EWA100 - #43. Souls Of Mischief - 93 'Til Infinity
43. Souls Of Mischief - 93 'til Infinity (Jive. 1993. From the LP 93 'til Infinity)
Raven Mack: It's weird how things change, because when Del came out with Heiro and this single dropped, both the lyrical flows and the beat cracked my skull. I was convinced till up about last September that this was one of the greatest beats ever in the existence of the hip hoptical music. And saying crazy shit like "dial the seven digits, call up Bridget, her man's a midget..." and so on and such... way different for the time. Strange series of events because nobody would have allowed Del to do his black Beserkeley hippie schtick on I Wish My Brother George Was Here if he hadn't have been Ice Cube's cousin. And if that hadn't have been such a success, mostly with the white folks (IRONY! as the best song is that "dark skin girls are better than light ones" song), Heiro wouldn't have been allowed to bum rush BET in the mid '90s.
It's also funny, because like any musical movement, you get more great shit (Casual's Fear Itself LP comes to mind, especially "I Didn't Mean To"), but then you move into the third wave of Pep Love solo joints and the like, and the movement loses it's luster. Sure, I know on the internet, Heiro has come back and been the True Shit for a while, and every time they fade away, some documentary about how weird Del is or him doing vocals with an artsy anime band or the Automator or something will pop up and Heiro will gain some a touch of semi-mainstream attention for a minute or two; but for the most part, Heiro has been kinda obsolete for a while outside of Del.
But when a movement rises up and then falls back away into obscurity, like the rising and ebbing tides of an ocean of material consumer culture, you get left with high water marks. "93 'til Infinity" is most definitely the Heiroglyphics high water mark, maybe even more so than any individual song by Del.
Mike Dikk: I remember buying this in cassingle format either because it got a good write-up in The Source or because of the promotional Heiro stickers that were included in that particular issue. It’s pretty amazing that I used to be moved so much by the offer of a free sticker to go buy the thing that sticker was promoting. Now I wipe my ass with free promotional stickers on a daily basis and don’t buy anything ever, even if it came with a free promotional blow job.
I didn’t really like this song the first time around. I think it might have been a bit too crunchy for me at the time and I could have been going through one of my super serious hardcore phases where I couldn’t listen to anything un-rugged. I do enjoy this song quite a bit now though, since I am a grown up and can listen to anything I damn well please without worrying about the shallow judgments of other high schoolers.
Another big reason I enjoy the song a lot more now is because it’s about one of my biggest hobbies - chillin’. There aren’t many songs made these days about chillin’, and that’s a real shame, because there are a lot of us out there who enjoy chillin’ more than hearing about some dude with a lot of money who spends it on dumb shit. It must be so embarrassing when those types get audited and the repo guy is taking away their zebra skin diamond encrusted super toilet while they wonder how they could have possibly been so fucking stupid with their money. That’s all bullshit anyways, because not many rappers can actually afford such things, especially after wasting all of their advance money on really sweet giant medallions shaped like their record label mascot.
Back to chillin’ though. This really is a great song about chillin’ and how dudes plan to chill ‘til infinity, which is something everyone can get behind. I would really like it if someone can supply me with a list of other songs about chillin’ so I can make a mixtape, then compare and contrast the songs to make an EWA 100 sub-list to figure out who has the chillin'est song about chillin’. If anyone wants to help me with this project, please get a hold of me. Actually, that’s a trick, because if you were really all about chillin’, you wouldn’t be wasting your time making my lazy ass a list of songs about chillin’. Seriously though, someone make me that list.
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