biz
#90: Outkast – Elevators
#91: House Of Pain – Jump Around
#92: David Banner – Cadillac On 22s
#93: Mos Def – B-Boy Document
#94: Chubb Rock – Treat ‘Em Right
#95: Juvenile – Ha
#96: Master P – Bout It
#97: Blackalicious – Nowhere Fast
#98: Da Luniz – I Got Five On It
#99: Luke – I Wanna Rock
#100: U.G.K. – Front, Back, Side To Side

This is where you click to obtain the EWA 61-80 Bundle

Now for the Wu Tang Instrumentals. I didn't upload ANY of these links myself, but I think they're still in working order. If not, don't go pussyaching to me because the computer wouldn't give you free shit.

ONCE AGAIN. THESE ARE ALL INSTRUMENTALS. THE WORDS ARE MISSING ON PURPOSE!

Wu - Enter The 36 Chambers

Ghostface - Ironman

Ghostface - Supreme Clientele

GZA - Liquid Swords

GZA - Beneath The Surface

Raekwon - Cuban Linx

Raekwon - Immobilarity (no one wants this)

ODB - Return to 36 Chambers

You're Welcome!

EWA100 - #61. Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip?

61. Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip? (Delicious Vinyl. 2005. From the LP The Loneliest Punk)

(Originally released as a single in 2000.)

Raven Mack: Man, talk about a shot in the dark. Pharcyde had been busted up, that one producer is a crackhead, Fatlip is rumored to be crackhead, the dreadlocked dude was dating that fake Hindu white girl from Real World... fame had tore them apart from their humble goofballs-in-the-ghetto roots. And all of this is why this Fatlip track is one of the best ever, because rather than making a comeback with inflammatory self-hype brimming with tongue-in-cheek confidence, he's straight up about to commit suicide on the mic. But he's not, because it's that self-deprecating humor, so you kinda sense he's cool with everything, but he also knows how fucked up his life has become. This is the teenager time machine shit, where if the you of when you were 17 met the you of now, would they think you were a piece of shit or cool. The rest of the album this came off of is not so good, and I saw Fatlip live and he did a bunch of Pharcyde hits, and we were waiting for him to do this song at some point, but he went off for a minute about how he really wasn't a crackhead despite all the rumors to the contrary, then he did a couple more half-assed Pharcyde songs and stormed off the stage for some reason or another. It was awesome. Just having one fuck-up Fatlip making hardly any music but hitting that high point for a "What's Up Fatlip?" is worth more to me as a rap fan than a hundred Dipsets or Def Juxes or G-Units or whatever's the biggest bling shit or nerd shit that kids in dorms from Villanova to UVA rock out in the comfort of not having to realize how full of shit they are. That's the motherfuckin' thing, life is fucked, and you sit around and feel like you've got a grasp on the gold dust for a weak-ass moment, but then the car blows up or you've got cut-off on the light bill or somebody breaks an arm and you ain't got no insurance, or just all the regular everyday bullshit of life will put a damper on that Friday night hype you can feel in those hot moments with a pocket full of cash and a fresh shirt wrapped around your beer belly. Rap music is this grand illusion that life is nothing but Friday night hype, and the thing is, for some artists, it is, but it's all done on credit, so that they have nothing but Friday nights for like three years straight, and then the rest of their life, after the music industry has squeezed every dollar downloaded ringtone it can out of the so-called artist's fresh style, they're cast aside for a lifetime of Monday afternoons, because on Monday afternoon, when the suckitude of life has stepped back onto your throat, you are not far removed from remembering how great a Friday night hype feeling can be. "What's Up Fatlip?" is one of those rare Monday afternoon blah songs, but that's a big part of life, sometimes it seems far bigger than Friday night hype in the equation, and that's why this song is so goddamned awesome. And fuck you if you disagree.

Mike Dikk: Rap music is so serious most of the time that it’s really refreshing when you find someone telling it like it is in a funny way. Fatlip did what most rappers would never think of doing: tell the truth about his situation. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been privy to a lot of unneeded hip hop comebacks, and they’ve all kind of sucked. Actually, they more than kind of sucked, they did suck. Why? Because dudes are coming out from hiatus after ten years talking about how they’re still ballin’ and shit. I understand it won’t sell you any records if you talk about how over the last ten years you had a couple kids, took a normal full time 9 to 5 job and watched a lot of reruns on Nick At Nite, but telling me you’re still a Big Kahuna making all that scrilla is as believable as the dudes who say the same shit on their first single that’s accompanied by a video and a bunch of plastic whores who could give a shit if your name is Lil Dookie or Yung Pu Pu Platter. That’s why this song is on here. Fatlip took a horrible situation and made it into one of the most refreshing songs of the early '00s. (For the record, This song came out a while back. I’m not sure if it was 2000 or 2001, it was just that the full length kept getting pushed back.) It was kind of obvious since his verse on “Passin’ Me By” that Fatlip was the standout star in the Pharcyde. Just like every other great musical genius, it went to his head and his star faded as quick as it came. Instead of coming back on the solo tip with a song about how he’s still the shit and how he has a chip on his shoulder and fuck those other Pharcyde guys, he drops possibly the best Sad Sack lyrics over the Saddest Sack beat/chorus combo ever, while still keeping his familiar humorous style. Seriously, that beat and chorus conjures up visions of hobos with a handkerchief tied to a stick flung over their backs walking down the railroad tracks to their makeshift shack to eat a can of beans. If there was any song on this list that you may not have heard, it could very well be this one, and I think it’s one of the songs you most need to hear, especially if you’re the type of person that hates rap for all the obvious reasons. If you have heard this song before, you’ve most likely listened to it around fifteen thousand times because it’s that good, but if you missed the “Making Of” video documentary that was on that Spike Jonze DVD a few years back, it’s more than worth tracking down. Reality really sets in when he’s in his own neighborhood telling some kids that he’s a rapper shooting a video and all they ask him is if he can get them Snoop Dogg’s autograph. This song, and the documentary are the closest look you’re going to get into a rapper that’s already been chewed up and spat out by the industry, unless of course you take a ride in Cappadonna’s cab anytime soon (props to him for making that his rap gimmick now though, even if it isn’t nearly as self-deprecating as this song). Luckily in Fatlip’s case, it lit a serious fire under his ass and made him hungry again. Unluckily, his insanely pushed back debut solo album kind of sucked. In all honesty, I listened to it a couple times and wasn’t into it and never went back to it. This one song is way too good for me to ever want to tarnish it in my mind with a mediocre full length.

Download: Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip?

Watch the video:


Here's a link to the documentary, but it's cut up into an annoying amount of parts.

New Design

I changed the colors around so it's easier to read the extra long posts. Dark words on a light background is easier on the eyes, or so I'm told.

To celebrate, listen to: Skinny Boys - Jock Box

EWA100 - #62. Three 6 Mafia - Sippin' On Some Syrup

#62: Three Six Mafia (feat. U.G.K.) - Sippin' On Some Syrup (Loud. 2000. From the LP When The Smoke Clears)

Mike Dikk: I know I shouldn’t tell you my tricks of the trade, but I only get by with this writing shit because I can get extreme and absurd when it comes to writing about stuff I hate, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, I tend to over embellish and verbally fellate something I really enjoy. With that off my chest, I have no problem telling you that “Sippin’ on Some Syrup” was the most important rap single of the 21st Century.
I was familiar with Three 6 before this single, but I wasn’t in love with them or anything. I bought the CD once I heard they had a song celebrating the recreational use of codeine. I read an article years earlier in The Source about kids in Texas ghettos getting crazy with the syrup. I tried it myself shortly after that article and heartily approved. Once I read a review of the single in The Source, I knew I had to have it. Of course, it lived up to all expectations and then some. Three 6 has made writing songs about drugs into a bonafide art form. This single and the rest of the album would eternally change the way I felt about southern rap music and what drugs I indulged in to get my swerve on.
That’s not the reason it’s the most important rap single of the 21st Century though. I don’t think anyone, even Three 6 Mafia themselves, expected this record to go platinum. The song got very little airplay up north, but a lot of people up here still bought it. I heard it played in cars from its release until well after the follow-up LP came out. The song had serious lasting power, even with its questionable subject matter. I don’t know how it is in the south, but it’s still not a real common thing for people up here to get high off of cough syrup. DJ Paul and Juicy J are production geniuses though, and that’s all it takes.
When The Smoke Clears was their first real major label debut, and if it had failed, I highly doubt they would have had a chance to release The Unbreakables with major label backing. Again, another Three 6 record with an amazing lead single that got very little airplay. It sold more than When the Smoke Clears and basically opened the doors for the initial wave of Lil Young rappers and to an extent a newfound interest in U.G.K. It wasn’t until The Most Unknown Unknowns that they got yet ANOTHER amazing lead single, but this time with a whole shitload of airplay. Of course, by this time, there was already a gigantic swarm of popular southern rappers, so to the novice hip hop listener, it may have seemed like these Three 6 Mafia guys came out of nowhere, but they basically paved the way for whatever horrible fucking music your little sister is grinding her crotch onto some sketchy guy to. Oh yeah, they also won an Oscar. It was like their worst song ever, but they still won an Oscar.
To sum up, without “Sippin’ on Some Syrup”, Paul Wall would still be some goofy looking dude playing Super Nintendo in his mom’s basement and Chamillionaire would just be an ugly man born from an immigrant family, and Slim Thug would be working at a car wash. God bless you, Three 6 Mafia. You’ve brought so much beautiful music into my headphones that we can all forget all the stinky sacks of shit you inadvertently let invade our television sets and mainstream payola consumed radio stations. You are the only music group I would ask for an autograph and me and a few friends of mine contemplated getting the date you won the Oscar tattooed inside our lips, but we ultimately bitched out. The thought was still there though.

Raven Mack: No doubt. The Oscars are like this big over-hyped nonsense that I think only homosexuals and Star magazine subscribers actually care about, and I've never watched it... seriously ever. Except that year when Three Six was on there. This was the group that was called Triple-Six Mafia and did crazy shit over weird beats that were like Spacemen 3 got born in the projects in Memphis. This was the group that did the too-hype song about tearing up the club, literally. They flashed gold grills before it became "grilles" because motherfuckers love to misspell thangs. And undoubtedly, through this song, they popularized drinking cough syrup. We called it robocopping, because usually you'd drink Robitussin, and I guess we never thought to add it to soda because usually you'd just drink a bottle of syrup along with a forty and it'd induce great mild hallucinations. There's all that talk about how it rots your mind and shit like that, but fuck, life rots your mind in a slow death manner anyways. You might as well beat the general soul suck of everyday life to the punch, take away their pleasure of having their foot up your ass all day long forever.
So yeah, I half-paid attention to the Oscars that one night, just to see Three Six on major TV, never thinking they'd win. I mean there was a song about transsexuals by Dolly Parton or something, and that seems far more up the liberal alley of your average Judeo-Scientologist Hollywoodian. Except somebody forgot to make them people know that Three Six does songs about child support and drinks codeine out of baby bottles.
It's made me think two disparate things, the success of Juicy J and DJ Paul. One, it could be a sign of the American Dream not being the smoke and mirror deception I've always tried to convince myself it is, to justify my own lack of success in life and make it seem like the chips are stacked against me from the get-go. But on the other hand, there's a steady stream of former members of Three Six who have beefs and bad feelings towards Juicy J and DJ Paul, so perhaps they're no different than the Jewish dudes who owned R&B labels in the '60s, and DJ Paul and Juicy J have just ripped off a steady stream of creative people and made fat stacks of bank account interest statements off of them.
Either way, the whole Three Six Mafia story aside, this is seriously one of the greatest songs ever, and easily the absolute best song about doing drugs that hip hop has ever made. And the beat is still one of the all-time best. DJ Paul and Juicy J don't get the credit for their beats they should, probably because they've got like a thousand beats and will give them to absolutely anybody who'll sign a cashier's check for one. It's not like they're high artists saving up certain beats for some masterpiece of an endeavor. They whip 'em out, throw it together, and ship it to the distributors. But like Mike said, every CD has a crazy first single. None like this though.
On the off chance you are a sheltered non-rap fan white person reading this because of how you came upon this list (more likely in the zine format than the internet dork format), you owe it to yourself to get into Three Six, starting with this song. When it is summertime hot, cooling down on a Friday night and you've got a few extra dollars floating in your pocket after buying money orders for the electric and water bill, and the phone's not past due, and you just want to get FUCKED UP and slouch all over on the porch by the end of the night, they can be your perfect soundtrack.

Download: Three 6 Mafia - Sippin' on Some Syrup

Watch the video (Screwed & Chopped):