EWA100 - #28. Boogie Down Productions - The Bridge is Over

#28: Boogie Down Productions - The Bridge Is Over (B-Boy. 1987. From the LP Criminal Minded)

Mike Dikk: In order to relate to all you nerds out there, I will use a nerd comparison here. That piano bit in “The Bridge is Over” is just like Darth Vader’s Imperial Death March. Once you hear it, you know it’s on. It’s a simple melody ingrained into every aging hip hoppers head, more classic than Shell Toe Adidas and Gazelles.
I’m not so sure that this song translates well to the younger generation. The song’s subject is about a rap beef people stopped caring about a long time ago and KRS uses that faux Jamaican patois flow that isn’t at all new or fresh anymore. At the same time, I feel all the best stuff is usually something that involves a good idea, but also revolves around a simple approach. I mean, I mainly don’t care about hip hop made before 1988, and this song enters slightly below my imaginary cutoff date, but I don’t like most of the other stuff because it’s all kinds of corny.
Let me bust it for you. There have been around ten billion video games made over the last five hundred years. Personally, I prefer things like Madden and lately I’ve been addicted to MLB: The Show 07, along with some Marvel Superheroes game where you do all kinds of wacky shit and have to solve clues and press multiple button combinations in order to shoot lightning from your face. Now I’m sure there are a ton of other people out there that find those games fun, but you could take all of those people and let them have babies with each other for 50 years until all the babies of the babies became horrendous freaks of incest with fingers growing out of their eye sockets and tongues for toes, and that still wouldn’t add up to the amount of people who’ve played and enjoyed Tetris or Pac-Man
Both aren’t my favorite games by far, but you can’t knock their hustle. There is no one out there who can’t have a good time playing Tetris, which is a game where you fit blocks together in a uniform pattern, so that makes it almost a derivative of those Shape-In-Hole tests you give to two year olds to make sure they aren’t retarded (yet). Pac-Man is a game that takes place in a simple maze, and your only real objective is to not get eaten by a ghost. Again, real simple shit.
I don’t want to get off track too far here, but my point is, if simple shit is done right, it’s going to outlast complicated flashy shit every time. There are a few other songs on this list that fall into that category but we haven’t gotten to them and I don’t want to blow my load. There is nothing complicated going on in “The Bridge is Over”. The drum pattern is: KICK KICK SNARE/SNARE KICK SNARE, with hardly any changes. I don’t know how to play the piano, but I don’t imagine it would take me too long to learn that melody. Still though, this song sounds as good as it did the day I first heard it. “The Bridge is Over” is the difference between “Classic” and “Dated”. While most of the stuff from that time period sounds dated, this song is a classic. I doubt that was intentional, since this song was initially used as a cheap attention getter, but that’s how it turned out in the end.

Raven Mack: First time my little country boy ass went to the big city of New York was in 1988 (I was fifteen, for the record), and this tape had been in constant rotation amongst my circle of young upwardly mobile drug-dabbling delinquents by that point. The one thing I remember riding into NYC on the charter bus my public school locked down for the trip was that the scenery - all the crazy clustered chaos that a large congestion of humanity like New York City will deliver - it looked like Criminal Minded sounded. Seriously. Maybe I was a chump ass kid thinking that, and I didn't really tell anybody else I thought that because being a music faggot who thought up stupid shit like that was not necessarily, nor should it ever be, something to be proud of and share, except on the anonymous internet. That field trip we stayed at the YMCA (small southern town public school class for sure) and I remember me and this other dude sneaking off on the last day to blow all our money on bongs and swords in Times Square to smuggle back to Farmville, VA, to sell at a nice mark-up, and some dude actually called us aside to try and sell us crack. (My folks gave me $300 for the trip, which at the time I didn't think much of, but knowing my family and the times, that was probably their life savings, and I came back with no money left, not telling them about the bongs and swords, which I sold and pocketed the money, although I think I eventually gave my dad one of the bongs a year or two later.)
And no matter how weird hip hop music gets, it is something that was born in New York. I am not from New York, nor do I even attempt to speak for it. Shit, I'd prefer to never go back again, because even though most anything awesome you can think of is going on somewhere in NYC, at the same time the most fucked up shit imagineable is going on there too - dudes having Barbie dolls pulled from their ass to simulate birth in S&M clubs and shit. But when you hear a pure New York song like "The Bridge Is Over", there is no denying it's hip hopness. No denying it. And right now, everybody's on this "the south sucks" kick, which it does, but it's pop rap and pop rap has always sucked. But instead of having actual roots-oriented hip hop coming out, dudes are throwing "the New NYC Anthem" bullshit songs at the wall hoping it sticks so they can be the savior of NYC. And all of it sucks. Because it's not New York (again, I'm speaking out my ass here).
I remember reading some shit a year or two back where someone was talking about how Dipset sounded like New York City, perfectly encapsulating the vibe, and all that did was make me think I was glad I had gone to NYC back in '88 and not in '05 or whatever. I had heard things had been cleaned up and Disneyfied sterilized homogenized, but if Dipset sounded like New York City looked... fuck, I can probably do without.
The great thing about this song, too, is the Hip Hop Lives CD that came out this year, where Marley Marl and KRS came together for a nice trip down nostalgia lane, and there was mention of how this beef was allowed to happen, which created KRS's career. But at the same time, this shit really just made MC Shan obsolete. Not eventually, but immediately. And I guess if KRS gets Shan onto a Sprite commercial in the mid-'90s and then there's mention of him again nowadays, it's all good, but seriously, he destroyed Shan.
Also, as a final note of internet rap nerd dorkery, I'll just tell you, the tape this comes off of is probably, to me, the greatest pure hip hop record that was ever made. I have never dorked out and doodled on scrap paper my penultimate list of the Ten Must-Have Desert Island Hip Hop Records and not had this drawn in on the first draft.

Download: BDP - The Bridge is Over

I never knew this had a "real" music video. Here it is, and it looks to be around 400 years old:

EWA Jambox

Devin the Dude wins again. In the Jambox's short internet history, this is the greatest song ever. Or my challenger choices suck. Well, Mike Dikk finally came through with a pair of contenders this time to try and knock off "What a Job" (on a five poll winning streak I think), and theme to the challengers is fresh shit from rap nerd favorites (or should-be rap nerd favorites in one case). Here's the rundown...
THE RETURNING CHAMPION - Devin the Dude's "What a Job" featuring Snoop Dogg & Andre 3000 - off the Waitin to Inhale CD, but you knew that by now.
CHALLENGER #1 - EMC's "What It Stand For" - first song leaked by the new indie rap super-group of Masta Ace, Punchline, Wordsworth, and Stricklin. I have yet to actually listen to it, but will do so shortly after making this post. I like Wordsworth, and love Masta Ace, but hate Punchline, so I feel like that Mr. Show skit about cock rings.
CHALLENGER #2 - The Freestyle Professors "Hear What I Hear" - Mike made me listen to this CD, except not hard enough because I forgot to listen to any of it before the link went dead, only left with this song. I like it, and makes me wish I had stole the rest of their Vintage EP while it was freshly stole for my convenience.

MR.SR. Battle - Upper New England prelim

So here's the first stupid grouping for this thing, with a poll put up at the right for you to vote on.
First up, from the far northeast corner of America, meaning Maine, where I once had a shitty job raking blueberries with illegals, is Labseven, out of Portland, which, if I remember correctly, is the only part of Maine where people read books and shit. Personally, I enjoyed Maine well enough, they had McLobster sandwiches at the Mickey D's, but I left broke, which I guess should be expected since I went broke. Labseven is an MC collective and is opening a show for Jedi Mind Tricks upcoming, so at least they're playing out.
Right to the west of them is one of the most purtiest states I ever went to, New Hampshire, and representing the Live Free or Die state in this group is The 603 Kings. I'm really gonna try to be cool about all this, but there's a lot about The 603 Kings myspace page that is the shit I find funniest about rapper myspace pages (dorm room pics, ringtone sales), but whatever. Dizzy Dave Tastic and Jamisha tha Damaja are doing their thing, and that's what's important.
To the left of that is Vermont, which if I remember correctly is basically a bunch of hippies. The Aztext are gonna be representing Vermont, and them dudes have self-released records featuring Wordsworth on a track (also on their songs available as well).
And finally in this group of four is Massachusetts, which easily has the largest hip hop history of these four states. Reppin' Massachusetts will be Mr. Lif, who you probably have heard of since you're on the internet and into rapping music. He's one of those indie rappers of consciousness who always seems to be on tour forever and a day, so you can probably check him out live if you want to in the next couple months.
Check out the four pages, listen to some myspace rapper tracks, and then vote in the poll at the right. I think it'll be set up where you can vote for however many you want, but I haven't done it yet, so no promises.

The MR. SR. Battle - the Introduction

So ever since I joined up on Mike's stupid blog rather than bugging him to post more on our stupid joint blog elsewhere, I figured I should come up with some ultra-nerdy project that hopefully will lead to introduction to new shit, people arguing about stereotypical opinions on the internet with each other, and hopefully some good laughs at other people's expense. So I came up with the following bullshit long-term project (by fleeting A.D.D. internet people standards) - the Myspace Rapper State Representation Battle (from here on referred to as the Mr. Sr. Battle). I'm sure you have noticed like everybody else how in any issue of any rap magazine or zine or promotional flyer or bathroom graffiti there's a slew of up-and-coming artist myspace pages. You can't spit in a crowd of people without hitting a myspace rapper. Shit, even I'm a myspace rapper. Well, one of the great things about myspace - actually probably pretty low on the list and far below like fucking women you don't know at all who live fifteen minutes away - is the fact you put your home on there for everybody to see. Well, taking into mind college football rivalries and bullshit like that, plus people having to be proud of where they're from, I decided to create a multi-round myspace rapper battle where each state (as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico, to make it an even 52) do battle amongst each other, and we - the unproductive sacks of shit that make up the internet - will decide the winner. Here's how I'm breaking it down, round by round.
PRELIMINARY ROUND: I broke up the 52 geographic entities into groups of four, clustered by their location, which means we're gonna have some pretty shitty groups of four when we get to that vast wasteland of earth past the Mississippi River to the west coast. It also means that some hip hop heavyweight states will be matched up early, like Jersey and New York, or Georgia and Florida, but whatever. In these preliminary rounds (13 total), you can vote for however many of the entrants you want. Each state will be represented by a single rap artist's myspace page from that state. I will try to look for popular ones or pick the semi-famous as much as possible to be fair, but obviously I've got my limitations. (Towards the end of this explanation will be an email address you can send me suggestions for inclusion if you know Tha Dopest Undiscovered Shit on the internetz.) The top two of each group of four will move on to the next step.
PLAY-IN ROUND: This is where the top two from each group go head-to-head, with a new single rap artist's myspace page representing it. In other words, no one artist can carry his state all the way through, because I'm gonna change it up each time. But it'll be one-on-one, with the winner taking a spot in the next step. Since there's only 13 groups, and since some states are gonna get screwed early on unfairly by groupings, 3 wild cards who get plenty of love will also move into the next round even though they lost in this one.
FIRST ROUND: 16 states left by this point, which will probably be sometime in 2010 knowing me, and they'll go head-to-head, one-on-one. I'll probably seed them at this point, but I may not. These head-to-head match-ups will be best of 3 series of polls though, with three completely new stupid Myspace rapper pages showing and proving against each other. So essentially you're voting for the best page vs. the other page, with the idea being that each state's hip hop scene is only as strong as its weakest link. Winners of best 2 out of 3 in this move on.
QUARTERFINALS: Same deal, one-on-one between previous round's winners, and best of three series again. Winners move on.
SEMI-FINALS: We'll have worked down to four states left by this point, and it'll stay head-to-head, one-on-one, series of pages against pages, but this round will be best of five series instead. First one in each match-up to win three polls moves into the finale.
THE MISTER SENIOR BATTLE FINALS: Last two states left will go against each other, best of seven series, with seven completely new and not yet used myspace rapper pages reppin' each state going against each other. First one to win four will be the winning state, and ultimately, the True Home of Hip Hop.

I'll be putting the first one up later tonight, hopefully, since I have internet welfare which means myspace clogs up the hamsters turning my computer pixels into shapes and colors, so it takes a while. In fact, I'm gonna have to go to the library every week on the one night they're open till nine to actually listen to this shit myself and vote accordingly. If you know of any myspace rapper pages I should check for inclusion, even really famous people's ones (because don't assume I will know anything at all, and don't trust me to make things right), send them to me at raven mack at gmail dot com. You should by now how to make that work right. Make sure the myspace is one that has songs for listening at so if we use that shit, folks got something to listen to to base a decision upon, instead of thinking dudes look stupid. The winning state will get a trophy, meaning I'll buy an obnoxious trophy with ribbons and eagles and shit and ride the Greyhound to their state capital and leave it in a park with some funny looking homeless people, taking Polaroid pictures of the event to prove to the internet I really did it, and probably drinking with the homeless.
So there's the giant stupid deal. Your involvement will only make this better.

Zach / Madvillain /MMFood/ Upcoming / Decade list.

Above is the Zach Galifianakis Video Remix of Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothin'". This is sure to be on this months top 25, so I'll write more in depth about it later, but if you haven't seen it yet, it's the most hilarious thing I've seen all year.

If you haven't heard yet, Rhymesayers has re-released MF Doom's "MM..Food". I know a lot of people don't get down with it because there's essentially an 8 minute interlude right in the middle and peons don't have the attention span to handle such things, so they write off the entire album. ANYWAY, it's been re-released in a limited edition package that includes the CD, a brand new DVD, a poster and a sticker, all conveniently packaged in a candy wrapper. Now this is how people can get me to actually buy CD's again. Fifth Element Online is selling it for $18.99 postage paid which is a steal and a half. I ordered mine last night. It's Limited so don't dick around if you want to get this. Go here if you're interested.
You can also watch a promo clip for the re-issue.



Speaking of new CD's, I'm going to be doing some reviews eventually for the aforementioned MM Food re-release, along with a couple records I purchased a couple weeks ago by "Local Talent" and an up and coming rapper was supposed to be sending me his CD for review, so yeah, that too.

I was also toying with the idea of doing writeups for records I considers "Albums of the Decade". Fuck a album of the year list. That's boring. As far as the rap is concerned, the handful that stick out for me are Quasimoto "The Unseen", Cannibal Ox "Cold Vein", Madvillain "Madvillain", and Three 6 Mafia "When The Smoke Clears". Then there's some non rap stuff I would consider like, M.I.A. "Arular", American Nightmare "Background Music", maybe that Go Team record, maybe the first Arcade Fire record. I don't really know. Any of you anonymous readers have suggestions for Albums of the Decade?

Finally, back to Madvillain. Since I never actually post up real records, I figured I'd be generous and pass this along. Longtime Madvillain/MF Doom/Madlib fans may remember that the record that would later become "Madvillainy" leaked onto the internet several months before it was officially released. These were basically demos of stuff that would appear on the official album. I still had that CD laying around, so I figured I'd throw it up for any interested parties. If you've never heard "Madvillainy", I wouldn't really suggest listening to this. This is strictly for hardcore Madvillain dorks such as myself. The obvious difference is that this is 15 tracks as opposed to 22. Outside of that, just about all of the titles are different, the sequencing is different, and some of the songs minimally differ from the album versions, but it's fun to listen to if you've never heard it before and you've listened to "Madvillainy" nine thousand times like me.

Here you go. Tracklisting is included. Not that it matters.

Madvillain - MF Doom & Madlib Are Madvillain


Raven is supposed to have some new top secret poll he won't tell me about coming up hopefully tonight. So look out for that too.

Music Video Commentary - "I Am Murloc"

Okay so, this post of mine is going to be a win/win situation. It's
KINDA about music...and its about WoW, so I'm happy and I'm sure
Mike's very amused. Also despite the fact that I AM a lazy bitch I went ahead
and included a link to the video and pictures for ya'll that would feel too
geeky to actually watch it.

Anyway, a week ago or so, my friends from WoW started asking me
whether or not I had seen the "I am Murloc" video. I hadn't, and so I
was directed to the Warcraft movies site to check it out. I had no
idea of what it was or what to expect. I kept meaning to watch it,
and then it got to the point where EVERYONE had except me, and then I
was determined to check it out.



Here's my .02 on it. First off I've always felt the dudes at Blizzard
had one hell of a crazy mixed up sense (senses?) of humor. I know
they're also a relatively young group of guys, the programmers at
least. And when I say relatively young, I mean that for the most part
they grew up in the late 70s and 80s. That being said, I wasn't
surprised to discover that the song was in the genre of heavy metal.

The name of the group is: Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain, and their
band setup is pretty similar to the "traditional" metal band. They're
all members of the Horde and they've got this lineup:


Orc lead singer - Why they chose an Orc as their lead singer is beyond
me. I was unaware that Orcs were very metal-oriented, especially
considering that the female orc dance is basically droppin' it like
its hot and making it clap. Not to mention that the male Orc dance is
the Hammer dance. But hey, black people can do metal, after all,
Ice-T did it, right?? Interestingly enough I think (in my uneducated
about metal way) that he sounded most like Lemmy from Motorhead out of
all the major metal bands out there.





Blood elf lead guitarist - I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the
pretty boy blood elf was on lead guitar, only for the sake of the fact that there
is no way in hell a blood elf, if not the lead singer or frontman for
the band, would be a RHYTHM guitarist. God forbid. They love
themselves too much to make a sacrifice for someone else.







Troll bass guitarist - Another interesting choice. Most people that play trolls
that I know are actually into rock and roll despite the race's penchant for being
more along the lines of having a reggae/Jamaican style. I'd be less surprised
to see a troll smokin' that ganja and listening to "Welcome to
Jamrock" or at the very least Juelz's "Murda Murda" or some shit. But
bass guitarists are an awesome breed of guitarists because they can
adapt to most any type of music.







Undead rhythm guitarist - Considering the genre of music, why wasn't
the undead made the lead singer? I mean, HONESTLY? Hit /dance on any
male undead toon, and what do they do...they fucking ROCK OUT with
their undead cocks out!! Not to mention they throw the horns and
everything? Personally, on behalf of all undead everywhere, I'm
highly offended. Highly. I hope some programmers at Blizzard read
this shit and think things out next time.



Tauren on drums - Okay, after being outraged that it was an Orc lead
singer and not an undead...I wondered, why wasn't a Tauren the front
man for a band called Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain I ask you??
However him being on drums made sense...if only 'cause the Tauren seem
to be patterned after the Native Americans.





Backup dancers aka Video Hofessionals: I got one word for each of them.


Nelf chick - Whore


Belf chick - Slut


Dranei chick - Tramp


'Nuff said.

Now here's where I can appreciate the Blizzard humor. I had to see
the video 3 times before I realized that (I think) the lead singer was
doing some pelvic thrusts that were so hardcore that his pelvis
straight busted through the GLASS. Fucking hilarious.

More Blizzard humor I can get with, the chorus of the song:


I am more than a fish
I am more than a man
Death will rise from the tide
RWLRWLRWLRWL (murloc noises)
I am murloc
I am king of the sea
Not A Queen like Aquaman
Death will rise
Hear our cry
I am murloc
I am death!

Okay I SERIOUSLY laughed SO HARD when I saw them dress up a human
pally like a gay version (lol...when isn't he gay, scratch that)
version of Aquaman.


Fuck Aquaman. When there's a serious world
crisis, what is he gonna do, make dolphin noises? Call the whales?
Bitch please.

Anyway, the video was cool, the song was meh, and for god's sake THE
MURLOC NOISES?! I'll never admit to weakness but fuck all if those
murloc noises don't make me cringe a little on the inside. I remember
when I was a wee little shadow priest trying to stay alive on the
North Coast of Tirisfal Glades...those murloc noises struck fear into
my poor little squishy heart. The noises were usually followed by a
severe beating. I got beat the fuck up AND down by those murlocs...and
gangbanged with no lube more than a few times. And it wasn't pretty.
Neither was my repair bill. Don't tell anyone that the murloc noises
scare me though, or I'll have to melt j00 face. /flex

EWA Jambox

So Devin the Dude's feature song of his lackluster Waitin' to Inhale CD wins again for the third time in a row. I thought Kanye might give him a run for the money, being mad dorks are into Kanye as the new whatever the fuck is supposed to be good, but luckily he lost. This time, the theme to the challengers is some down south ignorant shit, since everybody hates ignorant shit and also hates the south. I am ignorant as fuck and from the south, at least the northern end of it, so I figured I might as well bring the stupid. Oh yeah, not just southern shit but dudes with weird voices. This thing is an Expert Whiteboyz/Dumpin cross-project, so check out both sides of that relationship wherever you start from. Also, please feel free to suggest semi-recent songs to be included in this thing. Mike's supposed to be helping me with this but he don't do shit for it really, which means this is probably about two weeks from being nothing but Fat Pat freestyles. So here's the rundown on this new jambox poll...
CHAMPION: Devin the Dude feat. Snoop Dogg & Andre 3000 - What A Job - You know the deal, as I've wroted about this one a few polls in a roll.
CHALLENGER #1: Lil Wayne - My Daddy - This is off Da Drought 3 mixtape, which has amazed me because it's been hyped up in a couple of fucking print magazines I've gotten recently as the greatest shit ever, even after the internet retardedly hyped it up whenever it was this came out. I do no understand this at all. This was a shitty mixtape, which a lot of mixtapes seem to be lately, and I guess this was a stand-out song amidst the shit, but I've seen this particular song quoted (I think there was some music critic nerd "stream of consciousness brilliance of Lil Wayne" talking point memorandum sent out about all those "Scott Storch can I borrow your yacht" part of the song. Whatever. It is a choice for you to decide if you think it is awesomer than the other songs.
CHALLENGER #2: Gorilla Zoe - Hood Nigga - Gorilla Zoe has a great voice and is one of the newest trap dealer rappin' fool flavors of the month. I don't mind him yet, but I'm sure that'll go away fast enough. Actually, that "Coffee Shop" song or whatever with him and Yung Joc or Young Dro or whoever the fuck sorta is already testing my patience, because of the inanity of that track. Nonetheless, this song, which is already a few months old and in "remix" cycle featuring trumped up guests, is a fun enough song if you're into ignant shit like I am. And let's be honest, one of the greatest thing about an open-minded society - truly open-minded - is breeding amongst the races, because that creates more beautiful bi-racial babies, and who amongst us does not love a yellowbone ho?

EWA100 - #29. Run-D.M.C. - Sucker MC's

29. Run-D.M.C. - Sucker M.C.s (Krush Groove 1) (Profile. 1984. From the LP Run-D.M.C.)

Raven Mack: Here is what I originally wrote: "Run-DMC, for me, is like what Mike said about Illmatic - there's no real distinguishing their shit completely. I mean, when they were on top of things in the mid-'80s, there was nobody even close to them, so all the big ass songs they had from then sort of blend together in my mind as just them destroying everything else that was out there.
Seriously though, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons were on some hip hop illuminati bullshit back then. I mean, I don't know if Rubin was even around yet or had anything to do with Run-DMC, who were two more than competent MCs already, spicing their shit with some rock guitar cuts and just generally fucking the world up, being to that point hip hop was on some synthesized perfect beat bullshit.
It's sad that two dudes couldn't wear matching porkpie hats and victimize imaginary MCs lyrically any more in the rappitty music. I mean, even that "Down With the King" comeback in the early '90s was kinda dated sounding and halfway pathetic, but another fifteen years later? Run-DMC style is obsolete, regardless of how much sentimentality R.I.P. Jammaster Jay thoughts can give you. I read an article about old NFL players who are living off like $12,000 a year now, all crippled and shit, and it makes me wonder what happens to old rappers? I mean, you know the DMC dude is paid because he's Russell Simmons' brother, so they're probably doing yoga together on black sand beaches in high-priced coves Hawaii-way. But what about Reverend Run?
Also, I have never seen Krush Groove. Some may think this makes me not properly educated to be speaking on some Run-DMC, or even old school hip hop in general, but I prefer to think it makes me someone who's not a fag who watched a lot of stupid ass movies. I'd probably watch it nowadays, but it's even stupider-looking to be renting a fuckin' Krush Groove VHS from the sun-faded videotape section at the back end of the video store than it would've been to be some chump-ass kid sitting there watching that shit back in the day. So I'll let it slide."
Then Mike called me on having the dudes mixed up and being full of shit on a couple of matters, and I was gonna do a third part to the blurb, but that would destroy the format we've stuck to all the way through on this endless jaunt down memory lane, so I decided to just rewind a couple paragraphs and come completely clean...
I could give half a fuck about Run-DMC. Seriously. When I was like 12, "You Be Illin'" was hilarious, and that Christmas song is funny in my mind, but every year when the local indie station plays it, the only part I like is the first two lines where "Hollis, Queens" rhymes with "collard greens". And now that I'm an old rap nerd, I know you're supposed to allow Run and DMC's dicks double penetrate my hip hop elevated mind, but I just don't get into them. I like that bell-heavy breakbeat from that one joint that every DJ ever has sense enough to use to this day, and I like to use my children's names in place of Mary to say "Gypsy Gypsy, why you buggin'?" when my kids won't pick up their damn Polly Pockets all over the kitchen floor. But I don't give a fuck about Run-DMC. This song could be replaced with any of like eight other songs by them, so we could have our token Run-DMC-we're-not-completely-oblivious-to-common-rap-dork-consensus-opinion song on the list.

Mike Dikk: Raven’s write up is filled with so many falsehoods and blasphemies, I’m not sure if he’s for real or if it’s some kind of joke I don’t get. First of all, I am around six years younger than Raven, so I came up on rap the same time Def Jam was coming up and getting popular, so I missed the initial wave of stuff like Grandmaster Flash and all those groups with 3s, 4s and 5s in their name. So I’m coming from a whole different perspective when it comes to Run D.M.C., and they were actually one of my least favorite groups when I got into rap music, mainly because of the annoying “Walk This Way” song. Def Jam originated that concept of making a corny radio-friendly single to lure the masses into buying the album. Those are the songs that always stick out for me when I think of Run DMC, and it makes me subconsciously hate them.
Secondly, Rubin was definitely around during the creation of Run D.M.C. I highly doubt they would have had so many guitar noises if it wasn’t for him, since that’s kind of like his trademark. Well, now his trademark is looking like a fat slob in UGG boots and sweatpants and trying to resurrect the careers of has-been acts.
Also, Run is Russell’s brother. If you watch his reality TV show, you’ll see he is very well off. I assume Russell and Run own Run DMC’s publishing. Anytime you catch an interview with DMC, he’s looking real broke on some anonymous basketball court somewhere in Queens. It always makes me feel sorry for him. I’m not sure if he secretly has a ton of money and he chooses not to show it, or if the Simmons brothers really fucked him over. I know he had a drug problem for a while, but who doesn’t?
If it’s any indication by the circumstances of his death, Jam Master Jay was keeping it gully even into his twilight years, so I imagine he wasn’t exactly well off either. Regardless, when you are the second most universally known rap group of all time (behind the Beastie Boys), there is no reason you should be looking poor on television or getting involved in shady alleged drug deals and ending up murdered. So if the Simmons brothers really did walk away (or, Walk This Way) with all the money from Run DMC and they couldn’t kick back a chunk of dough to the other guys, then they are quite possibly the biggest douchebags in rap music.
Lastly, not seeing Krush Groove? That’s just weird. I’m not the type to hype up all those old rap movies. In fact, I think Wild Style kind of sucks and that’s usually the most celebrated one. I do think Krush Groove is a lot better than any of those other movies (besides Disorderlies) though. It’s like $6 at the Wal-Marts, so you should do yourself a favor and check it out, Raven.
Okay, now we can move onto the song. When I listened to this to get in preparation of writing this (which was now around six years ago), I assumed it would be one of the many Run DMC songs I don’t really remember. The only time I hear Run DMC is by accident. I would never, ever listen to them on purpose. I was surprised to find out that I knew DMC’s verse word for word, which made me remember that when I was very young (like single digits, not 15), me and my friend Kenny would dress up like rappers and “perform” this song for his family. I got seven notches more gay just by admitting that.
Speaking of performing Run DMC songs, when I was in 6th grade, my class had to do this mandatory talent show thing for Christmas. My teacher, who was pretty young, thought it would be cute if we did an act to “Christmas in Hollis” by Run DMC. Basically, two kids would pretend to be Run DMC and lip synch the words, while the rest of us stood behind them and held up pictures we drew and colored ourselves to coincide with the words being said in the song. There was an INXS video at the time that used a gimmick somewhat like this and my teacher, being a total fruit, thought it was a cool idea.
I’d like to say this was some kind of pivotal mortifying moment of my life, but it wasn’t. I remember not liking the clothes my mom bought me for the show. It was some kind of velour striped turtle neck and husky boy jeans. I also remember this one girl who was from one of those black French speaking countries and could barely speak English, had to draw Snow White for one of her signs, and she made Snow White black. Even though 80% of my class was black, they still thought she was really weird for doing that. That concludes the story of my life with Run DMC.

************
At some point, Raven went back and rewrote some of his shit because I called him out as being possibly only an Intermediate Whiteboy instead of an Expert Whiteboy, so if some of my stuff I said doesn't make sense now, it's all his fault. While I'm here, I'd also like to add that I recently saw Michael Ian Black and Michael Schowalter do some stand up comedy live and in person. Michael Schowalter did this whole bit using old pictures from when he was a kid. He said he grew up in a pretty well-off family and then went to summer camp and got into rap music. The pictures showed his drastic change from dork clothes to sideways hats and big shirts. He then said, "We would listen to all the classics by such groups as Run D.M.C. and... Run D.M.C.". This doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I just thought it was funny.

Download: Run-D.M.C. - Sucker MC's

There's a real video for this, but I'm putting up a "Live Performance" from Graffiti Rock where they "battle" Kool Moe Dee & Special K (Treacherous 3) after the song.

You So Crazy - Random Musings

So as my first real post on Dumpin, I decided to inaugurate it by being myself - meaning an angry minority woman. I know what you're thinking, I'm gonna talk about my period or some such nonsense. Well, you're wrong. Don't worry, I hate talking about being on the rag as much as ya'll hate hearing about it, that's one topic that I'll NEVER talk about.

Anyway. So my professor who had me in her book decided to invite me and the other people she interviewed for it for dinner at her house. I was excited because how often do you get to sit around with educated people to talk about hip hop, right? Boy, was I wrong.

So. There we are talking about this and that, and then we finally get to talking about hip hop artists. Of course I'm all excited till we start talking about Southern hip hop. Now, call me lame, call me old school, call me whatever, but bottom line is, I haven't liked much rap music out of the South in the last 3 years or so. Wait, actually let's get it straight. I do like Southern hip hop - mainly coming out of Atlanta. I don't much care for all the Houston rappers. As a quick reference, I liked Mike JONES (Who?!) when he first came out, only because all his publicity was really hype he generated off his own grass roots PR campaign. Gotta respect a man for trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents. Anyhow, I thought Paul Wall was all right, (I straight LAUGHED at him choking on that Redman freestyle though) liked UGK since their guest spot on "Big Pimpin" (Even though Pimp C was in jail at the time and Bun B pretty much came through on his own at first.) Slim Thug was all right too, although I'd never tell HIM I thought he was all right, he looks like a big scary dude who just don't give a fuck. I ain't heard shit from Aztek since "Draped Up" and I expected him to blow up after he signed with Def Jam. Then again, what the hell do I know, I haven't paid much attention to music lately.

Back to our conversation. So this one guy who I had previously respected, asked me who my favorite artists out of the South that I thought were the best from their region. First I said Scarface. I've liked him AND the Geto Boys since '91 when "My Mind's Playin' Tricks on Me" released, mainly because I kicked it with a bunch of gangsters in the hood and that's all I heard for a while. (Yes, I really did.) He nodded and acknowledged that. (Oh, I'd like to insert here that I'd been drinking, and I get loud and obnoxious when I drink.) Then he said, "Well that was an obvious choice, choose someone else." I thought for a minute and then said "Outkast". He immediately nixed this choice. "Nahhh man you can't say them...Outkast is like Colin Powell, they've transcended being hip hop artists, just like Colin Powell has transcended being considered a black man." I laughed but finally said, "All right, Ludacris." Dude straight up LOL'ed at ME. I mean LAUGHED OUT FUCKING LOUD. I was shocked and asked, "What?! Who do YOU think is the best??" And he had the nerve, the audacity, the SHEER GALL to say "T.I." My estimation and respect for him plummeted so quickly in the milliseconds after he said this that I almost fell off my chair from the shock. It hit me like a physical BLOW to the stomach.

I sat there, dumbfounded that he'd take such an absolutely preposterous stance on the matter. I said, "WHAT?!" I said, "Dude, seriously...ever heard 'WAR WITH GOD'...or how about the god damned 'Stomp' remix?! " He shrugged and tried to out-talk me and talk louder than me. Difficult thing to do especially when I've been drinking. He of course, couldn't come up with a compelling argument as to why T.I. was better, which means he was fucking wrong and didn't want to admit it. I finally had to tell him we'd move on in the "favorites" section because we weren't gonna agree. Then he had the nerve to tell me who was even better than both of them of course was Lil' Wayne. That made me roll my eyes because of course everyone and they MAMA is on the Lil' Wayne train. But we won't get into that, and anyway Raven talked about it earlier in a much more entertaining way than I could. Then some chick that was there (I almost never take what they say seriously on this topic...most girls don't know Paul Wall from Lil' Wayne for god's sake, or they wouldn't if it weren't for You Tube) tried to throw some shit out there by saying, "Oh yeah what about Goodie Mob?!" I straight rolled my eyes and ignored this bitch although what I REALLY wanted to say was, "Bitch what ABOUT Goodie Mob? Cee-Lo already bounced on the rest of Goodie Mob and crossed over with Gnarls Barkley! He said deuces and threw up a peace sign...He already left them BEHIND!"

Continuing on, we then started talking about West Coast rap. I rolled my eyes again because I already knew what was coming, so of course I wanna start shit right away. This time *I* had the nerve and audacity to spit some crazy talk. I said right off the bat: "I know what you're gonna say, and Tupac ain't it. He was all right in his early career but after Death Row, he lost it creatively." The dude almost spit out his drink at me and threw the steak he was eating at my face, I tell you. I mean it though. I'll be honest, I didn't really listen to "2Pacalypse Now" very much other than the single "Brenda's Got a Baby". Which I liked. I liked "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z." as well, of course, predominantly for "Guess Who's Back", "Keep Ya Head Up", and "I Get Around". "Me Against the World" was the LAST Tupac album I enjoyed. I pretty much thought Tupac was garbage after he hooked up for real with Death Row. The dude I was talking to was so dumbfounded at the apparent ri-god-damn-diculousness of my statement that he had to change the subject.

Yeah, moving on from Tupac, we then went into other hip hop artists from the West Coast, and this dude started talking about Black Eyed Peas. Now, I liked them all right BEFORE Fergie. Sure they needed to make that paper too, but damn, bringing on some dumb MILF bitch who can't sing and also pisses herself on stage too? Someone bring that woman a Depends. I didn't think incontinence started until later in life, but hey, whatever. After I said THIS shit to the guy I was talking to, he was pretty much done listening to what I had to say. He ended the conversation with this rhetorical question/answer/statement:

"You know what YOU are? You're a purist. People like you THINK you're staying true to the values of what you believe in, but you're really holding the game BACK, sister...you need to lighten up on people otherwise, how is anyone supposed to make some money?"

All I know is I don't care about other people making money, I'm talking about ME making money, and if I'm not, then I can feel free to talk shit about everyone else that IS, right? Isn't that how it works?

EWA100 - #30. Ultramagnetic MC's - Poppa Large (East Coast Mix)

#30: Ultramagnetic MCs - Poppa Large (East Coast Mix) (Mercury. 1992. From the LP Funk Your Head Up)

Mike Dikk: I’ve put "Poppa Large" on more mixtapes than any other song ever. If I go back and look at my tracklists for all the mixtapes I’ve made various people, it really shows my lack of creativity when it comes to that sort of stuff. A lot of people are under the impression that I make really great mixtapes, but the truth is, I’ve mentally cataloged a small handful of songs that everyone I know should like, and I put those songs on everything I make. I put this song on tapes (actually, CDs now) for people who don’t even like rap music, because if you don’t like "Poppa Large", you’re not human.
Ultramag gets a lot of praise on the internet these days. Their whole catalog is openly celebrated and it floats through the internet’s illegal download canals popping boners worldwide. I know it’s blasphemy to say, but you can throw out the rest of Ultramag’s catalog and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Sure, it was all ahead of it’s time at the time, but it’s now very dated and somewhat irrelevant, except for this song.
This song single-handedly paved the way for Kool Keith’s amazing post-UMC output. He worked the same style of rapid-fire crazy man rhymes into all of his best solo projects. It’s been well documented that this song was conceived through the influence of cocaine, and if you’ve done coke before, you know it gives you this enormous feeling of self-worth and false brilliance. At some point you sober up, and you realize everything you said while you were high was bullshit and you’re still the same sack of shit loser you were before. "Poppa Large" was a cocaine high at its full realization. It’s everything cocaine is supposed to be to everyone who uses it, but very rarely does a person actually achieve their goal of creativity and brilliance beyond their normal output level, but Keith beat the odds and hit a grand slam.
To top it off, you can’t find another video that fits the mood of a song as perfectly as the video to "Poppa Large". Keith is running around grimy locales in a straightjacket and birdcage on his head, and Bono sunglasses way before Bono even rocked them. Spitting schizophrenic syllables like one of those demons from anime movies that have a hundred dicks that shoot out of their chest, except instead of dicks, Keith has words and couplets spurting from every pore of his body and raping any nearby bug-eyed schoolgirl verbally. “Pick ‘em up, eat ‘em up, Pick ‘em up, beat ‘em up. Pick ‘em up, pimplehead. Pick ‘em up, picky. I roll wit globs and I cum real sticky.” That shit looks simplistic and silly on paper, but Keith works it into a frenzy until you are absolutely convinced he’s the best fucking rapper on the planet. A lot of people will say Rakim or Wu or Nas, or BIG, but to me, this is the most quotable rap song ever made, and it’s way more quotable than that Big Lebowski movie and morons all over the country have Big Lebowski parties where they dress up like the characters and smoke joints and watch the movie for the 900th time. Why aren’t there "Poppa Large" parties? Fuck, I’m not fat enough (yet) to get the lyrics to an entire rap song tattooed on me, but if I had to do such a thing, it would be this song, and I’d make sure to get the “cum real sticky” part right above my junk, because that would be cute.

Raven Mack: At one point, I still considered myself stylish enough and good-looking enough to be cool, so I didn't fuck with retarded shit. And now, it's not so much I'm not stylish or good-looking so much as I'm old so my style and looks is dated and makes the Lil Mamas with their cum-glazed lip gloss roll their eyes at me instead of give a second lascivious look. So I sorta missed out on a lot of the Ultramagnetic love the first time around because they were in that kook genre of hip hop where you had to be hardcore or weird to get into it. Still, "Poppa Large" filtered into my too-cool world, and good lord, of course Kool Keith did, because I am a white dude. Around 1996, I think it was standard Whiteboy Talking Points Bulletin Point #3 to jock Kool Keith as the greatest rapper to ever breath oxygen on earth or elsewhere maybe.
Kool Keith for me, at this point, creates conflict. I have thoroughly enjoyed some of his solo shit (probably my favorite, oddly and contrarian enough, would be the tape of Mathew), and some of it is just what it is - stupid weird shit that's weird for the sake of being weird. However, my enjoyment of Kool Keith is so far outweighed by giant fucking doofuses living every aspect of their life in ironic comedy explaining to me how great Kool Keith is, it's hard for me to even give half a fuck about him. I am sure, when we were compiling this list about four years ago when we started, I probably never voted for this "Poppa Large" track because of that. Even though it's a great fucking song. Mike's right - Keith is dialed in on this one like few rappers have ever gotten themselves dialed in for a track. I also am glad this list forced me to rediscover this song, although because of my aforementioned Kool Keith personal conflict, I can only enjoy it during completely solo private moments.
(Also, don't be the cuntface who tells me, "Hey, if you like something, you should just like it because fuck all those other people." Yeah right. When the poorly-complexioned chubster comic book geek who is mad cool on dark corners of internet forumland starts wearing t-shirts of some shit you like, you know it's time to leave that shit behind. Guilt by association, and regardless of how good something is, you don't need to get yourself all associated with faggots. Of course, that's more of my too-cool attitude coming through again, but fuck it; it got me this far, I'll take it to the grave.)

Download: Ultramagnetic MC's - Poppa Large (East Coast Mix)

Watch the video:

Where I'm From...(Oaktown, son!)

So...for those of you who read Mike's post, *I'm* that bitch he was talking about. My name is Sun and I am from somewhere in CA, namely the LA area. Yeah, I work in the pornography business but as Mike said in his roundabout and funny way...BEHIND the camera. Before we even continue, NO I don't perform or do scenes, nor is that ever going to be on my agenda. I've done a lot of shit in the business, sales, marketing, publicity - on the corporate/business level. On the production level, I've worked as a Production Manager and Production Assistant, and hell, I even made beats. (Yes, beats. Not the bow-chicka-bow-wow shit either.) And because I know people are curious, what the fuck does a PM or a PA in porn do? Well, I planned the scenes, scheduled the guy, the girl, the director, the makeup artist, the location...and then once on set, in the Production Assistant capacity, I got the paperwork and IDs together, got the girl dressed and in makeup, and then I did cleanup of the set afterwards. Yes, I know pornstars and hang out with them, no, there's no such thing as fluffers, and no, I won't hire you to work on set. But enough about porn.

Yeah, I'm a hip hop fan. I was born many moons ago (I'm a big girl now, 'bout the same age as Mike and Raven) in a tiny little town right outside of Oakland and lived there till Kindergarten. We were the only damn Asian family or for that matter, non-black family for miles. I grew up listening to my dad's friends play jazz and rhythm and blues, which somewhat naturally progressed into a love for hip hop. Unfortunately my parents were all hardcore traditional, so I didn't exactly get to seriously listen to hip hop until I was about 16. So I'll go on record to say that I don't quite know as much as my friends who were real hip hop heads. My knowledge about hip hop and music in general has odd gaps in it in weird places, there's shit I'll be up on that's really obscure, and stuff I got no clue about that's really obvious. However, as Tribe Called Quest said once...I'm about beats, rhymes and life. My whole life seems to revolve around music. I love to sing and dance. Everything I do, everywhere I go, I'm listening to music. I love hip hop in general - the "hardcore" rap music, the R&B thug shit, the alternative hip hop, backpacker shit, underground, hell, even the shitty club music that only bitches who wanna get jiggy with it like. (Despite being a hip hop fan, I DO like to dance as I said, so even I'll admit to liking the club hits.) My recent claim to fame is that a professor of mine in my last semester of college, for my Intercultural Communication class, decided to write a textbook, and a couple of the chapters have to deal with hip hop culture, which she consulted me (and a lot of other people) on, and I'm in her book. I also like a lot of alternative and electronica.

About the rest of me - I'm a contradiction in terms. I'm about breaking paradigms. Fuck being a typical sheep. Most of the shit I write about on my own blog (ohthatvixen.blogspot.com) is me being an angry minority female. Don't worry, I'm not quite as angry as bell hooks is. And here I'll try to keep the anger down to a minimum, and keep my topics music related somehow. Actually Mike said if I felt like it I could also write about porn, and because it'd amuse him, my main hobby these days, playing World of Warcraft. Yes, I'm one of those god damned computer geeks that plays WoW. So I'll end this lengthy as fuck autobiographical statement with: For the Horde, BITCHES!

news you can use

I would like you all to know, I added a couple new people to the site (besides Raven). I also added yet ANOTHER sidebar widget thing to show who the contributers are but I haven't filled it out yet because I don't really know WHO the contributers will be and I haven't thought of any clever jokes to put there since I've been suffering from Writer's Impotence over the past week.

First is a girl by the name of Sun from somewhere in CA. I know little about her as she is from inside of the internet. She works in the pornography business, but she doesn't work in the pornography business if you catch my drift. I find working in the porno film industry but not working in the porno film industry very interesting, and she sent me an e-mail asking to contribute, and really, that's how easy it is to get a spot writing for a mildly known blog. You need and interesting job and an E-mail address.

I am not really sure in what capacity she will be contributing in, since I believe we have varying tastes in music, but you know, whatever.

Second is my good friend Joe. He and my friend Kevin (and some guy named Mitch, whom I don't really know at all, outside of his rapping music), make cute little Youtube skits and they can predominantly be found over at the blog Cuddles Market. I would like to post their skits in order to give them publicity, but at the same time, I don't want to have to physically post their skits every time they make a new one because that would make it seem like I was riding their dicks, and I'm not. So I'm adding Joe and his lone job will be to post these skits that you may or may not find funny. Here are two of them:

Mini-Pepsis


Christopher Michael


That's all for now. Enjoy the rest of your day. Or don't. I don't care.

EWA Jambox 07/17/07

(Yeah, it's a day later than titled, but I put this up on the expert whiteboyz blog last night, forgetting that I'm supposed to put this stupid shit here too so we can get 11 votes instead of 7. Basically, this thing is a battle of the semi-current jams like very radio station in the history of forever has had, except we do it 3-way style with a pair of challengers each time. Winner moves on to the next poll - held roughly every five days (depending on my motivational feelings at the time) - and two new challengers, usually with some sort of theme to them, jump into the fray. So here is what was at expert whiteboyz last night.)

Devin the Dude's "What a Job" song shut out the competition, which is probably because both the Pharoahe Monch and Talib Kweli CDs suck. Today, moving from overhyped critic-friendly NYC rap, our new pair of challengers will be overhyped critic-friendly Chitown rap. Resurrection is still one of my all-time favorite tapes, but seriously, what the fuck is going on in Chicago? I think that down-low shit is not real at all, but something R. Kelly talked about and happens all over Chicago where dudes fuck each other thinking it's somehow still straight but everybody looks at them and is like, "Man, those dudes are homo." And there's nothing wrong with being homo, but if you are gonna be homo just be outright homo. Fuck all this closet bullshit. For what it's worth, Common is also my favorite hearsay gay rapper, as this chick I used to be tight with was tight with some dude who was a little whiteboy backpacker hip hop head who worked at the Marriott in Richmond, and Common stayed one night and ordered room service and dude delivered and Common was all propositioning him to come in the room and staring at the dude googly-eyed like "Know what I mean?" and being sorta pushy about it almost. I mean, if someone's your fan, they should want to have sex with you, right? That hearsay story always made me sad, not because Common might be bi or gay or whatever, but because even if he was, I would expect more from him than for him to just try to Kobe Bryant the dude delivering room service orders. Anyways, here's the rundown on the new jambox poll...
CHAMPION: Devin the Dude feat. Snoop Dogg & Andre 3000 - What A Job - two-time defending champion, and a sign of all the greatness Devin could kick, which hopefully won't trick you into buying his back catalog. If you do think about it though, get Just Tryin' Ta Live first, then Waitin' to Inhale. Skip the screwed shit, as it's about as shitty a screwed and chopped version you can get of a record.
CHALLENGER #1: Kanye West - Stronger - Off of Mr. Asshole Unbuttoned Shirt's upcoming already-overhyped CD. I have never understood Kanye love at all. Funny sped-up voice samples plus simplistic rhymes apparently is the greatest shit ever though. Maybe I'm just hating. Why'm I so mad?
CHALLENGER #2: Common - The People - From the couple of tracks I've heard off this new Common CD (did it come out today?), it's not as bad as some of his recent records, like he seems to be trying to sound hungry again, but still. It's pretty weak stuff, like going through the motions of hunger. I think the worst thing a rapper could ever do is think of himself as some sort of jazz musician instead of some sort of rock-n-roll fuckwad. If he wants to get all clever and linguistical, he should do it like an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo as opposed to being all Mingus with everything. Which is not to discredit Charlie Mingus or jazz music, so much as point out how fucking stupid jazzy rappers are.

EWA JAMBOX! - click this for the poll bullshit

EWA100 - #31. Gang Starr feat. Nice and Smooth - DWYCK

31: Gang Starr (feat. Nice and Smooth) - DWYCK (Chrysalis/Noo Trybe. 1994. From the LP Hard To Earn)

Raven Mack: This actually came out as a B-side single from the Daily Operation album, and was the crazy party song of all-time. Guru was always the knowledge supreme gifted unlimited mic genius (at least back then), but you throw in goofy old Nice-n-Smooth and it just loosened the whole joint up. In fact, Guru sounds almost uptight and rigid compared to the other two verses, and Premo beats are great for getting all loose and party vibed to. That's probably why this song is still such a classic, because Gang Starr were sorta all about hip hop being serious business no jokes allowed, and then this song comes out with retard party lyrics and Guru passing on trademark wisdom rhymes for things like "lemonade was a popular drink and it still is". Smooth B makes this song though, and ties it all together, almost as if it was a showcase for him. First off, Greg Nice does that echo-ey half-hearted yelling rapper deals, and you get into it. Then Guru comes along and refrains from educating you and does silly similes and metaphors like the aforementioned lemonade line, and it's fun, but like I said, he sounds sorta rigid still. But then Smooth B just comes in and tears it up and outright makes it time to open your double deuce and turn the volume up on the car stereo and ride around drunk as fuck in your mom's Ford Escort stationwagon.
I have this on 12-inch vinyl, and the "Take It Personal" side is probably hardly touched, but this is one of like four singles I have, on the B-side with "DWYCK", that I've played so many damn times the grooves are getting worn out, and I should probably seek out another copy to have, but that would involve dealing with record collector types, and those dudes want nothing more than to charge me a ton of money for one single. Like if a record costs more than it costs me to feed my family of four for a week - and that's eating good food too and not just ramen noodles and a ten pound bag of potatoes all week - then I ain't down. I'll just have to wear my copy away till the grooves turn white.

Mike Dikk: This is my all time favorite summer jam, and Raven is right, there isn’t a song that conveys the party vibe as well as DWYCK. I could give a shit about Rapper’s Delight and It Takes Two and all that other supposed party rap nonsense. DWYCK is the real deal.
I did some fact checking, and this was first buried on the “Ex Girl to the Next Girl” 12” as a third feature, then got the entire B side to itself on the “Take it Personal” 12” which is when I bought it I believe, on cassette though. Then it finally was released as it’s own single a couple years later. I could be wrong on this, but I swear the video came out when it was still a B-Side on “Take it Personal” because I remember being flabbergasted that a dope song with its own music video wasn’t even on a full length record, no less the greatest Gang Starr song ever recorded. I guess some could argue with me on that one, but do you see any other Gang Starr songs on this list?
As hard it is to believe, Gang Starr never scored a platinum plaque. Of course DJ Premier has been on countless Platinum selling albums, so he has at least a few walls filled up, but I have to wonder if Guru ever got jealous and if that’s what lead to the breakup of Gang Starr. They were the one rap group I imagined would stay together until time froze. I’m sure somewhere down the road, they’ll get back together, but it has to bug Guru that their most memorable song (You can challenge me on this if you want, but this was on three different 12”s IN A ROW, and it’s the one Gang Starr song all white people know) is really more of a showcase for Nice And Smooth than it is for Guru. I know Guru is supposed to be one of the Rillest dudes alive, but stuff like that has to chip away at your ego. Especially when you factor in all the knowledgeable shit he has said over the years and I will ALWAYS initially associate him with the “Lemonade” line, which is most likely the dumbest thing he’s ever said in a rap song.
As Expert Whiteboy Analysists, we are supposed to like the real cerebral shit, but every once in a while you have to push the deep thinking aside and get dumb like the rest of the population. If you say your favorite Gang Starr song is anything other than DWYCK, you’re lying to yourself.

Download: Gang Starr - DWYCK

Watch the video.

EWA100 - #32. Nas - It Ain't Hard To Tell

32. Nas - It Ain't Hard To Tell (Columbia. 1994. From the LP Illmatic)

Mike Dikk: It’s unfair to narrow down Illmatic to one song. It’s a record that needs to be listened to as a whole, and there really isn’t any song on the entire record that’s better or worse than any other. You can argue with me until you’re blue in the face, but there isn’t a better album recorded by a solo rapper than Illmatic. It is technical perfection. Nas comes off as very obsessive compulsive to the point where he made sure every single syllable flowed smoothly. There isn’t a misstep to be found, and for someone like me, a person who lives his life in permanent general disarray, a technically flawless album is an amazing feat. I have a hard time trying to figure out how to do simple every day things, like clean my bedroom, and when it comes to my own writing, I’m pushing it if I go past a second draft. Nas on the other hand easily went through hundreds of drafts to reach this level.
In recent interview, Nas said that Illmatic represents his life from age 0 to 18, and he was basically writing it for all of those years. It definitely shows, and it makes it a lot easier to digest that his other albums never lived up to Illmatic. He had an 18 year head start for his debut and trying to squeeze that kind of brilliance into a three year burst isn’t going to happen.
“It Ain’t Hard To Tell” was the first single off Illmatic, which is why it’s on this list. It was the default go-to single, but as I already said, it’s by no means better than any other song on the record. I remember Nas had some hype building up from a couple guest spots with Main Source and MC Serch, but back in those pre-internet days, EVERYONE had hype building up after doing a guest verse.
When this single dropped, I was working with my uncle at this local chain video store called Videoplus. It was a real shady operation. The owner not only got busted renting out bootleg videotapes, but a couple years later he got busted AGAIN for scalping tickets from his own Ticketmaster machine. I learned that all those FBI warnings before videotapes were bullshit since he stays in business long after getting busted, and I also built my initial videotape collection by stealing/borrowing kung fu and horror movies from any Videoplus chain store I happened to be “working” at for the day. Since the owner was a sketchy individual, I didn’t really have to worry about getting caught stealing tapes.
One day while working with my uncle, he was telling me about this song he heard on Hot 97 and how he wanted to know who it was because the song mentions Sly Stallone and Cobra, and my uncle is a crazy Sylvester Stallone fan to the point that he needs to own anything he’s done or even anything where he’s mentioned. It didn’t take that long for Hot 97 to replay the song, and I recognized the voice and told him it was Nasty Nas and how I read in The Source that he was supposed to be the next big thing in rap music.
Shortly after, the issue of The Source came out that gave Illmatic the perfect five mic rating. It was a milestone for me too, because it was the first issue of The Source I bought that had an actual perfect five mic rating in it. I don’t know if I insisted that my uncle buy the CD or if he bought it on his own, but I know he got it not too long after the review came out and I had him make me a copy.
Now I won’t lie to you. It’s not like I listened to the tape and the heavens parted and angels came down with harps and danced around my dirty basement bedroom while I had a thirty minute orgasm with cum shots perfectly in sync to the kick drums on the record. In fact, I didn’t really understand why it got five mics when the Wu Tang record went completely overlooked and The Chronic didn’t even get five mics. It literally took me years to finally digest the tape and wrap my head around it and figure out why it was the most perfect rap album in the history of music. I think if I never became such an over analytical prick, I would have never comprehended it, and only people who are truly over analytical can really love music. Well, ANYONE can love music, but not to a point where it’s all you think about and all you want to do. Illmatic is for those types who take pride in dissecting everything and nitpicking over any minute mistake that can be found. It’s not a record that you can be on the fence about, and if you say you don’t like Illmatic, you’re credibility as a music lover is destroyed.
I can praise the Illmatic album ad nausea, which is good and all, but it’s not a good “singles” record, which is why “Ain’t Hard To Tell” is in the 30s and not say, number 2. If this list was full length albums, I would have had it no lower than number 2. If you single out one song, in this case “Ain’t Hard To Tell”, I’d say the 32 spot is a pretty fair ranking, but at the same time, you could put the nine songs on Illmatic against any other artist from ANY genre’s nine songs from a single album and Nas will come out on top every single time.

Raven Mack: You know, I will get overly analytical as well. As I've gotten older and dorkier (due to being home all the time from having a family - if you are young and solo and wasting your time online obsessing over stupid shit like hip hop, that's not a good move - pussy is so much better when fresh), and as hip hop has become less and less artistic in an album-oriented way, I've started fine-combing the concepts of albums. And Mike is right, this album is one perfect cohesive unit, which is amazing because it was one of the first major releases to feature a slew of hired gun producers, which is commonplace nowadays. Nowadays, you can tell it's a bunch of different producers, because the overall offering has no cohesion or connection between songs. That's not the case with Illmatic. Every beat is variations on the same, and every song is tightened up completely lyrically.
This song was the one we chose, because it was the single, thus the video that showed up on BET and hyped everybody the fuck up to run out and get Illmatic. I had heard the Main Source song featuring Nasty Nas, and had read all the Source hype engineered by Serch to get everybody in a tizzy for Nas, but none of that really fired me up to go cop the album (although to be honest, at that point in my life I was dropping $100 every Tuesday when new releases came out on new 12-inch singles and full-length tapes, so I would've bought it regardless). This song did however. It was one of those songs where every turn of phrase you could see being a DJ cut for a future song. Every fuckin' one. (This is also why I always thought that Jay-Z line about "you made it a hot line, I made it a hot song" was a pretty big cop-out on Jay-Z's part, and why I never took him serious as a challenger to Nas' pedestal, even before "Ether" came out and silenced any chitter chatter otherwise.)
I never did get the 12-inch for this song though, and to this day that bums me out. I sold off my "Life's a Bitch" single years ago, and still have the "If I Ruled The World" single, the first one off Nas second and far less intricately detailed full-length release, which I still play fairly often, and every time I do, I can still visualize seeing the "Ain't Hard To Tell" single in the racks at Willie's Records on Broad Street, downtown Richmond, and me passing it by.
A lot of what Nas talked about in that one interview Mike mentions (I read it, too) shows you why so many MCs suffer from a sophomore slump. You have all these lines developing in your head for years and years that you tighten down to polysyllabic perfection, and then you get a deal and throw them all down to a recorded offering and they're gone. That's it. You sort of do your best with what new experiences you have afterwards for a few albums (like Nas did), and then you get nostalgic yourself for that initial raw hunger and the perfection you were cultivating back then (which Nas has done as well). But you can never recapture that. It's gone. You have to grow and do other things and accept the changes and still try to find a way to get your metaphorical dick hard like it was that first time. I could count on maybe half of one hand rap albums I consider better than Illmatic, but Nas has never come close to achieving something even halfway as good. He's mostly been running on the fumes of this record his whole career, and when you consider how he's still held so prominently within the hip hop, that shows you how insanely great this shit was back then, and now, and probably forever. Or at least until as long as humans and their recorded sound pattern rhythms are a part of forever

Download: Nas - It Ain't Hard To Tell

Watch the video.

Ch-Ch-Changes

You probably already noticed Raven's post below, which officially marks the new dawn of Dumpin. Now Dumpin will be a multiple person blog, and of course most of you were already under the assumption it was a multiple person blog since every other post has at least two people speaking, but NOW it will be multiple people in the way where they can post things whenever they want, and I've finally let loose on my ego maniacal grip where I have to be the one who calls the shots. Over the next few weeks/months, I will be adding some more Dumpin "Staff members". What I'd ultimately like to do is steer Dumpin toward a more magazine style format, where there will be one or two posts per day (except weekends of course) by different people. We are still not sure if we're going to delve into other media besides music, but it's an option as of right now.

If you have some kind of retardation that keeps you from running your own blog like the rest of the world, and you are a decent enough humorous writer and would like to be added to the fold (either as an every day writer or an EWA Monthly 25 contributer), please give me a holler. My e-mail address is over there on the top, but if you would like to discuss this in a more intimate setting you can hit me up on AIM at mikedikkwst. If you want to hit me up on the low, my number is 281-330-8004.

Download: David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust - Changes (Live version)

Who Am I?

Hi, I am Raven Mack and now Mike has allowed me to be part of his kind of music blog. Together, we have a sister blog to this site called Xpert Whiteboyz, and that's where I've mostly posted my dumb shit in recent months, but no one really goes there unlesss they google search for pictures of Cutlasses on 26 inch rims. Together, me and Mike have founded the Expert Whiteboy Analysis school of hip hop higher knowledge. On the internets, everybody is a fucking misunderstood genius who has a stupid ass blog where they can wax poetic and wane pathetic about all the dumb shit they think is awesome. Which is what we do too. Except we know that being a white dude talking about Tha Rillest Shit Evar on the internet is fucking stupid. Fucking stupid. So is having a blog and thinking people give a fuck what you have to say. Which is why in all likelihood I'll eventually abandon the Xpert Whiteboyz blog and just start posting my retardedness here instead. Then again I might not.
It is a nice non-humid night, and I have 8 Old Milwaukee beers left, plus a couple of warm Yuenglings in the back of my truck from this afternoon's leftovers, and two vicodins somebody gave me the other day. I am probably going to go outside, where I might go to the camper trailer that has an extension cord running to it from the window on the far side of my house, where power is fed to the camper for mixer turntables red light CD burner word processor plus other stupid shit like a mad science hobo laboratory, where I do absolutely nothing greatly creative except play old 12-inch singles real fucking loud and get fucked up. I own five acres because I am a whiteboy so banks give me loans, so I can turn the giant 100 lb. speakers I found at the dump up as loud as they go, which is loud because that shit was made in the '70s of weird materials that are probably giving me cancer. Or if I don't feel like doing that, I may go sit in my truck with it on and running, getting fucked up listening to the stupid satellite radio I know find myself with because I just found out DJ Premier has a show on from midnight to 2 on Friday nights. I do not give a fuck about global warming so I like to sit in the truck while it's running all the time, sometimes I leave it running just so it's nice and cool when I get in, even though I won't be in it for another thirty minutes or so. I work outdoors so if global warming continues, great, it means I can work through the wintertime, and in summertime it'll be too hot to work so I can go to the river and take pills and fish for catfish that also probably will give me cancer as well.
So that's who I am. I thank Mike Dikk for affording me this valuable opportunity to pretend I know anything about everything. I'd post up a link to the myspace page for my stupid sorta rapping group, but that'd be too internet of me. I'd also give out my email address, but instead of hot bitches wanting to exchange perverted haikus with me, it'd just be some dorky dude wanting to exchange blogspot links or wondering if I had the Casual "I Didn't Mean To" 12-inch ripped to my computer. Which I haven't. I have tried plugging the extension cord from the camper into the power strip by my computer, and playing the shit outside in the camper while hitting record on the audacity program on my computer, but nothing ever shows up. I think I'm using the wrong filters or some shit.

EWA100 - #33. U.T.F.O. - Roxanne, Roxanne

33. U.T.F.O. - Roxanne, Roxanne (Select. 1984. From the LP U.T.F.O.)

Raven Mack: This was right as I was first discovering the rap music, which had been decried by the more racist members of my family tree as jungle catcalls and nonsense jibberish for the most part. But this song was part of the Roxanne fad that spread through rap music like herpes for a year or so. And to be honest, I don't remember shit about the whole battle of the Roxannes, and what started or what ended up happening or anything. I know Shan had Roxanne Shante, and there was the Real Roxanne, and there was this song by U.T.F.O.
Personally, I have always thought of "Friends" as the penultimate U.T.F.O. song, and I think that's on here on this list somewhere, but it's been so long we've been writing about this shit that we listed out over a year ago, I can't be sure. Which also means, there's no way I know all the Roxanne War of '84 details.
All I know is this song is mighty dated sounding. Still, it fills me with nostalgic giddiness, remembering going to the roller skating rink and trying to slow song hold hands with little girls (which was okay back then, because I was a little dude), just starting to realize it was cool to kiss a girl, but not yet having understood the complexities of vaginal penetration. Those were simpler times.
Now I am old and have children with more on the way, sitting around listening to invisible versions of "Roxanne Roxanne" on a robot I paid a lot of money that's staring at me with it's retarded square face right now. I should punch the shit out of it, stomp it when it falls over, and go outside and play some records through the speakers I have in the back yard that I cover with house wrap scraps when not in use to protect from the weather, but I won't. I'll sit right here, accumulating invisible music that will never fill me with nostalgia like "Roxanne Roxanne", because the older more complex me never allows me the time to actually enjoy any of it.

Mike Dikk: That Roxanne feud was the most confusing thing ever in hip hop. If I understand it correctly, U.T.F.O. made this song above, and then the Roxanne from the Juice Crew made a dis record because that’s all lady rappers were good for back then. Since the Roxanne in U.T.F.O.’s song was technically fictional (?? I think? I don't know.), they had to find a girl to become Roxanne for an answer back record (Again, this could be my own made up bullshit). Also, as far as I know, the Roxanne from The Police song had nothing to do with this.
After the initial records, I think everyone stopped caring, but I believe they went on for a while. Then like ten years later one or both of the Roxannes made a comeback to dis all the new lady rappers while neglecting to realize that no one on earth cares about ladies rapping. It was something I never paid much attention to, and this track is all most non-nerds remember from that whole ordeal.
This is one of those songs like “Rumours” or “Friends” (which is not a U.T.F.O. song like Raven said it was; he be smokin’ mad krills though, so I’ll overlook the obvious mistake) where it’s so in your face '80s sounding that it’s hard to hype up to the young folks, but all the older folks will swear this is real deal hip hop and everything else is garbage. I am fortunately in the middle somewhere so I can appreciate more modern music and at the same time, respect all this grandpa music that dudes are bumping on their Hover-Rounds. Songs like this make me think of jheri curls and the smells associated with them, which is never a good thing.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a cute roller rink story to coincide with Ravens. I’d request “Walk Like an Egyptian” when I went to the roller rink because that’s how I was rolling back when I was nine. Sometimes I’d switch it up with “The Final Countdown” or The Fat Boys, but they never played The Fat Boys because that particular roller rink did not carry rap music. That roller rink is also where my initial hatred for AC/DC came from and I can proudly say I still hate AC/DC, but now more for all the horrible “Back in Black” mash ups I’ve heard over the last ten years. Anyway, the Roxanne song came out when I was around six and I was entirely too busy eating crayons to listen to music. Plus, to this day, I still prefer The Police’s “Roxanne” to this one, and once we make our follow up “Top 100 Jamz By Uncomfortably Gay Looking Duos" (they were really a trio though) list, I’m sure the rankings will show as much.

Download: UTFO - Roxanne, Roxanne

I assume this was an official video back in the day, but I am not a senior citizen, so I'm not sure. Anyway watch the video, but....


...I recommend watching the video to UTFO's "Beats & Rhymes" because it is about a trillion times better. Fuck it, this is probably the greatest rap music video ever: